The entire theme for Boston Marathon 2011 was "Boston With" -- using Boston as a verb. Example: "Boston With Pride," or "Boston With Love," or "Boston with Chris and Steve." So this series of Boston trip posts will also be Boston With. We've been waiting for a few years to visit and enjoy Boston together, and it finally came!
If we didn't mention it, we timed the Little Fifty on Thursday night, and probably didn't get to sleep until 1am, when all was packed up and final results were sent in. It was already a long week by the time we even got to our vacation!
Friday
We peeled ourselves out of our bed, fresh off of our 3.5-hour "nap," and headed up to the Indy airport for our 6:45am flight. Whew! Despite an hour-long delay in Baltimore, we were in Boston, at our hotel by 1pm. The hotel was pretty awesome -- the front desk employee not only upgraded our room to a 1BR for $20/night, but also got us a slightly better view and a rollaway bed, eliminating the need for two expensive Boston hotel rooms. We did it college style and crammed all 5 of us in a 1-bedroom suite. Shiva, Jenny, and Ted didn't arrive until Saturday, so we had all day Friday to hang out. [About glasses -- I probably scratched my cornea, so it was very uncomfortable to wear contacts! Note to self: don't do that again.]
Ben and I met up with Thom near the T station and headed to the marathon expo after getting some lunch. We walked through the Boston Common to get to the Hynes Convention Center for the expo, and everything was in bloom! The temperature was still pretty cool and slightly chilly, making us both wish we'd packed a little warmer. It was still beautiful.
The expo was AWESOME as usual! The bib and packet pick-up process was organized down to a science, and this is where we found that our official race shirt (the free one you get for registering) is yellow. Like an obnoxious yellow! On the other hand, Adidas makes their own Boston gear each year with different colors. This year, the 2011 Boston Marathon colors were black and green. On Friday we spent about $185 in Boston gear. I got my jacket and a cool New Balance shirt, while Ben got a nice pint glass with the marathon logo on it. Most of the big companies -- Brooks, Asics, Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Saucony, North Face, Mizuno, etc. etc. design and print their own graphic tees and gear for the event. I must've labored over the decision between these two t-shirts (below) for at least a 20 minutes, while Ben waited patiently. The Brooks fitting rooms were actually pretty creative - when you try on apparel, their expo fitting room is a gutted port-a-potty!
The expo itself is too large for words. Picture the marathon expo in Chicago or in Indy and multiply it by ten. Things you can get at the expo: Free Pom juice (full size!) & coupons; Larabars; Bolthouse farms and Naked juice samples; organic cookies; Minute Rice samples; unlimited and various sample flavors of Clif Shot Bloks, Powerbars, Gatorade; Kinesiotape (and they would tape you); a New Balance video analysis of your gait (including tips for natural running); Boston posters (hung one up at the store); and all sorts of pain relievers and wraps. It was amazing. I didn't eat lunch some days because I knew I could fill up at the expo.
Photos from the expo... As easy as you'd think it would be to take a picture in front of a fixture, it was NOT! Friday wasn't AS bad, but during the rest of the weekend there were so many people it was nearly impossible to walk in some areas, let alone wait for the walkway to clear and nab a photo. We were extremely glad we went to scope out the expo on Friday, when it was mostly locals. Unlike Saturday/Sunday, we never felt rushed or like we were caught in a crowd the entire 5 hours we were there.
Even after 5 hours, we didn't feel like we'd seen everything we wanted at the expo! Hence the Saturday madness.
During the evening, Ben and I had dinner with Nick Shah and Rick Fineman, two of the managers I work with. The company's home office is in Boston, and when I ran into Rick in Chicago a few weeks ago, we thought it'd be nice to grab dinner at a nice local joint he could show us. We had Thai at a restaurant called House of Siam, in the South End. What a cute area! If it wasn't so cold (32 degrees), it would've been fun to take our time and wander around to see all of the boutique shops, eateries, and restaurants in this high-end neighborhood. Thai food was good - we had some soup that was very lime-flavored, and it was great (wish I could remember the name)! Even picky-eater Ben went home feeling full. It was cool to get to know Nick and Rick outside of work, because it's easy to forget we're not all working stiffs! They had some good stories. :)
That was the end of Friday.
Happy and fed, we nestled snug in our hotel bed, as visions of Boston and running gear danced through our heads...
If we didn't mention it, we timed the Little Fifty on Thursday night, and probably didn't get to sleep until 1am, when all was packed up and final results were sent in. It was already a long week by the time we even got to our vacation!
Friday
We peeled ourselves out of our bed, fresh off of our 3.5-hour "nap," and headed up to the Indy airport for our 6:45am flight. Whew! Despite an hour-long delay in Baltimore, we were in Boston, at our hotel by 1pm. The hotel was pretty awesome -- the front desk employee not only upgraded our room to a 1BR for $20/night, but also got us a slightly better view and a rollaway bed, eliminating the need for two expensive Boston hotel rooms. We did it college style and crammed all 5 of us in a 1-bedroom suite. Shiva, Jenny, and Ted didn't arrive until Saturday, so we had all day Friday to hang out. [About glasses -- I probably scratched my cornea, so it was very uncomfortable to wear contacts! Note to self: don't do that again.]
 |
| Tired, but excited to finally be in Boston! |
The expo was AWESOME as usual! The bib and packet pick-up process was organized down to a science, and this is where we found that our official race shirt (the free one you get for registering) is yellow. Like an obnoxious yellow! On the other hand, Adidas makes their own Boston gear each year with different colors. This year, the 2011 Boston Marathon colors were black and green. On Friday we spent about $185 in Boston gear. I got my jacket and a cool New Balance shirt, while Ben got a nice pint glass with the marathon logo on it. Most of the big companies -- Brooks, Asics, Adidas, Nike, New Balance, Saucony, North Face, Mizuno, etc. etc. design and print their own graphic tees and gear for the event. I must've labored over the decision between these two t-shirts (below) for at least a 20 minutes, while Ben waited patiently. The Brooks fitting rooms were actually pretty creative - when you try on apparel, their expo fitting room is a gutted port-a-potty!
The expo itself is too large for words. Picture the marathon expo in Chicago or in Indy and multiply it by ten. Things you can get at the expo: Free Pom juice (full size!) & coupons; Larabars; Bolthouse farms and Naked juice samples; organic cookies; Minute Rice samples; unlimited and various sample flavors of Clif Shot Bloks, Powerbars, Gatorade; Kinesiotape (and they would tape you); a New Balance video analysis of your gait (including tips for natural running); Boston posters (hung one up at the store); and all sorts of pain relievers and wraps. It was amazing. I didn't eat lunch some days because I knew I could fill up at the expo.
Photos from the expo... As easy as you'd think it would be to take a picture in front of a fixture, it was NOT! Friday wasn't AS bad, but during the rest of the weekend there were so many people it was nearly impossible to walk in some areas, let alone wait for the walkway to clear and nab a photo. We were extremely glad we went to scope out the expo on Friday, when it was mostly locals. Unlike Saturday/Sunday, we never felt rushed or like we were caught in a crowd the entire 5 hours we were there.
 |
| Here's another: "Boston with Tradition." |
During the evening, Ben and I had dinner with Nick Shah and Rick Fineman, two of the managers I work with. The company's home office is in Boston, and when I ran into Rick in Chicago a few weeks ago, we thought it'd be nice to grab dinner at a nice local joint he could show us. We had Thai at a restaurant called House of Siam, in the South End. What a cute area! If it wasn't so cold (32 degrees), it would've been fun to take our time and wander around to see all of the boutique shops, eateries, and restaurants in this high-end neighborhood. Thai food was good - we had some soup that was very lime-flavored, and it was great (wish I could remember the name)! Even picky-eater Ben went home feeling full. It was cool to get to know Nick and Rick outside of work, because it's easy to forget we're not all working stiffs! They had some good stories. :)
That was the end of Friday.
Happy and fed, we nestled snug in our hotel bed, as visions of Boston and running gear danced through our heads...
So which shirt did you get?!?! I got the one with the names of all the towns we ran through...and then at the check-out line I saw a woman buying the "RUN Boston 2011" one and I was like, "Ohhhh I like that, too..." haha Somehow I missed it when I was looking at the shirts. That was on Sunday, though, and everything was pretty picked over at that point. I had to get the guy's shirt in a smaller size because they were out of the women's.
ReplyDelete