Today I attended the Chicago Marathon Expo with my new teammates from the Bootleg Runners Coalition. Warning! Lots of pictures with people in yellow t-shirts follow!
I bumped into
Erin, and her daughter Alice at the Roosevelt Road Red Line station. After
Annabelle arrived, we met the rest of the BRC at the Bongo Room in the South Loop. Besides getting breakfast, I got to meet the team and try on my cool team t-shirt.
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| BRC waiting for breakfast |
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| Outside the Bongo Room after breakfast |
I got a ride to the expo from some of the BRC members and once we got there, we picked up our race packets. Then we all donned our BRC t-shirts for a group photo:
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| BRC |
Our group hit the expo stores and the running apparel purchases were fast and furious. The lines at the Nike apparel store were massive, but we all actually moved pretty quickly.
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| Long lines to checkout at the Nike apparel area |
I snagged a couple of "pace tats" (3:10 and 3:20) from the official marathon pace booth (without registering for a pace group, shhh!)
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| A true "bootlegger" with his haul |
We went over to the Runner's World booth and got a pic with Bart Yasso of
Yasso 800s fame.
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| Bart Yasso and the BRC (source) |
We wandered around for a few minutes, and then we saw
Sara who was working at a booth! I hadn't seen her since the
Rock n' Roll Half in July, so it was nice to catch up with her for a few minutes.
Then
Erica appeared and we got a big happy group photo!
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| Erica (in pink) |
It was finally time for me to get off of my feet, so I left with
Ken,
Erin and Alice. We walked all the way back to the Red Line. On our way there actually walked approximately the last 1.5 miles of the marathon on Michigan Ave. Instead of turning east up Mt. Roosevelt to Grant Park (finish line), we instead turned west to the Red Line.
This was the best expo ever. Now, all I need to do is to rest tomorrow after my 3 mile shakeout run. It's almost here.
Good luck to everyone running/volunteering and spectating on Sunday!
Fun time! sad I missed it! You'll blow the race out of the water!
ReplyDeleteNext year you'll be able to take the day off!
DeleteHave a great run, looks like a near perfect forecast awaits. I will on the side lines cheering everyone on!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Maybe I'll see you there...
DeleteHope it went well!! btw, I see you've ran LA before. How did you like the course? Was it challenging? Any advice on training for it? I signed up for it this year.
ReplyDeleteThanks Julia, it did go well (see next blog post). Hey, I'm thinking of running LA again in March! The course is not overly challenging and the last few miles are on a decline. Since it is where I set my PR, I really like the course. Although the temps were 50 degrees and rainy when I ran it, it is typically much warmer than that. I would obviously focus more on uphill and downhill training for it, although training in the stiff winds by the lake all winter long helped a lot and probably made up for my lack of hill specific training, especially once I got to the (relatively) warm environs of LA. I know of another blogger who might run it, so we may have a small Chicago contingent there! If you haven't seen it, this is a cool animated course map from 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pchZgDuzOCo
DeleteGlad to hear you liked it! I keep hearing that it is challenging, but I bandit ran the first 16 miles of it and didn't find it overly challenging. I actually like rolling hills better than a flat course, so maybe that's why.
DeleteLove the pictures, glad you captured the expo like this. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks man!
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