And pretty soon, after a quick layover in Cincinnati (our first time in Ohio :))...
...we were in Chicago!! Just being there made us nervous and excited all at the same time--it was hard to believe that the weekend of the marathon was actually here, after all the time we'd spent talking about it and thinking about it and planning for it and training for it. We grabbed our bags and took the train to our hotel, where we dropped our bags and then set off to explore the city!
We started by heading over the the expo, where we checked in and wandered around all the booths, sampling various power bars and energy drinks and the like and seeing all the cool running things they had on display and for sale.
We also got to meet Hal Higdon, which I thought was SO cool! We thanked him for his training programs etc and were excited to meet him, but he seemed less than impressed to meet us. Oh well--he's getting kinda old so I guess we'll cut him some slack in the manners department. :) It was still cool to meet him though, and I didn't have the nerve to ask for a picture with him, so I made Landon circle back with me and we walked past his booth again so I could snap his picture, haha.
Then, we found the World Vision booth, where we got to meet the organizers of it all, which was fun, and Landon entered a drawing to win a free WV jersey and actually won it, which was awesome because he ended up wearing it during the race due to the freezing temperature.
Before we left the expo we put on our jerseys and took a "finisher" photo--38 hours until the marathon!!
After the expo we took the train over to the World Vision spaghetti dinner, which was one of our favorite things that we did that weekend. We got to meet some really cool people who were also running with team World Vision and got to hear Michael Chitwood, the founder of team WV, speak. It was cool to hear his story and to hear other people's stories and to be reminded of why we were running and who we were running for. It made me really want to go to Africa.
The next morning we slept in a little, got some breakfast and then went for a little jog through Millenium Park, right by our hotel, to loosen up a little and make sure that all of our running clothes and gear would work with the weather in Chicago. This was also one of my favorite times of the trip--the park was packed and the weather was actually really pretty and all of the things we were running by were so fun to look at.
After the run we jumped on a buys with about 200 other people and headed to the expo again for a bit, just to see what was there and then to Bennigan's for a nice, carbo loaded lunch. And then, with our stomachs full and our legs as ready to run as they were ever going to be, we retired to the hotel for the rest of the day, determined to rest and relax and stay off our feet for the rest of the day.
We read some books and watched some TV,
went down to the lobby
to borrow a sharpie to put our names on our jerseys for the race,
and then spent the rest of the night trying to alleviate our boredom
until room service arrived with our yummy italian food for dinner!
Then, with our bellies full and my nerves starting to make me just a little anxious, we laid out our clothes for the morning and hit the sack, praying everything would go smoothly the next morning and that we could get a good nights sleep!
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