The Day Before

Y'ALL! I'm back from my trip! Our plane landed last night at 10:20pm and we were EXHAUSTED, and I had a massage scheduled for 10:30am this morning, plus a meeting at 2:15, so this post had to be postponed (pun intended) until those things had been taken care of. Now I'm relaxed and ready to recap!

The Day Before: October 19th

Ready to go! Wearing my new Stitch Fix scarf, sweater, and bag. 

On Friday, our flight to San Francisco was scheduled for noon. It was SO foggy, so my mounting anxiety of the plane being delayed and not being able to get to the Expo was almost past the breaking point. 

The fog outside the airport

Little did I know that this would be but a TASTE of the fog I would experience on this trip. More on that later...

On the airplane!

Thankfully, everything went off without a hitch and we got to San Francisco with time to spare to get to the Expo.

Nice and sunny in San Francisco!

The Expo was SO loud and crowded - that plus both of us dragging around our carry-ons didn't really help with the mobility issue. The overall impression I got of the expo was that it was crowded and there wasn't enough space. People were standing in line to get free stuff. Free stuff. What?!

Granted, I've only been to two Expo's - but both of those were in giant warehouses where the vendors (probably about 100 vendors, not 10 or 20) could set up and have a TON of space, garner a bunch of face time with potential customers, and you could stay there all day. Maybe it was because we had just gotten off the plane or maybe I was anxious for tomorrow morning, but as soon as we got to the Expo, I really wanted to just leave.

The signage wasn't that great, and we started going in through one of the back entrances of the Expo (with our bags, remember) when we were told that Packet Pickup wasn't on this side, but on the other side. Despite the huge Packet Pickup sign on that side of the street. 

The only cool thing that I felt like I got were a pair of purple shoelaces because I had run between 1553 and 3106 miles (2500K - 5000K). Woot! But, getting the shoelaces was troublesome... there was a really narrow queue to walk through, and then there were what looked like cash registers at the end of the queue after you got your laces.. what?! I thought these were free?

But then I saw that they were scanning your marathon number to see if you used the werunsf app, and if you did, you got another gift - nail polish stick-ons. I ended up having to get out of the line to get my marathon number from JW, who was holding it for me, and then force my way back through the end of the line to get the nail polish. Which I ended up not wearing anyways.

Overall feeling of the Expo: It just wasn't made for however many runners there were scheduled to be there. It was so small, so cramped, and I felt like I was in a club because the music was so loud. It left a bad taste in my mouth. 

We exited the Expo feeling slightly annoyed, and almost immediately I panicked because I thought I was supposed to get a shirt in my bag (My very first half marathon, I forgot to pick up my finisher's shirt and had to get it mailed to me for $10) - I had to go up and ask someone, but they told me the shirts would be given out at the end of the race. If only some kind of check list like, "Do you have your: _______" had been passed out, I think I would have felt a little more at ease.

We were staying at Cecelia and Steve's apartment, who JW knew from high school. Their apartment was about three miles from the start line. I started to wonder how I'd get to the start line the next morning, but Nike put a coupon for Uber in my packet, so I decided I'd use them for the first time. Cecelia approved it and said it was the only way anybody really got around in San Francisco - I was excited to try them!

For dinner, we went to Little Star Pizza, a wonderful pizza place in California.

The Deep Dish Pizza we ordered! Source.

I really would have loved to have some wine to go with it, but I abstained. I figured it wouldn't be great for the next morning. I had two slices and was pretty full! Carbs, carbs, carbs.

Then we went to Bi-Rite Creamery and Bake Shop, which was DELICIOUS. I needed some things for breakfast the next morning, so it was awesome because their market (Bi-Rite Market) was in the same store. They're absolutely crazy about giving away samples - not only samples of the ice cream, but samples of the food as well!

Source.

They're famous for their Salted Caramel ice cream, but I opted for a scoop of the Ricanelas, which is cinnamon with snickerdoodles, on a sugar cone. SO GOOD!

Then we went home, which involved walking up a HUGE hill, and I put together my race gear while the others chatted about the stock market and the future of technology and such. I got in bed at 10pm- I think all the tech talk wore me out ;)

Next up: Race Morning!