Well we did it! Chicago marathon ... check... We had such a great weekend in Chicago, we arrived on Saturday morning. We spent the day eating at a local sandwich shop and then went to the EXPO. The Expo was one of my favorite things of the whole weekend. We got to see all different kinds of vendors, watched a video which took you through the whole course, dad bought some new shoes and we got to sample a bunch of gross healthy stuff:) Part of my involvement with the marathon consisted of raising money for Make A Wish. On Saturday night we joined the other members of the Make A Wish team for a pasta dinner. We went to bed early since we had to get up at 5:00 a.m.
Much to my dismay it was 28 degrees on Sunday morning. Nothing was going to stop us at that point!!! We nearly froze but once we started running we warmed up quickly. There were nearly 35,000 people who ran the race. There were one and half million spectators, it was quite the sight!!!! The race was amazing, I have never felt anything like it!!!
Many thanks to mom, dad, mike and david for being great spectators! They stood in the freezing cold (literally) for more than 5 hours!!! It was seeing them on the side lines at mile 3, 10, 13 and 20 that's what got us through the race!
I can't say it was the most beautiful finish ever... quite a bit of pain accompanied the 26 miles... but that's not the point! The point is that I finished.
One of my favorite memories of the trip was the fact that I felt like I had been hit by a car the next day. My joints were swollen stiff and I was walking like a pirate. The best part is that so were 20,000 other people who were walking around Chicago. I had nothing on my identifying that I had run the race and people would just walk up and say "How'd you do?" It was awesome!!
Well we are back to reality now... I had to get an MRI of my knee today to see if I have a meniscus injury ... which much to my surprise is not a tendon or ligament but cartilage.... who knew:) More to come on the injury ... it was totally worth it!
