Pre-Death Race butterflies

I am in Grande Cache now. Nervous, of course.
I tested out my toe by wearing my running shoes all day. I could feel something was there, but there wasn’t any pain. Hopefully I’ll be good. It does hurt if I poke at it, so I’ll try not to do that.
There was a pre-race meeting. Mandatory. I practically fell asleep halfway through. It was the same as the last four times. Even the presenter sounded bored. The only difference is that he has colored the water in his jugs this year. I left early.
The hotel room I have is great. It’s bigger than my first apartment. The full kitchen meant I could make my own spaghetti dinner, instead of taking the complimentary pasta dinner they serve to all runners. Pasta is always the traditional meal before a race. And runners are apparently superstitious. You can always tell the newbs at a race; they’re the ones wearing their race shirt before they’ve finished the race.
I’m not sure what my goal is this year. The first year it was just to finish. The next year it was to beat my friends. (I could have beaten them the first year as we were all walking the last leg together, but I wanted to try and be uncompetitive, so I let them cross the finish line first.) This year I want to finish without damaging my toe. But I would also like to have a fast time. Really, if I run fast, then that is less time I have to use my injured toe. That makes sense, right? I have planned out a 23 hour race, but my friend, Mike, wants to try for a 22 hour race. I hate having him beat me, as I’m far too competitive. But I’ve also learned a lot since the last time I did this race. I now have better nutrition plans, and I think I’ve got a better pace strategy. And he hasn’t finished the last two ultras he’s done. But he doesn’t have a broken toe.
I have another friend, who is a girl, who wants to run with me. She is fast, but at Blackfoot we paced each other the entire way. It helped us to push each other to go faster for longer. So this could be a good way to be a faster Death Racer. Assuming my toe holds up.
If I feel a sharp pain, I should stop. That would be the sensical thing to do.
Unfortunately, past performance does not indicate a lot of intelligence here.