The Morning of the Race

4am my alarm goes off. 4:03 the snooze alarm goes off. I jump out of bed, grab my jacket and keys to grab a cup of coffee. I didn't have any milk and I am a daily coffee drinker so I didn't want to change that up on race day. So I headed over to Dunkin Donuts (bc as Isabelle Collazo put it yesterday, Sam RUNS on Dunkin :) hahaha). When I got back my place Meg was already up and getting ready. I turned on the radio, bc who doesn't love a dance party at 4:30 in the morning!? Two french braids, a bowl of outmeal and a review of the check list later and we head out the door to the bus. When we transferred from the 55 to the red line there was a group of people also headed down to the race that greeted us with hoots and hollers of excitement. Meg and I only had a momentary lapse of judgement when we got off the red line, couldn't figure out which way was east but the, being college educated women, we decided to follow the groups of people going to the left. We made it to Grant Park just a few minutes before 6 and Meg & I parted ways as she went to go get her assignment in the med tent. I had a whole hour before I wanted to line up so I sat, stretched, had my picture taken a bazillion times by the Marathon people and then met up with a friend I ran the 20 miler with a few weeks ago. I should preface, I was struggling a little when I did the 20 miler bc I cramped somewhere around mile 14. So I threw myself to the ground and tried to stretch it out. Then I hear, "Are you ok?!" I replied back, "yea, just cramping". I got up after that and decided to follow the girl. Six miles later we realized we had so much in common...not to mention getting through those last few miles together definitely helped :) So the morning of the race we met up at Grant Park and lined up together. The line up was AMAZING! So many people coming together to accomplish one goal: Run 26.2 miles! While in line I was freeeeeezing, despite all of the body heat around me, it was probably a lot of nerves too though. Before you knew it the guy who sings for the blackhawks games was performing the national anthem and the elite runners had made way! We were next.....