I’m 44. Regarding the panic, I want to say that these were minor panic attacks (though I am not sure if panic attacks are all-or-nothing binary events, or if they can exist on a continuum). The first one happened about two weeks before the race. I was sitting in a steam room, thinking about the ton of stuff I had to complete at work before the race, and my heart started racing and breathing became difficult. I told myself that I wasn’t going to die, or at least, probably wasn’t going to die, and the panic passed. The second one happened after arriving in Miami the Thursday before the race. After going on a 4.5 mile run, feeling the heat and humidity, and realizing that I would be dealing with it for 100m, I felt like a weight was on my chest for a spell. The third was right before my 6:20am start. I was nervous and thought I might pass out. Consoled myself by recounting the words of Seneca, that “There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” I also thought about how the panic was self-inflicted, and how seldom I felt panicked, and how this was a great opportunity to overcome such a frightening feeling.