So the trip got off to a rocky road start. As in my ride to the airport arrived at 5 a.m. (thanks for the ride dad!) and as I was walking out the door, I realized I didn’t have my wallet. It was nowhere to be found. It was frustrating. It was stressful. It caused me and my friend to miss our flight. I felt awful about that. And any hope to getting to the Expo early was dashed.
Luckily I’m one of the few Americans who actually has a passport. I grabbed it. My pops let me borrow his credit card. I thanked him. Finally got to the airport and sweated out the standby process.
Luckily there was a loooooong security line that caused many a people to miss their flights. Thanks TSA. But their loss, my gain. I took one of those poor suckers seats on the next flight. Standby success!
Next stop, Chi-Town!
Then it was off to the Expo. Luckily there was a shuttle from our hotel. And by shuttle, I mean a real live school bus. Okie dokie.

Snapchat fun: @piratebobcat
I personally don’t like expos much. Too overwhelming for me. But I sucked it up and tried to enjoy it. Luckily they had free beer to help endure it.
With the expo out of the way, we were free to do a bit of light sight seeing.
And of course, we ate. A lot. We ate a lot. Ate a lot, we did.
And did I mention I was running this race for charity? I had raised funds for Alzheimers, and the group was cool enough give us a pre race dinner! They rule!
But the best part of the pre race shenanigans was meeting up with my old college buddy, Rexy. We were on the cheerleading team at Ohio University and have remained close ever since. She’s the bomb biggie…and one heck of a runner. We met up with her for a two+ mile shakeout run the day before the race.
Where did we run? To the Bean of course! And we weren’t the only ones with that idea. I think every other shakeout runner was there too.
That’s always a good spot for pictures, and I’m glad we got it out of the way early as it would be packed later on in the weekend.
And since I refuse to take a #flatrunner picture the night before a race…all that was left was to wait for the 3 a.m. alarm to go off. While I did, I went back and read all the supportive comments you bloggers have been making on my posts the past few weeks (I still promise to respond to each of them). I also checked out all the supportive messages on the Facebook as well as the kind texts I received. Thanks again urrbody!
Time to sleep. Months and months of preparation was over. In the morning we race 26.2 miles across CHI.
Good night, sweet city.
Come Monday I will post my recap of the race. Stay tuned folks! Spoiler alert – I ran a PR!!!!
How bout you? What’s your pre-race ritual? Do you like expos? Ever bean to Chicago?
-Scott
Looks like you had a blast. I jokingly told Rock at the expo that it was a great reminder that I don’t like people. Just too many runners bumping into each other trying to get free stuff. But that beer is pretty delicious!
awesome pictures so far!
Yay! PR! I can’t wait for the rest of the recap. The pre-cap recap seems really awesome though (sans lost wallet… hope that all worked out?) Have a fantastic weekend! Hope you recovered enough by now.
I hate expos. Way too much stimulation and I feel like half the booths have employees staring at you, waiting to pounce as you walk past.
I’m fond of Chicago when the weather’s nice.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pic where you weren’t smiling before. Congrats on the PR after all of the pre-race stress!
Wahoo, PR! I’m sorry about the whole wallet fiasco, that must have been stressful. But it seems like it all worked out ok!
Best part was meeting Scott and his squad. ❤
OMG, I can’t believe you missed your flight! I would have totally freaked out!! Glad it all worked out in the end!