That Friday we loaded up the vehicle and hit the road. It worked out pretty well that we were able to carpool down with some friends. Made the time go be pretty fast, which is a good thing, especially on a 6 hour drive.
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| ridin' low! |
Saturday morning myself, Jake, Craig and Rael got up early to get a few miles in before joining Nichole and Nate for her quick shake-out run. Ok, can I just say that I LOVED running along Lakeshore! I know if I lived there I would probably get tired of it, but man was it great. So many people were up early too, running, biking, walking. Definitely a change from good ol' Red Wing, where you usually don't see a soul if you run before 8am.
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| seriously, beach, waves, sun....how could you not love this! |
We got about 5 miles in before we picked up Nichole and Nate for her run. I ended with about 7 miles for that day, which I thought was pretty good. The time flew by and my hip felt great. I wish all runs could be with a group of friends!
After we all got back, we took our bikes out and traveled to the expo to check it out. Nichole stayed back to keep rested - need the legs fresh for the race! The expo was great, tons of vendors (aka - lots of free stuff!), well organized and I came home it a shiny new pair of shoes - success.
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| yeah buddy! |
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| on the way to the expo |
We got back to the apartment, made an early pasta dinner, and discussed out spectating plans for the next day. Once we got everything organized, we relaxed and played games the rest of the night.
Sunday morning started bright an early. Jake, myself, Nate and Craig rode our bikes down the the hotel Nichole stayed at (Rael had gotten a room, and since it was so close to the start, Nichole stayed there for convenience sake). We met them at the hotel, helped ourselves to some continental breakfast, and I did my best to lighten the mood and keep things stress-free. I mean, who doesn't love dancing to "Get Low" in the elevator at 6:30 am?! We made our way to the start to see Nichole off. Got our costumes on, took one last pic, and she was off.
As soon as Nichole made her way to the start, we hopped on our biked and made our way to our first spectating spot, but of course, nothing is easy and we ran into a very surly police woman who clearly was upset to have the early shift for the marathon.
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| we even made it in the Chicago Tribune! |
Thankfully, after that all the security guards and police people were pretty nice, and we were able to move around to a lot of different spots. We cheered for Nichole the best we could, we screamed, hooted and hollered, and rang our cowbells like crazy. Also Craig pulled out some sweet dance moves that still make me laugh :) If you've read Nichole's recap by now, you know how her race went. But for me, personally, seeing her work her hardest and smile throughout the whole thing despite things just not going her way, was seriously inspirational. Add in the fact that I've never been to a race this huge before, it's hard not to be in awe of everyone out there achieving their own dreams -pretty great :)
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| action shot! a little blurry - they were just going so fast! |
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| after the race....i look ridiculous |
We hung around at the finish for a while, before making our way back to the hotel, and then made our way to the real reason we came to Chicago...
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| so good! |
Because even though the rest of us didn't run a marathon, we can still eat like we did, but we did do about 30+ miles of biking that day, so we earned it right??
So a huge congratulations to Nichole for staying tough and making the most out of the race. It is still a huge accomplishment, and the thought of running that far still scares the crap out of me. It was a fast but fun weekend!
