Sunday, October 17, 2010

It Was Only Just a Dream

alright, followers. I lived. barely.

I'm going to post my marathon story in multiple parts, starting with the Thursday before and ending with the day after (today).

Julia's Marathon Experience PART I
My anxiety started way before Thursday, but this is when it started getting really unbearable. I tried to think about anything but the race but that was all that was on my mind. I was worried, excited, planning, and everything in between. I felt like I had SO much to do, and so little time to do it. So Thursday, the second I left work I picked up my friend Sofia who was running the 5k and we headed straight to the expo. The expo opened at 4 and we were there at 4:15. We got a little confused because we were told to park one place but the expo was like two blocks away, and we got a little panicked when there were like three other conventions going on and we couldn't find the right one. Finally, we saw one guy with a marathon t-shirt and back trekked his steps through this building connector thing.



We finally found it after walking almost a mile and searching buildings. We knew we were in the right place the second we went through the doors though. I have never been a part of such a big race. To me packet pick up entails: stating your name and a happy race volunteer handing over you a bib and a t-shirt. Not this time around, we walked up to table where we got our registration receipt printed off. Then we proceeded to stroll to aisles of booths for things like bondi bands, disney marathons, chiropractic care and the like-oh and Quintiles? What the heck were they doing there...



Our registration receipts, how official!


After being bombarded with freebies like pens, magnets, and a tiara we finally made our way to the pick up stations. We handed over our tickets to a volunteer who acquired our bibs and chips, and then to another volunteer who matched our shirts. We were stopped several times on our way out by other booths, most notably was the cute old couple who were all about this alkali-water treatment system. They made us try their super special water, and all I could say was "uhm it tastes like water?" and he continued to tell me why I needed this thing to be a better runner. I'm done jumping on the product to be 'better runner' bandwagon, been there-tried that-the only thing that makes ME a better runner is ME.



oh hay thar.

And this concludes Julia's Marathon Experience Part 1.

2 comments:

ash & diz said...

Girl!
I am so excited to hear the rest of your story! Take some advil and stay hydrated today!

Manderz said...

Can't wait to hear the rest!