When I selected the hotel, I factored in a few things – the Embassy Suites offered a complimentary breakfast (and not just a continental one - funny though, we never made it down there), it’s proximity to the Magnificent Mile, and most importantly, the short walk to the shuttle bus pick-up for the Expo. So, a block away, we were at the shuttle bus pick-up. It was wonderful. For those of you who haven’t been to Chicago, they have an above-ground and underground street system. Among the underground system is an express lane for buses transporting people to the McCormick Convention Center. It was a 10 minute shuttle and we were there, far beating the stop and go traffic of a cab or car.
Not that I have been to many marathon expos, this being only my third, it was by far the most well organized event in terms of runner registration/packet-pick-up. A very large room was devoted entirely to picking up the runner packets. No lines, just walk right up and voila! Everything was clearly identifiable which made it very easy to move around and go from place.
The expo itself was wonderful! I had the chance to see the Marathon Bloggers during their Main Stage session.
Eight runners of varying abilities and all with different reasons for running blogged about their training throughout the summer leading up to race day. Several of them posted e-mail addresses to connect with other runners as well.Heather, who was running her first marathon, and I chatted quite regularly via e-mail, sharing our training runs, experiences, and any tidbits of information that we could pass along to one another. I had the opportunity to meet her face to face and Jen took this picture of the two of us. A pretty rare opportunity to connect with a complete stranger in this way and I am proud to say that I think we will continue to chat long after this marathon.
The goodie bags were good in the sense that the bag was large and it gave you an opportunity to stuff any other freebies or purchases with carrying an excessive number of bags. So what exactly comes in the “goodie bag”? Truthfully, for most people – it’s a lot of junk - flyers for other marathons, product samples, coupons for local restaurants or businesses, and any chance for people to get their name out there. After all, 45,000 runners (and potentially their guests) see the contents of the bag. Typically, the best part of the goodie bag is the Marathon shirt. I can’t say that I was overly impressed with the shirt. It’s nice – another technical running shirt with an image of the Chicago sky line on it. Of course the Bank of America logo was smack dab in the front of the shirt. It was okay and perhaps one day when I use it for a run, I will appreciate it more. But, I made up for it with my next stop in the expo…
Nike was the official apparel sponsor for the Marathon and had a HUGE shop set-up in the middle of the expo. After I ran the Marine Corp Marathon in 2006, I decided that I deserved a treat for completing the marathon and purchased the official jacket. In tradition and to guarantee that I would be getting the jacket, I bought it at the expo. It’s actually the men’s jacket. I personally didn’t care for the women’s options. The theme/design seemed to very retro, so I opted for the most “clean-cut” version. It says Chicago08 on the front and 26.2RunChi on the left sleeve.
We registered for the chance to win a 2 year lease on a Volkswagon. As you may have read, Josh is car shopping from Afghanistan and I have received several packets of information from them. I guess since I am still waiting for my phone call, it probably means I wasn’t so lucky this time. VW was a huge sponsor of the race – they were the “pace car”, though the elite runners really determined the pace on this one.
This is a special picture for Josh...
The list of vendors for the Expo is long and varied. There are your typical vendors - athletic apparel, running gear, etc. And then there are those that bring out the humorous side of running...
From Sistas Shirts...
From One More Mile ...
My only other purchase was a print of a picture that a gentleman painted of the Chicago Marathon. http://www.lastingcommemoratives.com/products/product-listing.aspx?id=113
After this purchase, we made our way back to the shuttle pick-up for our return to the hotel.
We dropped everything off to venture out for lunch. I think it became apparent that when it came to meals, the three of us were pretty indecisive at where we were going. As we walked along the streets, we came to Giordano’s, which is famous for it’s Chicago Deep Dish Stuffed Pizza. Upon entering, we discovered that our wait was going to be 45 minutes, so we decided to head further north, were I had explored via the shuttle bus the night before. Tavern on Rush was this wonderful restaurant that was busting the night before. We were luck as they had a table indoors immediately available. It was such a wonderful meal… though our waitress was a bit flighty. As I said, Jim enjoys his coffee and it took about 20 minutes for her to bring that to him.
We perused Michigan Avenue (aka the Magnificent Mile) and went by Niketown, a very large Nike store. What was most amazing was that they had silhouette of the Chicago skyline at the bottom of their outdoor wall display, with all of the runners names throughout large space above. It was like trying to find a needle in haystack and unfortunately, we never found mine. I joked that my name was probably behind one of the buildings in the silhouette.
We were lazy for the rest of the afternoon and then ventured out for dinner. At this point, we decided we would try for Giordano’s again. Obviously, on a Saturday night, any restaurant is going to be full and the wait long. We were told an hour and a half. There was an Italian place (remember – carbo loading!) across of the street, but their wait was the same. Long story short, this meal is probably on the top 5 all-time worst dining experiences that I have encountered. We were told to order the pizza 40 minutes after we signed-in. Well, after finally being seated a little more than 2 hours later, you can imagine what the pizza was like. I ordered the pasta that was awful. Thankfully, I asked for some bread and it was a large loaf. Yes, I ate the whole thing. Needless-to-say, none of us were thrilled, nor would recommend it to anyone… but it certainly gave us something to talk about.
We took a minor “detour” home that night. We missed the turn for our street and ended up visiting Northwestern University’s campus – it is gorgeous. We also saw the Navy Pier and the famous ferris wheel that is usually identified with anything Chicago. It’s huge and very pretty when it is lit up at night. We made our way back to the hotel and called it a night, off to dream about the big race.
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