Saturday

Landing in Durban was like coming home.  It felt so good to be back there.  We collected our luggage and took the same microbus (R25) to the Balmoral, where people remembered us and welcomed us back.  I even had exactly the same room - 324 - as last year.  Also this year, a basket and nice welcome letter form the staff was delivered, which included fruit, nuts and champagne.

We cleaned up and walked to the expo to pick up our race numbers.  We also got posters, and bought some souvenirs.  The Nike merchandise seemed to be their standard (good) quality.  After getting our fill of entertainment we walked back to the Balmoral where we dined on the veranda under Ronnie's attentive care.

Since it was a long holiday weekend there were crowds of people up and down Marine Parade, the boulevard between the Balmoral and the beach.  The noise (Saturday night) seemed to go on quite late, but I slept all right once I got to sleep.  This is the most important sleep night, since you never sleep well the night before the race, you have to get it the 2nd night before.

Sunday

I started taking the 800 mg ibuprofen (every 8 hours) so I would have it in my system 24 hours before the race.  It got really warm as the sun rose to shine on the veranda while we had breakfast.  We did our errands in the neighborhood - the ATM, the CNA for VCR tapes, the Checkers store for water and a paper.  In the afternoon we went back to the expo for a few more items and to gawk at the crowds.  Whole families seemed to be enthralled by the nearly naked aerobics dancers, or maybe they were the South African edition of the Dallas Cowgirls.  We browsed the merchandise but nothing was too tempting.