Well, I woke up this morning and went for a run at dawn and tried some of the Endurox salt tablets to try to control the dehydration, and it seemed to help.  I only ran 5 miles and it was a good test.  The heat is really not that bad, it is the humidity that makes you sweat all the time.  My plan for Sunday will be hydrate, hydrate and hydrate.  I don’t think over-hydration will be an issue and Maria has agreed to sit in front of the hotel with an ice cold coke and bag of cookies.

I am pretty sure that the marathon route is a double loop of the city and it should go by the hotel.  If you were to go around the city you would never know that there was a marathon tomorrow.  No temporary fences, no “No Parking” signs, and no signs warning motorists of delays.  No port-a-potties…yup no port-a-johns, since they have not been invented yet.  So what do they do on the jobsites, you ask??  Some things you do not want to know.

So today’s tour took us to the “Fort” which protects the harbor of Havana.  The fort was built in the 1500’s after the British invaded and then left Cuba.  They actually ran a chain across the harbor inlet that they raise every day at 9:00 pm to stop ships from entering or leaving the harbor.  They would fire the cannon at 9:00 pm to notify ship captains that the harbor was closed for the night.  To this day they still fire the cannon at 9:00 pm.  There were two Chinese battleships in the harbor flying the Chinese and Cuban flags.  At one point, one of the ships left the harbor and the entire crew stood at attention on the ship as they sailed.  The ones towards the stern of the ship were dressed like Ninja warriors.

We went to see the house that Ernest Hemingway owned for the last 20 years of his life.  The house was on nine acres and had a baseball field that he allowed the neighborhood children to play baseball on.  Today there was a t-ball game going on that I got to watch for a while.  We then went around the house and could look at the house pretty much in the same shape as he left it before he committed suicide in 1962.  It had a huge swimming pool made out of concrete that was just below the house.  They have moved his boat to the home site even though it is nowhere near the water.  It is a classic marlin fishing boat with a Key West homeport on the stern.

Tonight at the “pasta dinner’’ the 1976 winner of the 400 and 800 meter gold medals in Montreal spoke and explained what an important event it was to finally have Americans run the Cuba Marathon.  Then the Director of the Cuba Marathon, through an interpreter (his daughter), was given a Boston Marathon jacket by the BAA Director.  At the end of the speech he said that he will proudly wear his jacket but not as proudly as he wears his Red Sox hat!

Tomorrow is the day and it is getting late.  So, until tomorrow…Adios!