Pre Race Fun

I can't believe my half-marathon weekend is finally here! I've been anticipating/dreading this day for 4 months! Deb, Ness, and I met at my house and drove up to Champaign with a quick stop at the outlet mall on our way up. Our plan was to check in to our hotel, go to the race expo and pick up our packets, drive the course, eat a pasta dinner, then head to a relaxing movie. The reality of the afternoon and evening was much different.

We got to Champaign and found out that our hotel room wasn't ready so we headed to campus. Two u-turns later we made it to a parking spot and found the ARC where all the actions was. We got our race packets, checked out timing chips, and walked through the expo. Vanessa spotted the booth selling the KT tape (a tape for athletes that is supposed to help with pain relief) and noticed that they were taping people for free! Bonus! We all had planned to tape our legs in the morning but none of us really had any idea how it was supposed to be done. So we stood in line, met new runner friends, watched and laughed at each other (Ness told the girl her whole life story and I couldn't get my tight pants pulled up around my thighs). On the way back to our car we stopped to peek in the stadium where we would finish the big race the next day. It was virtually empty except for a few volunteers setting up the tables for the 5K race in a couple of hours. We took a bunch of silly pictures and decided to go to a U of I bookstore.

One hour and 50 u-turns later, we finally arrived at one! It was like a scene from a sitcom - 3 "old" ladies driving around campus in a minivan, rolling down windows and asking cute coeds (who wanted nothing to do with us!) for directions, and getting lost mulitple times despite having not one but TWO gps systems in the car! We didn't realize that many streets would be closed for the 5K and in preparation for the big race on Saturday. Deb is a great writer and wrote about our experience in her blog.

We ended up getting out of the car and watching the 5k-ers go by while cursing ourselves for signing up for the stupid 13 miles instead of 3! By now it was nearly 7 pm and we still hadn't driven the course, eaten, or even checked into the hotel. A movie was definitely not in our future. We eventually made our way off campus and went to one Italian restaurant for a pasta meal but there was over an hour wait (the other 9000 people in town for the race had the same idea we did) so we just went to the Olive Garden by our hotel which had a 45 minute wait. Isn't that how it always goes? We should have just stayed at the first place!

So we made it back to the hotel and went to bed by 10:30 pm. Our 5:00 alarm sure was gonna come early!

Ness, Deb, and Jen standing in front of all the names of the half marathon partcipants

Getting my leg taped up

Ness and Deb in Memorial Stadium

This sign says Half Marathon Finisher. Hopefully we'll all 3 be here tomorrow getting our picture taken!

In front of the jumbo-tron where our race finished will be displayed

This is a picture of all the medals (every table was jam-packed) that will be given out for the 5K, Youth Run, 10K, Half, and Full Marathons

Race morning in the hotel lobby - let's do this!!