Pre-race Day

Ahhhhh, so where do I start??

I guess I'll start at the beginning.....



I made sure we were all up bright and early Saturday morning for the 2+ hour drive to Pittsburgh (my sis may have said I was being a little overbearing, controlling). :)



We made it there in great time, checked into the Hilton, and started our walk to the expo. We saw some fun sites along our walk. We got to walk right along the river!



The expo was held at the Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh:



It was a little overwhelming, but very well organized. I was able to find my bib number quickly, and we head to the packet pickup center.



Check this out. They had everyone's name who was registered for the race on this board:





After some browsing around, and just taking it all in, we headed out to lunch. It was already 2:00 and I was HANGRY! We walked across the Roberto Clemente bridge (towards PNC Park) to find some grub. We found some cute outdoor seating restaurants and just chose one.



It was so nice just to relax and enjoy the weather (and try to calm my nerves!).



(took this photo with my iPhone - love the app "hipstamatic"!)

Afterwards we just toured the city some and picked up some last minute supplies. I was so glad we had gotten into the city when we did because the traffic at this point was ridiculous!

At this point we just decided to head back to the hotel for some relaxing, as we had dinner plans with friends at 6:45 at The Spaghetti Warehouse.

Dinner was fun! It was nice to meet some new people, and catch up with old friends (there were 18 of us!), but I have to say, the food wasn't that fantastic. It definitely wasn't what I remember when we used to have a Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Cleveland! In any case, it served it's purpose.

Then we headed back to the hotel. I met up with my other friends who had gotten into the city a little later to discuss meeting times, strategy, etc. Laid out my gear for the next morning, popped some Advil PM, and hit the hay:



You can't see it, but I'm totally freaking out right here. It took me over an hour to fall asleep!

Little did I know that my strategy was not in the cards for me the next day........I had no idea what I was in for........

Stay tuned!!!