Saturday was so hot! I (kind of) slept in, ate a huge breakfast at the hotel buffet (still fat-loading), and went for an easy 1-miler at 9:00 just to shake my leg-antsyness off. I'm glad that I did, because it ended up being a LOT hotter than I thought it was, so it kind of mentally prepared me for what I thought I would face on Sunday. Unfortunately, since we waited so long to book our hotel we were all the way out in Rosemont (by the O'Hare airport). So every time we wanted to go into Chicago it was an hour on the blueline. It wasn't THAT bad, but it did eat up a lot of our day.
We went to the expo, which was a lot of fun. They of course had every kind of energy bar known to man that they were handing out. I didn't actually eat anything there because I was being really good about not eating anything I didn't know about. I did however, try the Gatorade Endurance formula that they were going to have on the course, just to see if I would like it. YUCK! GROSS! No Gatorade on the course for me, just water.
When you got into the expo they had a huge video drive through of the course which was really cool. I was getting very excited.
I also found two new companies whose sportswear I loved! One was One More Mile . They had a bunch of funny shirts that said things like "Will Run for Beer", and "This IS my Race Pace", and "Chicago. Been there. Run That." Running Divas also had a lot of cute stuff including "marathongs" which I just thought was funny.
After the Expo, we already had to head out for our early dinner with Team CdLS at Lou Malnati's .
It was so fun to meet the team. They were all very very nice. Beth, the team captain, gave me a big hug when I got there. We had a very nice dinner and everyone introduced themselves. Even though we were a very small charity team (I think there ended up being 21 of us?) we were very very close to our $50,000 goal, and they think that more donations will be coming in. It was also nice to be on a team where everyone was really really passionate about the cause. If I end up doing Chicago next year I would definitely consider running for Team CdLS again!
After dinner I was exhausted. We headed back to Rosemont (with a little pit stop in the middle...come on, I drank like EIGHT glasses of water at dinner). Then I had a ton of pent up energy. My parents came back to our room to make signs and I was running around like a little kid showing them everything I got at the expo. I was SO PUMPED UP.
I did finally get to sleep though.
1 comment:
I just wanted to tell you how amazed and proud of you I am for running Chicago. You finished what will probably be a historic marathon. And few will be able to say that. The key here is FINISHED. What it takes to keep going when everyone around you is stopping is far more difficult than just running the race. You are a true runner. Congratulations!
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