Uncle Josh's Little Ghosts and Ghouls

Happy Halloween!!

I thought I would share pictures of all the nieces and nephews from Halloween. Enjoy!

We'll start with the newest (youngest to oldest)...

TJ and Ella sported some cute halloween themed outfits during the day. TJ's reads "Daddy's Little Monster" and Ella's reads "I love my Mummy!" Gotta love TJ's hair!

Takoda was a pumpkin, or a Pooped Pumpkin as Grandma said. Apparently, he was pretty tuckered out by the end of the day!

Check out his teeth!!

Francesca carving her pumpkin... ah the wonder of the pumpkin guts!

Aarrrrrrrrrgh! One scary pirate!

Rah, rah, rah! Go USA! I think Cassie picked this just for Uncle Josh!

Cassie wasn't really good at posing for the camera, so we had to get some "action" shots.




Jonathan has been promoted!!! A few years ago Dominic wore this costume and Jonthan was the dalmation puppy!





Go, go power rangers! Dominic, are you smiling? :-)

Ready for more... off to Auburn!

Hailey must have been moooooooooooovin' and groovin' for Halloween. Hopefully, I'll post a picture here soon.

"Running with My Boo!"

This past weekend, I traveled down to Virginia to cheer on Jennifer in her 26.2 mile journey - the Marine Corp Marathon.

I made several signs for the race, in particular this one.

And they're off... this is the lead group at Mile 1! (Somewhere in that group is an alum from SUNY Cortland who placed 2nd among the men!! Go Fred!)




I had the pleasure of running portions of the race with Jen. I linked up with her shortly after mile 11 and ran around Hains Point to Mile 15 with her. While she ran the 5 miles to Mile 20, I walked a block over and reunited with her for another 6 mile run to the 26 flag. She did an amazing job - one of the most consistently paced runs I have ever seen and she reached her goal of breaking 5 hours, with a 4:54:42 finish! Way to go, Jen!!

When It Rains, It Pours

From Josh... "It did something that it has not done since April here - in any measureable amount - it rained. I mean pitch poured. You couldn't leave the b-hut or you would be instantly soaked. I forgot how much I hate when it rains here because it makes everything smell so much worse and it seems to stay damp forever. It finally dried out this afternoon. It is back to being sunny today, but I think it is only making it into the 60s. It does not get light until 530 which is a big deal because it used to get light at 400 and now it is dark by 530 at night. We wont change time so come Saturday, we will be 9 1/2 hours ahead of you all. So excited that there is only 2 more days in Oct. This month took forever. We are all afraid that Nov. will be long too."

There was a bombing today in Afghanistan too. As Josh said, Afghans killing Afghans, but he wrote to let us know he is fine.

The Four Letter S-Word

Anyone want to take a guess... SNOW! It has started to arrive in Afghanistan, just along the mountains, but it is coming. Josh writes, "There is snow on the mountains again. Every night it snows a little bit, enough to coat the top of the mountains, but by mid morning all the snow is gone. It still gets to warm up there during the day." Of course, Afghanistan isn't the only place that is seeing snow. We are actually in the forecast for a light, light coating (possibly) overnight. I guess what is most exciting about this is that we have returned to the Fall/Winter here in NY, and Josh left when there was snow on the ground... so we are approaching his return.

Josh is away right now on a mission/job, though he is stationed at another FOB, not moving around the country. They do not have internet connections for each of the soldiers, but there is a computer station where he waits in line to write. Things are going well for the most part. He has some evening duties, so he is adjusting his sleep schedule accordingly. He has been visiting the gym each day as well. Which according to some people, they thought he needed it... Josh writes, "This guy from this other platoon who is with us here at Phoenix said the other day that I must have taken up running and biking in the gym because I was getting heavy before the deployment. Was I getting fat before we left?? I did not thinks so; I mean I carried a little more weight before we left, but I do not think I was heavy. Do you? Be honest." NO, Josh, not at all!

I missed the monthly posting for the 19th of the month. Hopefully, if all goes as planned, three months from now, Josh will be home, safe and sound. We have not heard anything on a return date. Everyone is hearing something different. The replacements are supposed to arrive late next month, but we are not sure how long it will take for him to leave Afghanistan. Of course, the route back is long and complicated and he won't come directly home. The will "demob" somewhere in the US, possibly Ft. Bragg or possibly elsewhere (anything closer would be better)! My 19th of the month treat was a sports massage following the marathon. It worked it's magic.

Traveling Through Salang Pass

This is an e-mail that Josh sent to Barry School this week. It is a pretty good update of what he has been up to.

"Hope you all do not mind my messages, but every once in awhile our battle rhythm is slow...I try to keep busy during the down time by going to the gym, watching movies or AFN-American Forces Network but the treadmill gets old and I get tired of the chuckleheads in there. How many times can you really watch Wedding Crashers and as far as AFN goes I have seen the same Kristie Alley made for TV movie where she goes crazy and keeps foster kids locked in her basement four times since being here. I seriously think AFN is a subsidiary of Lifetime Television. I am really not a fan of Lifetime to begin with, so AFN is kind of a drag. So, I pass the time and get my kicks out of sending e-mail to folks to pass the time. Lucky you guys. haha. Feel free to delete on receipt. I will never know. haha.

"So last week was a really big week for a geek like me. haha. Our platoon is at times tasked, in addition to our other duties, to conduct long range convoy operations. We have been all over. I have been as far east as Jalalabad, as far south as Helmand and Khandhar-a couple of times. Last week, we were tasked with a long range to go to Konduz which is about as far north as you can go in Afghanistan before hitting all the other "Stans". What was great about this trip is we were going to get to go through the famed Salang pass which goes through the Hindu Kush mountains. Kabul is a little over a mile high. The top of the pass reaches just about 11,000 feet. It is a slow and steep climb. Lots of switchbacks and sheer drop offs. At the top of the pass is a 4KM long tunnel that is barely two lanes wide. It has no lights and no ventilation. It was built by the Soviets during their time here. Awesome. Good ol' 24 was a champ climbing the mountain pass. However, I noticed several Soviet tanks were not so lucky as we saw several of them at the bottom of canyons hundreds of feet below us. After seeing these, the platoon sgt. would follow up each time by telling me, "Now, Baci remember I have kids." I mean I was not planning to ruin anyone's day. The tunnel was wild. Due to the lack of any ventilation, smog just hung in the air. When we would pass another large vehicle, the truck would scrape the walls and the other truck b/c it was so narrow. In the middle of the tunnel, you reach the apex of the pass and then start the descent down the other side. More switchbacks and sheer drop offs, more reminders about children back home. When we got to the bottom of the pass, we conducted a tactical refueling drill which is really a fancy way of saying "watch Josh run around as fast as he can with huge fuel cans full of diesel fuel and put as much fuel in the truck as he can before the Lt. decides we have been stopped long enough". As I was refueling, I looked up at the gunner in our truck. His face was completely black from all the smog in the tunnel. What a trip-literally.

"For some reason there was an unusual amount of livestock in the road on this trip and it kind of became a running joke. We almost hit a goat, a sheep, and a camel. You think a deer does serious front end damage. I can not imagine what a camel would do-but there he/she was just running across the road in front of us, and they say an eleven thousand pound vehicle can't stop on a dime. haha. It was great to see the Hindu Kush mountains and go through the Salang Pass after reading and hearing so much about it.

"My other big nerd moment came over the weekend. I grew up literally "Inside the Beltway". My Dad worked for the government. Members of Congress and Senators lived in my suburban town-not the Obama, Clinton, or McCain kind-just average 9-5 congressman and senators. I even profited from it. I had a little lawn mowing business when I was in junior high and I would tool my little mower all around the neighborhood cutting lawns and word of mouth got me a job mowing a senator's lawn. I thought this was so cool. I mean he could have had a huge lawn business cut his lawn but he had this gangly kid cut it with his Craftsman mower. haha. In reality, I think he was too cheap to hire a big lawn mowing business but he was my best paying customer-a whole twenty bucks. Woohoo. Extra cheese on the pizza tonight! Politics was just a part of life. So, when they asked people who would be interested in meeting with a group of NY congressman and woman I was game, plus it got me out of some work. Don't judge. haha. Anyway, one of them was our Congressional Representative-Michael Arcuri. When they asked for people who were willing to meet with them, it really meant that they needed you to pose for pictures, but I didn't care. There was one congresswoman from Nevada in the group and she got up in the turret behind a gun and started swinging it around wildly and posing for pictures. She kind of made everyone a little nervous. haha. This is the link to one of the pictures and articles written about the event. http://www.dmna.state.ny.us/arng/27bct/newsletter/keepingtabs_37.pdf
The others in the pictures are other guys in my unit. As you are looking at the picture, the man directly to my left is SFC. Adams, my platoon sgt. He is the guy I am driving around all the time and warns me about his kids. haha. The vehicle in the background is a Cougar. If you could see the whole grill-you would say yeah that does look like a Cougar. I don't drive that, but it is a new vehicle-so we pulled it out to impress the good congressmen/woman. I think a more effective display would have been to put my patched up truck out there. haha.

"It has gotten a lot cooler here over the last week. I finally had to put away my PT shorts/short sleeve PT shirts and break out my Army issued high speed PT jogging suit. haha. It still reaches the high 60s/low70s but the mornings and the late afternoons/early evenings are really cool. For obvious reasons, the b-huts are non-smoking. I am a non-smoker but 95% of the personnel in my platoon are smokers and lots of socializing in our downtime for our platoon goes on in the smoke shack-a small open air pavillion structure-just outside of our b-hut. So now I am finding I have to bundle up pretty good at night if I am going to stay up on current events in our platoon, unit, and on the FOB. There is more gossip in this place than a junior high cafeteria-no lie.

"Hope you guys are all doing well.. It is almost the weekend! That really doesn't mean anything to me, but the upside to that is that Monday is never a downer. haha. Have a good one. Josh"

Josh Meets Our Congressman in A-Stan!

This was from an e-mail Josh sent over the weekend... "So, then guess what happened this afternoon? Michael Arcuri, with a whole bunch of NY Congressmen/women came to Phoenix today. (CO) was responsible for taking him around. They asked if anyone wanted to meet him, so I said I would. I got my picture taken with them - look in the newspaper a million people took pictures. I also got the CO to introduce me to him. I was the only one there from his district. haha. I was such a geek because everyone was so put off by the whole thing and I thought it was cool.. haha Can you believe it? You will have to tell the (P's). I know they love him. . . It has been a great day."

When I spoke with Josh after the marathon, he was still so excited about the opportunity to meet him. I think most importantly, it was a reminder of home for Josh.

Here is the Keeping Tabs newsletter that the 27th BCT writes, including a picture with Congressman Arcuri in the center and Josh in the front row! (Missing that smile though!)

Race Day - Sunday, October 12

So, I set my alarm for 5:30 and wouldn't you know that I woke up at 5:28 from a dream that I had where the clock said 7:30! Nothing like getting the heart rate going first thing in the morning. Like most runners, I had everything laid out the night before and was ready to go in no time. We left the hotel around 6:30 and made our way down North Columbus Ave to the Starting Corrals, with a quick port-a-pottie stop. Jen had taken a picture of my reaction to leaving the pottie, but unfortunately it didn't turn out well.

I lined up in the Open Corral (aka with the "normal runners") as instructed. There were corrals for the Elite, Top 100, Corrals A - D for seeded times, and then Open... so, I was part of the caboose to this crazy train! Based on my pace for the training runs, I lined up with the 4:30 finishers, or around a 10:00 pace. I debated on lining up with a pace group, but since I hadn't trained with pace groups, I didn't want to get flustered. Note to those who might do this in the future... stick to what you did in training.

Off I go, no turning back...

As the start drew near the corrals became more and more crowded. We were all instructed to be to the corrals around 7 am, but of course, there are those who don't think the rule applies to them and show-up and snake their way through the crowd to get to "their" spot. To top it off, they were annoyed with those of us who had been there and waiting.

The National Anthem was beautiful. It was an ensemble of singers - first a male, adding in a female, and then rounding out with the rest of the group. Just amazing! The race started just before 8 am and I crossed the start line in about 10 minutes, which isn't bad for a group the size of the Chicago Marathon. And we were off - start line...

The Women's Elite Group - they ran as a pack for the majority of the race. Impressive!

This was mile 0.8. The building on the left side of the picture is our hotel. Lots of runners!

Typically, most marathons have markers at every mile and 5 kilometers along the route. However, since the Chicago Marathon attracts a large number of international runners, there were flags indicating every mile AND kilometer. 26.2 miles or 42 kilometers. Just in the distance flags alone, there were 68, not including the 1/2 way point. Lots of reminders of how far you had gone, or how far you still had to go.

As many of you know or others of you could guess, the cooler the weather, the better it is for the runners. With temps starting out in the upper 60s and humidity at 78% around 7:30 a.m., it was guaranteed to be a very warm, if not, down right hot day. After last year's Marathon, the organizers made several changes to this year's event, including establishing the event alert system, as shown in the photo below. The day started (that being the key word) at yellow, and was elevated to yellow earlier in the week. There were many aid stations and the fluids were plentiful. My approach was 2 cups of gatorade and 3 cups of water. I drank the gatorade, dumped one cup of water on my head, one down my back and drank the other one. Many runners breeze through the first few aid stations, however, I believe that it is there for a reason and utilized the beverages at each and everyone - all 20 of them. Yes, that is a lot of beverage to drink and yes, I was drenched, but each cup of water that I dumped on me was such a relief.

So, when did things change? If I remember correctly, it was sometime around mile 20 that we were first notified that the alert system had been upgraded to red, otherwise known as high, or that there were potentially dangerous conditions. It was recommended that we slow down and/or consider stopping. Quite honestly, it felt like a sucker punch. Only 6.2 miles to go, but it sure felt like it was long run still ahead of us. At mile 23, there was an electronic sign with the time and temperature which read a balmy 91 degrees!! At this point, I thought to myself "smart runners finish strong". As people were definitely feeling the impact of the heat, sun and humidity, I knew that I still had control over how my body was going to handle the race. From this point, I decided that I would run as much as possible, but that I would incorporate more power walking to help keep myself from getting sick or feeling the need to stop all together. It added a bit of time, but really my goal was to finish. So, I attempted to run for 3 - 4 minutes and then walk for 30 seconds - 1 minute, depending on if someone was cheering for me. To give you an idea of the itensity of the sun, this is my calf and the tan line from my capri running pants (note - the picture is upside down). At first when I saw this, I thought my legs were dirty.

Jen and Jim were at Mile .8, 3, 12 and 26. Unfortunately, we only saw each other at Mile 26. I am located in the middle of the pictured, under the Bank of America banner on the left/under the building in the middle of the picture. Look for the red shirt.

There I go... just 2/10 of a mile to go. If there was one picture that I wish I had of this marathon, it would have been the sight I saw in between the time that the two above photos where taken. Jen and Jim were right on the edge of the street. Once I found where the voices were coming from, I saw Jen with her arms outstretched, camera in one hand and her phone in the other, yelling "Josh is on the phone!!" She was so excited, smiling -- it will forever be an image that I remember.

We crossed timing mats at every 5k. Here is how I faired...

5k (3.1 miles) - 30:41

10k (6.2 miles) - 1:01:38 (+30:57 from 5k)

15K (9.3 miles) - 1:34:20 (+ 32:42 from 10K -- I did have to use the restroom in this one!)

20K (12.4 miles) - 2:07:26 (+33:06 from 15k)

13.1 miles - 2:14:52

25K (15.5 miles) - 2:41:25 (+33:59 from 20K)

30K (18.6 miles) - 3:16:36 (+35:11 from 25K -- This is where I was "lost" on the course. I forgot that we did 2 loops out to the west side of Chicago.)

35K (21.7 miles) - 3:52:31 (+35:55 from 30K -- Started dodging banana peels - a lot of them at mile 20.15!)

40K (24.8 miles) - 4:29:07 (+36:36 from 35K -- Dodged more banana peels and changed my approach to finishing the race!)

FINISH - 4:44:27 (+15:07 from 40 K or 1.2 miles later -- Just wanted to finish!)
- Pace / mile: 10:50
- Placement Overall: 15876
- Gender: 5508
- Age Division: 1464

There was a reason why the 27th Mile Post Party was given its name... it really was a good mile away from the finish. It took forever to get to the runner re-unite area. Not only did I want to see a familiar face, I wanted to talk to my husband!

At last . . .Thankfully, this isn't a close up -- a much needed change of shoes!


Still chatting, getting cooler...

Again, I cut off 53 minutes and 49 seconds from my time at the Marine Corp Marathon. I really think that if the weather had been on my side that I would have easily been able to run a 4:30 marathon. At least I can say that I ran the race that was in me, and I am proud of how well I did. It was an emotionally driven day and there were certainly points when I lost focus or rather got lost in the emotion of the day.

As I took my twice weekly (sometimes more) walks with Nan, we would often talk about the training and the race. We joked, at the time, about my "oscar acceptance speech", hence giving her the title as "warm down coach". As I proceeded through the training and race this weekend, the list of people who were there along the way really did contribute to the success of this past weekend. Here is a little shout out to the people I would like to thank.

Harland -- my (unofficial) "coach". As I have mentioned before, he coaches for Teams in Training and was always willing to give me advice, support and encouragement.

Nan -- my "warm down coach". Nan and I walked every Sunday and Wednesday beginning back in March. As the big runs came around, Nan would make sure that I got in my "warm down" walk and or a mid-week walk on a day off. The Pasquarello's were huge supporters.

Hailey -- my "fan club President". Hailey was always willing to share my story and always asked how the training was going. She even decorated the garage for my return.

Lisa (and TJ) -- my "training partner(s)". Lisa would come and rescue me during the mid-length and long runs, running by my side for a few miles, to help break up the length. TJ was along for the ride.

Heather -- the training blogger from Michigan. Sharing the trials and tribulations, "badges of honor", and anxiety of it all with you was incredible. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.

My family -- my lifeline to get through this year. I'll admit you are all right - I am probably insane, but your support makes me believe that I can do anything. My parents were at the airport with their Chicago 26.2 shirts on when I arrived home. It was such a wonderful surprise.

Jen and Brew -- my "curb crew". Jen and Jim (Brew) flew in from D.C. to cheer me on and we had a wonderful weekend together. I can't thank them enough for everything they did with me that weekend. Just knowing they were in the crowd, though I didn't see them and they didn't see me, helped to keep me going. It was incredible to share the experience with them. Again, my favorite part was seeing Jen at Mile 26 when she told me Josh was on the phone! Priceless!

And of course... Josh - You are and will always be my greatest inspiration. I love you and we really are one step closer to you coming home. Better lace up those running shoes and start practicing! Wink!

The Race Weekend - Saturday, October 11

Awaiting the “curb crew”… Jennifer (Josh’s sister) and Jim (Jen’s boyfriend) flew in from DC to cheer to me on. Their flight was the first one out, so they were to the hotel around 9 a.m. Of course, I was across the street at the point when they arrived, but it was a good thing, as inside of Dominick’s (the local grocery store), there was a Starbucks!! Jim is a diehard coffee drinker, so I knew this was a good find. I picked up a few things – water, energy bar, bananas, granola bars, and a coke for Jen – and headed back to meet them in the lobby of the hotel, where I escorted them to our 13th floor room (more to come on this). After we dropped everything, we headed to Starbucks to get our cup of joe or chai for the trip to the Expo.

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.

We Win, Josh!

"To finish is to win!"

WE WIN, JOSH!!!

Well... I finished... 4:44:27 -- just 6 minutes and 11 seconds off my goal, yet still still 53 minutes and 49 seconds faster than my first marathon.

I am tired, exhausted and literally just knocked my glasses off my head without realizing it. I will post tomorrow with the full details of the 26.2 mile journey and the storybook ending to 7 1/2 months of training. Just as the story in the program said, it's not just the winners who have the storybook ending. One of the marathon bloggers wrote a particularly inspiring and appropriate message to us all a few weeks prior to the race...

"Let's all be champions on October 12.
There will only be one winner, but we can all be champions."

(To understand the context of his message, you can read his entire posting.)

Again, we win, Josh! I love you!

Good Morning from Chicago!

(First of all, I am not being a blog hog and not posting anything about Josh on purpose, but I really have no news to share, as I have not heard from him since last weekend.)

I arrived at the hotel last night. It took forever to get here via the shuttle service... roughly an hour or so of stop and go traffic once we left the airport. I arrived to the Embassy Suites Lakefront with a package waiting for me from... Josh! What a pleasant surprise! He had a Green Tea & Mint Spa Package delivered.

Once I had the computer set-up, I crashed fairly early after traveling since the afternoon. I did sleep well, though I was hoping to get another hour or so in before this busy day and tomorrow's race.

I have the television on watching the local NBC news and of course they are talking about the unseasonably warm weather this weekend and it's impact on the marathon. If I had my sneaker next to me, I would chuck it at the t.v. Remember, I posted last week about it being 60s... I should have known the weather will change 20,000 times. The forecast is now 78 for tomorrow. A bit warm for a marathon, but at least they are not calling for the humidity that impacted the marathon last year. Thankfully, I had prepared and brought short sleeve and long sleeve shirt for this race. Definitely going with the short sleeve one tomorrow. They did just come on with the Marathon Forecast of 62 - 72 degrees for the duration of the race. I ran in much warmer weather and my longest run was in a 100% humidity. I'll just start drinking A LOT of water now. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!

It's so bizarre to write that -- tomorrow!! It's already here.

Today's agenda ... awaiting "my curb crew" and the EXPO!!! I love the Marathon Expo!! Thankfully, there is a shuttle to the Expo "just around the corner" from the hotel.

Here is the view from the hotel room this morning. Sorry, but I have no clue what I am looking at, which direction or anything. I am hoping to find a good map of the city and regain my sense of direction. Obviously, I am not sure which corner I should be heading off for the shuttle!


Off to stretch...