Chicago BOUND!

It's official, marathon training, here I come!  I received the news yesterday afternoon that my application had been accepted through the lottery system.  For those of you who are not runners, some of the really big marathons have to have a lottery system because of the sheer number of entries they receive.  Chicago and New York are two (Boston is a qualify by time marathon).  I was one of the last waves I think to get an email (some people I am friends with told me minutes  after I got accepted, they got denied).    Let's just say yesterday was all about hitting the refresh button oh a million times LOL!  One of my friends had noticed on one of her FB groups that many were seeing that they had been accepted quicker in the athlete's village profiles than in their email so I just had that screen up and kept hitting refresh.

Then it hit me, HOTEL rooms!  One of my good running friends had told me to make sure and book a room when I had entered the lottery just in case.  I had totally forgot so I quickly started looking for a room.  Wow, 350 bucks a night seemed to be the cheapest!  Well, since the hubby and I don't really do a vacation per se, I just decided to go for it and book a nice room for a couple of nights.  While it would be nice to stay for longer, two nights at that price is really all we could logically afford.  I also today booked us flights.  We could get relatively cheap flights right out of manhattan directly to chicago and take the train into the city.  While it might be cheaper driving, the time spent traveling would be much less and we can do a little sight seeing friday  and part of saturday.  I don't want to wear my legs out but Tony hasn't been to chicago ever (i did for a band trip), so I want him to see some of the sights.

I broke the news to stella that training would start in June.  She was pretty stoked to say the least.   Unfortunately, training in Kansas in the summer will be tricky for both of us, so I forsee some super early morning long runs for both of us to avoid the heat and humidity.  I also see us doing a ton of playing around with hydration, electrolytes and with our fueling. I am trying not to stress to much about that now as i have Coach Jenny there to help me.  I am just ready to start!  One more half marathon, a little recovery time and poof, it will be training time!