Philadelphia Marathon Weekend

You're all thoroughly briefed on how the Philadelphia Marathon went down, but that was only a mere 4 1/2 hours of our awesome Philly Reunion weekend!  Come along for all the fun details!

Megan and I traveled together from SoDak to Philly.  We took advantage of the BOGO Starbucks offer from 2-5 in the Mpls airport, even though we had to visit two separate Starbucks to do so.  I think I would've gone nutzo on the cashier who tried to tell us we need a coupon if there hadn't been another one approximately 17 feet away.  Then I finally got to meet Shawn!  We've ran at least one of the same races, and have meant to meet up at least 4-5 times when I've been in the cities for fun or race weekends, but it just hasn't happened.  Go figure, he'd be on my flight to Philly.  That worked out quite swell.

Once we landed in Philly we set out to find JENN!  We were freaking out because the arrival signs weren't showing her flight, and the one that was showing a flight from Atlanta wasn't set to get in until 11.  GAH!  Finally as we decided to head towards baggage claim we saw her.  Lots of squealing ensued.  I mean... LOTS. OF. SQUEALING.  It was obnoxious.

We were all starving so we hit the Hard Rock Cafe that was right next to our hotel.  Starving girls order a ginormous sampler platter right?  Right.  But then our actual orders came out... and our stomachs started to cry.  I've never wasted so much food.  And because we didn't have a fridge in our hotel, I just had to wave goodbye to it.  

Not kidding, there wasn't a crumb left of the apps but I probably ate 2 bites of my burger.  FAIL!  I apologize to the starving children all over the world. :(

As we were having a grand old time catching up, a super loud rock band took stage.  Since we're not proficient in sign language, morse code or telepathy, we just awkwardly sat and looked at each other... and the stage... and then would hurriedly try to get in a convo in between songs.

We're just not that in to you... sorry.

We decided to hightail it out of there and enjoy some vino in our hotel lounge.  Because two bottles of wine on top of two beers is perfect marathon fuel.  It's been a while since I've laughed SO HARD.  I love these girls and it was so great to catch up with Jenn.  Just not the same to babble through email.  After some drinks we finally went to bed, but it was like a grade school slumber party.  We talked and talked and talked.  And after about an hour, Jenn and I realized that Megan was no longer participating in the convo.  Oooops.  Sorry sleeping beauty!  But of course we just kept talking.

After finally crashing at 2am, 9 came around pretty darn early.  And because we all assumed someone else had set an alarm, it's a good thing we just magically woke up at 9.  We got ready and hit up the expo.  We stayed about 1 1/2 blocks from the expo which was awesome.

Can you tell I didn't get enough beauty sleep?  Uff da.

I got 99 problems but a BIB ain't one!

That song was in my head... all week.  #annoying

#hashtaginreallife

Ready to rock Philly!

Who looks this chic for a race expo?  Jenn... betch.... ;)

Race bib EEEEEEEE!

Oh hai Hal!

Hey Jenn!  Go pose by those balloons.  YES! Perfect!

Photographer gold right here, no worries.

Yes, we'll take the escalator, thankyouverymuch.

I love that they're head tilting in completely opposite directions.  Makes me dizzy. :)

My baby niece was due the weekend of the race, and I just knew she'd make her appearance on race day.  I secretly thought she'd arrive as we were crossing the finish line, but she showed up a few hours after.  I found this super cute onesie, and had to snatch it up!

After the expo and a quick bite to eat, we hit the streets for a quick shake out run.  We wanted to run to the race start to get our bearings for the next morning, and see exactly how far it was from our hotel.  Jenn's garmin took 1200 years to find a satellite so it made time for a photo op.

And 900 stop lights en route to the start line also made time for photo ops.

Finish line pic!  Yes, I'm wearing some of the brightest clothes I own, why do you ask?

In case it ended with a photo finish, we were practicing our sprinter leans.

Ok, now I'm getting cold.

After our two mile run, we somehow ended up shopping.... in our running clothes.  We hit up H&M, Lululemon (I'd never been, shocker alert!), and a running store.  Somehow my bank account came away unscathed.  We walked back to our hotel but my legs were killing me.  We'd been on our feet pretty much non-stop since 9am.  Uh oh.  My calves were super knotted up, so I tried to foam roll them in to submission......  :/

Dinner time!  We had planned to order italian food to go from Maggio's across the street, but the wait on to-go food was a trillion hours, so we went to the restaurant in our hotel.  It wasn't anything special, but we did match for dinner so that's a plus.  

And I had to order dessert, because I wasn't in love with my meal.  And oh my goodness, it made up for the lackluster dinner.  Smores sundae... you have my heart.

And then we ran the race.  And my calves STILL felt like crap.  Super duper tight and obnoxious, and I kept waiting for them to cramp up during the race because they hurt SO BAD walking around the day before.  But nada.  Three cheers for the legs.

The past month and a half many many emails were exchanged about our training and this race.  And one of the main topics was post-race mexican food.  It's a Jenn & Megan tradition, and one I was happy to be a part of.  Somehow no photos were taken of the mexican food.

But no worries, shortly there after it was time for MOAR FOOD.  We were less than impressed when the sushi bar in the hotel told us they were closed due to low capacity in the hotel, because that meant I had to put on real shoes to trek around town for food.

Disgusting note:  I thought I had a monster bloody toe for the last hour and a half of the race.  My left pinky felt really wet and super ouchy.  I assumed my toenail finally came off.  When we got back from the race, I took off my sock and was surprised that it wasn't bright red.  But my toe... was not pretty.  It was blood blister on top of blood blister on top of blood blister, with only my tiny sliver of a toenail not engorged.  **shudders**  I immediately performed surgery, but it was throbbing.  Luckily Jenn let me borrow some shoes that had a little bit more room to try to make my toe happy.  Needless to say, the walk to the sushi place was.... not the most fun I'd had all day.

My purty dates for the evening weekend!

Mmm beer.

Some rolls.  I housed some sushi before I could be bothered to take a photo of that.

After stuffing ourselves silly, we stumbled (literally in my not-quite-properly-walking state) to an Irish bar.  The only other people in there were also wearing marathon medals, so we felt like we were at home.  I pooh poohed Jenn's request for a Blue Moon, and made her drink an Irish beer, because that's what friends are for. :)

A random photo re-enactment of our race finish.  We all were super careful about crossing all timing mats together so people who were tracking us would get exactly the same splits, yet somehow Megan finished a second behind us.  So Jenn and I are #1 and she's #2.  It seemed funnier/more clever after a couple of beers...

Marathons+beer.

These are a few of my favorite things........

The lovely ladies.

Me re-enacting how awkward I look in any self-taken photo (see above). And Megan showing off her awesome broken runner pose.  Possibly my fave photo of the weekend. Jk.

I miss her. Why'd we let her leave again???

Milk and cookies.   Mmm.

My friends are prettier than yours.  Fact.

We tried to make a night of it, but after a whole lot of not sleeping for the weekend, and a good 4 1/2 hours of running earlier in the day, we were out like lights.  Heh heh.  Jenn had to get up so early, I'm not 100% sure I gave her a proper goodbye, but thankfully she'll be back in the states for a bit for the holidays.

Buh bye Philadelphia!  Perhaps we'll see you again next year!