Thursday March 26th - Well no Govornator last night, just Antonio Banderas. What a day. 4am prayer, practice, roman ruins, downtown, mosques, taken by a cabbie, cabbie redeemed, now here. Here I am. Typing my day. Lets do it backwards. Not an hour ago I was frantically searching through my room for my camera I'd managed to hang onto all day. I had it when I got out of the cab right? Not right? Went downstairs to see if it was at the front desk and who do I see but the cabbie that had just sort of hustled us out of a bit more than we should have paid (our attache, Adam, said we were "very generous" when we explained it to him) with my camera. I quickly decided that he was a great guy and I was more than willing to pay him more. Adam even professed how surprised he was. So turns out that the cabbie was a pretty good guy and after all the cab ride home with the tour of King Abdullah Mosque was worth something a little extra. We, (Ryan, Bobbie, and I) had picked him up at the top of the Roman ruins and he had volunteered to take us to the mosque and show us around. He actually gave us a decent tour, took us inside showed us around and talked to the guards and stuff. Coming from downtown Amman the mosque was the last sight we needed to check off. The ruins we had come from had the best view of the city so we took the 10 min walk up the stairs from downtown and the old Roman Amphitheater. They just don't make them like they used to. 

After almost 2000 years a concert or play in this amphitheater would be quite a sight and an experience you wouldn't soon forget. It's steep enough that you wouldn't want to be inebriated in the cheap seats and "uncoordinated" people would be better off closer to the stage. 

A tour of downtown gave us the real flavor of Amman. A window shopping, souvenir shopping, turkish coffee drinking, dining on hummus and pita,  being mobbed by 10 yr olds cultural experience like no other. And that was just the afternoon. 

The morning was spent under more mundane activities. I got my morning run of 50min with strides in and I think my legs are back under me although it's hard to tell with just an easier run. We'll just have to wait until Saturday to find out. Had a beautiful sunny but crisp day for running and some field lounging. 

To finish off the morning we had a round of drug testing and I was lucky to escape this year, although it's not that bad since all the pre-race tests are blood tests. 

For those of you who think these trips aren't taken seriously and they're all just fun and playing in mud, well that's for tomorrow and Saturday. Gotta have a little fun while you're waiting for your legs to come around.  Time now to get down to bidness though, going to sleep, tomorrow is the course preview and rest and focus. Ayna ajedu al merhaad!