Report from the Chicago Marathon Expo

A few months ago, my buddy at Brooks was telling me about their plans for the upcoming Chicago expo. My response was "how cool! I wish I could be there to see it!"

fast-forward a few months.

On my way to travel for work, I was able to arrange my flight so I could spend a night in Chicago, perfectly in time for the marathon expo! For those of you who weren't able to see it, they had a MASH themed tent, only called BRASH (Brooks Running Athlete Support Hospital). It was centered around gait analysis and appointments with podiatrists, but it was all done in the style of MASH. They didn't leave any detail out. They constantly had a helicopter noise projecting throughout the expo, and every few minutes a siren would sound and an actor dressed as Klinger would get on the speaker with running jokes. They had a distillery station that dispensed Gatorade. Participants received Brooks dog tags and BRASH t-shirts. Here are some photos of the set-up:








And the best part of the whole thing was getting to see some of my blogger buddies in real life! Here's me with Beth, known in the blogosphere as Velma:


She has already completed a handful of marathons (sorry I forgot the number!) and was looking forward to having a great race. Her sweet husband Jason was there to support her, so we got him hooked up with some gait analysis with the Brooks guys:


Shortly thereafter, Spike came to say hi. Since he's from snowland, he was excited about the cold weather and the possibility of BQing the next day. Still haven't heard if he made his goal!



And then Melanie came to say hi. Chicago is a big deal for her, as it her first post-injury marathon. Back in February, she had the same injury as me--pelvic stress fracture but successfully recovered. I just checked her blog and she finished the marathon with a PR! Way to go!




I was also surprised by one of my Hawaiian friends Harvey. I had no idea he was running Chicago! This was his 21st marathon, so he was more nervous about the cold temps than anything else.



After I met everyone, I got to walk around a bit. I ran into my friends at Recovery Sock and saw their latest compression coloration--lime green! Other highlights of the expo included seeing the new foam roller that TP therapy just released, seeing Dean Karnazes in real life (he's not THAT big. But boy does he have impressive quads) and making a lunch out of free samples. Ah, the joys of an expo.

Perhaps the best feeling was knowing that I didn't have to worry about running a marathon the next day! I was able to stay out until the wee hours of the morning with the folks from Brooks, and Bart Yasso even joined us for the revelry.



Congrats to everyone who ran Chicago!