Keeping Calm and Carrying On

***

I wanted to pick up my race kit after work yesterday but after Friday afternoon chaos ensued, I realized I wouldn't be getting out of the studio in a timely fashion which frazzled me a bit.  I really didn't want to have to go out and do anything today other than put my feet up.  After a very short run I headed over to the Race Expo first thing this morning.  I wasn't the only keener that wanted to get my kit early.  It was quite busy.  Luckily I had my bib number so I didn't have to go to the big list to find it.  I made my way over to the marathon bib pick up and gave them my bib number.  The young guy flipped through all the 600's a couple of times and then said "Ummm, I can't find it."

What??

He then had his friend look through it.  It seemed as though my bib disappeared.  Bib #643 and #645 were both there, but bib #644 was not.  Bizarre.  Somewhat flustered, off I went to the registration table to see if someone could help me.  I was then directed to the Sports Stats booth.  He looked me up and then checked to see if someone had picked up my bib and activated my chip.  Negatory.  Weird.  He wrote me a note and sent me back to the registration table.  Ugh.  I handed my note in and my old bib # to the woman at the table and got a new "nameless" bib and chip in return.  This number was #1179.  Which, to be honest, I actually liked better than #644.  The superstitious runner in me will always tally up the numbers in a bib to get it down to a single digit.  1+1+7+9=18. 1+8=9.  9 is a good number in my books.  Why?  Because it breaks down to 3x3 and 3 is my lucky number.

Ridiculous I know.  But whatever.  There's nothing rational about superstitions.

They scanned my chip in and I went on my merry way, still somewhat flustered, only to start worrying about "what if they don't have my AG info?"  No one physically transferred anything while I was there and I didn't get confirmation on anything.  So, I turned around and went back in to make sure that my age group info was all there.  I'm trying to qualify for Boston, the last thing I want is to have any sort of incomplete or incorrect results posting.  After being reassured by the guy at Sports Stats that he'd make sure it got done, I made my way home with my fingers crossed. 

My wonderful husband stopped by the Expo on while he was out running some errands and double checked that everything had in fact, been transferred over.  I'm happy to report that it has.  I can now officially stop fretting and relax.  Keep Calm and Carry On as the saying goes!  Too bad I didn't realize that I had neglected to pick up my race t-shirt, I could have had him grab that for me while he was there.  Although, truth be told, I need another race t-shirt like I need a hole in the head, and it wasn't really that nice anyway.

***scan of original 1939 poster taken from Wikipedia.