In a previous blog post, I eluded to the fact that I had an
epic race weekend coming up. Well, the
weekend has come and gone and it was even more epic than I thought it could
be. Here’s the weekend’s recap.
The Chicago Marathon was one of the hardest marathons to get
into this year. Tens of thousands of
runners tried to register as soon as it opened, causing the third party
registration system to crash.
Approximately 30,000 runners were able to get in within the first couple
hours before the total system meltdown, but the remaining 15,000 spots had to be
selected based on the results of a lottery that the race had to put in place
after the system crash.
Fortunately for me, I was one of the first 30,000. I had run Chicago in 2012 and loved it. Since Chicago is within driving distance for
me, I consider it a “local” race and hope to run it as many times as they’ll
let me (rumor is that they’re going to go to a lottery system for the entire
race next year). I set a PR at the 2012
race and was anxious to come back and try to do it again. The bonus with Chicago this year was that
several of my friends were also some of the lucky 30,000 to get in, so there
would be several of us running
it.
The downside is that the Chicago Marathon was the same
weekend as the Baltimore Marathon and I also had several friends running that
race and urging me to come out for it.
Most of them were running the half marathon distance and told me that
the 5k was starting 90 minutes before the half, so you could do both the 5k and
half if you wanted….and new this year, the 5k was awarding finisher medals.
Have you noticed that the “BLING” in “RamBLINGs” in the blog
title is capitalized? There’s a
reason. I love my medals!
Suddenly the idea of a quick trip to Baltimore became more
intriguing. Would it affect my Chicago
race? Yes. Would it knock another state off my list? Yes - I’d never run in Maryland before. I debated for quite some time and finally
decided to go for it.
So, on Friday morning, I boarded a train to Chicago, then a
shuttle bus to the Chicago Marathon Expo which was held at McCormick Place, a large convention center in the city.
Chicago is one of the 6 world majors, along with London, Berlin, New
York, Boston, and Tokyo. Admittedly, I
have never run any of the other majors, so I don’t know if the Chicago Expo is
indicative of them or not, but what I can say is that there is no better expo that
I’ve been to than the Chicago Expo.
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| The Chicago Marathon is one of the 6 World Marathon Majors |
First of all, you’re snail mailed a participant booklet that
includes a barcode. As you enter the
expo, you hand that booklet to an expo volunteer who scans it while they check
your license and verify your information.
They then direct you to the appropriate counter to obtain your bib. By the time you get to the counter, another
volunteer has already pulled your bib and has it there waiting for you. A quick scan of your bib records that you’ve
picked it up and then it’s off to get your t-shirt where you bib is scanned one
more time to record that you’ve picked up your shirt and then you’re done. Both times that I’ve gone to the Chicago
Marathon expo, it has been a fast, seamless, and stress free experience.
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| Welcoming runners to the Chicago Marathon Expo |
I would have liked to walk around the expo and check out some of the venders, but I didn’t have time because my next stop was O’Hare airport to fly to Baltimore. Stay tuned for to find out about my adventures in Baltimore in my next post…
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