Personal Record: Race Travel  February 22, 2011  Me, I like to
go. Offer me a trip to Iowa and I'll take back every mean thing
I've ever said about the Midwest. Ask me to come along on an
expedition to Antarctica and I'll forget that I suffer when cold
and say, Hell yeah.  Recently a friend who used to run told me
that he was interested in training for a marathon, that he
wanted something "picturesque," like somewhere in Italy, and
wanted his (non-running) wife to join him on the trip and during
the race.  I got this message a couple of days after I had flown
24 hours to run, 36 hours later, a marathon. It occurred to me
that traveling to do races may not always be the best idea,
especially for people who aren't experienced marathoners. I told
him to do a local one and then take a vacation in Italy.  How
much better it is to sleep in your own bed before and after a
race, to eat your normal foods, to not worry about getting blood
clots on long plane trips. To be able to find bathrooms to deal
with the inevitab