Friday, October 12, 2007

One Day Till Baltimore

Just one day until the Baltimore Running Festival. I finished my last pre-race run this morning and I'm as ready as I can be.

Last night, I hit the expo. The primary function of the expo is to distribute all the stuff that the runners need for the race: the bib number, t-shirt, and other important information. The secondary purpose is sell lots of stuff. There are vendors selling shoes, Powerbars, sweats, socks, sunglasses, etc. There are also booths for future races and usually lots of giveaways.

The expo was held at the club level of M&T Bank (Ravens) Stadium. A very cool spot, but not exactly conducive to this type of event. The organizers had everyone enter from a single door by elevator only. When you arrive, you are directed to the left as far as you can go. This gets you to the stop where you show your id and pick up an index card with your info on it. From there, you walk back to where you came in, show your card and pick up your race number. Then, all the way to the right, as far as you can go, to get the t-shirt. In between each of these stops are 50 or 60 vendors, so they make you look. The corridor is also too narrow for the heavy two way traffic with booths set up on both walls and in the middle.

It was a bit of a zoo, though they did get me for a $10 pair of socks! (YES -- I paid $10 for two socks. Five dollars each.) There were a few goodies that I picked up but not a lot.

They are projecting 14,000 runners tomorrow and I feel like I'm gonna know almost half of them! Well, maybe a few less than that.

Good Luck to:

Scott -- First Full Marathon -- what a way to celebrate your 40th birthday!
Ann Marie -- Full Marathon
Stacey -- Half Marathon
Bob -- Half Marathon
Dave -- Relay (3rd Leg)
Rob -- Relay (1st Leg -- Team Alter)
Karen -- Relay (2nd Leg -- Team Alter)
Kim -- Relay (3rd Leg -- Team Alter)
Katie -- 5k

After Katie finishes her 5k, she's going to be looking for running friends and she says she'll have a sign -- including for me! Katie will add wishes to the sign -- e-mail her here. Thanks Katie.

I'm running the 4th leg for Team Alter. We're bib 9858 and you can track us here.

Right now, the weather forecast is for a high of 70, low of 49 and sunny. Should put us in the upper 50's around start time at 8 am. PERFECT!

Next report: the post-race over the weekend.

L'Chaim!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Have a great run, Jeff!

Anonymous said...

Never before have I been so happy to have a last name that started with an "R". When we got there the D-J like was about 200 people in it. When we finally found our way through them to the N-R line there was 3 people in it! It definitely was crazy last night, but we are glad we went when we did because the volunteers were already allowing people to swap shirt sizes and we know all the XXLs would have been gone if we waited till tonight.

Good luck to you! Can't wait to cheer you on. I have a group with me to assist in signage holding, but I am going to try to personally get to hold your sign and my cousin Jon's. I have 6 posters in total all set and ready to go. ;)

Dan Seifring aka "OBRATS" said...

Best of luck to all that are running in Baltimore this weekend. Can't wait to read about it.

Pat said...

good luck. Well, I guess it's over. Hope you did well.

Unknown said...

Mike has a $10 sock addiction too. Are they still worth $5 each when there is only one of them that comes out of the dryer??

bigmike600 said...

Thorlo running socks #1 for long runs...Balega socks #2 and Smart Wool #3. They are amazing.
Have a great run tomorrow.