Marathon Weekend - Saturday recap

After spending the entire week in New Orleans, I was so glad to be back to Boston late Friday night. All week I was really stressed about my IT band pain. I ended up getting two massages and purchased every form of stretching equipment out there. My suit case actually got searched at Boston-Logan because they found my massage stick and thought it was a weapon (it actually is in my case). By the end of the week I felt pretty good and was less worried about the IT band tightening up and pulling on my knee during the marathon. By the time I got home, I was much less stressed about that and the general anxiousness and nausea set in for the race. Yay.

Gretchen and Raelee (childhood friends from Napoleon, Oh) came to visit on Saturday morning. Us three have quite a past together and I was stoked that they came to watch the race! We headed straight to the Red Sox game with Shelby too - They won (finally)! Gretchie was somehow able to keep her Yankee's obsession under wraps. I warned her about Boston fans. I gingerly kept stretching my legs and tried to keep walking to a minimum. While waiting for our families to drive in from Ohio (their mom's joined my parents) we headed to the Boston Marathon Expo to pick up my bib number and score some free stuff.

 While we did pick up my bib (pictured below) I was SO overwhelmed with the people and the craziness that I decided it would be best if we just headed back to my apartment before heading to the North End for some dinner. I couldn't have been happier with my bib number though - #22234! I love it! While heading back to the bus stop I realized that if we didn't sprint to the stop we would be waiting in the cold and wind for another 30 minutes for the next bus. I told Gretch and Rae this news and turned and started running to the bus. I didn't look back to see if they were with me until I go there. They were there, but they weren't happy about it. Ha. Earlier in the day I believe Rae even said, "I don't even know if I would run if I was being chased." Well, you sure did!

Dinner on Saturday night was just what I needed. It was 15 of some of my closet friends and family. People were in from Columbus, Napoleon, Cincinnati, Chicago, and NYC! We ended up getting pretty rowdy and were sat in the basement of a small side street restaurant in the North End. That was probably a good decision on their part.