Ready...Set...

Its not Go! time, but its getting close. 

I managed to pack most of what I am taking to Chicago yesterday afternoon in between a friend coming over to help me with the new TV and getting out for a short run.  I will finish up this evening at some point I suppose.  I have the house/pet sitter coming over to get the key and the remote and last minute knowledge transfer for Nugget, then I need to make a quick trip to the store for a few things...so somewhere in there I will finish.

The weather for Chicago I think is pretty much set and accuweather.com, wunderground and weather.com are all pretty much in agreement.  We are looking at 70's during the day and mid to upper 50's overnight/morning.

This of course requires no jacket/coat at all and certainly no long sleeves for race day.  Heck what am I saying?  No shirt at all for race day unless something changes drastically which I doubt. 

I will be sporting Lululemon speed shorts (duh) and a Lululemon 50 Rep Bra.  Either gray/pink or coral/coral.  We'll have to see what I feel like when Saturday night rolls around.  What is nice about the Chicago course is that the first half is pretty much 98% all shaded.  The 2nd half has SOME shade is spots, but not near like the first half.  Still even with high 50's, the lake and the shade...yeah, still going with the 50  Rep Bra...

One of the things that I am ecstatic over is the fact that there is no rain in the forecast.  Bright and sunny which is great because it was that way last year and there were so so so many spectators it was awesome!!!  I had packed a couple of ziplocs just in case for the iPod, but I am glad that I won't have to needlessly think about ruining yet another Shuffle (I've fried 3 in a year now).  I would like to have this one last me for a while!

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I am not bringing my laptop with me to Chicago, but I have pre-scheduled a few blog posts that will pop up on a daily basis.  I like when other bloggers do that, so I thought I would give it a shot.  I wonder if they will even show up?  I think I will schedule this one for an hour from now just to see if it will work!  :O)  I guess if you are seeing/reading this, then it did.  :O)  If you follow me on Twitter or are a friend on Facebook you obviously will have access to the day to day though.  Although not sure I will tweet much, when traveling I tend to FB more than Tweet.

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Here are a couple of photos I snagged off of Chicago Deep Dish's blog from their last run over the weekend.

They actually got to run down the middle of the street there at the finish of the Chicago Marathon due to the street being blocked off for another race of some sort.

This is in the last 800m of the course.  You make a right and you find yourself barrelling up this man-made hill, the only one on the entire course and you wonder "Why now?"  I clearly remember the run up this part last year...I had watched Spirit of the Marathon (which I havent this time around for some reason) enough to know that I had one more turn to make at the top and I would see the Finish line just ahead of me.

From this point you would definitely see the Finish line and the side of the streets would be filled with bleachers and people! (Lake Michigan is to your right) I remember turning and thinking OMG I finally made it...it was so damn hot there were times as you may or may not have read that I almost DNF'd...There was no PR last year, but it was far far far from a PW...  :O)  Hoping to PR last years time in Chicago and maybe even eek out a PR for the distance...we'll see...