Some Things I Remember

Alright Alright, we are 6 days away and I can't stop watching any kind of press on the marathon. Land of the Gods, a couple times a day, Highlights video, I'm currently on my third pass, the course video have now gone through that one once (which after watching it i am happy that I have done so much more running along city streets this year, I think knowing Chicago city blocks will help a ton). I can't worry (well I can and I will, but I'll say I won't) about the weather yet. Jason and I had an outdoor wedding so I watched weather.com for days and days before our big day. We had rain predicted all the way up until the day before when it switched to mostly sunny (at which point I started screaming in joy and woke Jason up as it was about 6 in the morning).

ANYWAYS.

Somethings I remember about last years race that I thought all you Chicago Newbies would interested in. For those of you that have run Chicago before feel free to add on!

• The first mile = AWESOME. I looked around and thought, why would all these people be doing something so stupid :-)
  
• Miles 7-10 are run on the northside through Boys Town and are incredible. I was so overwhelmed that I forgot to look around. I saw our spectators and rows and rows of other people watching us and that's about it. There are lots of cheerleaders here and a big party in the neighborhood. There will be a bar on the left hand side of the street about 1/2 mile past the 8 mile marker called 'Murphy's' which is where Jason and I used to hang out. Look around and enjoy it!
  
• Miles 13-18 a bit tiring. Not as much of a party atmosphere. At mile 15 last year one of the water stop people said, "This is when the slow people come by" I was not thrilled to hear that and told him we weren't slow, we were in fact awesome.
  
• Miles 21-22ish are through China Town. Jason's dad who was spectating loved this part of the spectating becuase it was so awesome with all this stuff happening and he always asks if I remember it and how incredible it was. I don't. I was so in the moment at the point getting a final wind to push it through that I don't remember a lot of it. So like the northside of the race. Look around and enjoy!
• There is a slight hill at probably mile 25.9. When you get to the top you make a left, there is a sign that says 26 Miles and you can see the finish line. Push as hard as you can up that hill and you'll be home free in no time.
  
• The finish. I was almost in tears. The number of people that are lining the street between miles 25 and the finish are obsence
• The runner meet up was a disaster! We had plans to meet people at te 'W' and it took us forever to get over there and there were so many people in that runners meet up that we could hardly move. Along with the people there were people with big giant strollers taking up tons of room. So you might want to just pick a street corner to meet on instead of trying to deal with the runners meet up area.
  

That's all I have at the moment.