Exploring Richmond and the Race Expo

WOW. I have so much to say about the race. But I’m going to wait and tell you about Friday before I get into any marathon details. How mean is that? 😉 Anyway, Friday morning Melissa and I got up pretty early. We don’t have a car here so we were limited in what we could do. We ate breakfast at the hotel and then decided to walk down to capital square to sight see and take pictures.

We walked around to where the start was supposed to be and found signs for the course.

It was starting to feel VERY real.

We got to the race expo at around 11 when it started. Thankfully our hotel has a complimentary shuttle service to places within three miles of the hotel. It was pretty sweet. It was just like any other race expo but it was one of the nicer ones with lots of vendors. They had a lot of race merchandise to choose from too. Thankfully we got there early–I was afraid they would sell out of sizes.

I ended up splurging on a sweet jacket. Hey, it was my first marathon! 🙂

I got a 26.2 magnet for my car and a Richmond Marathon pint glass, too. Now it was feeling even more real.

Melissa and I signed up for a bus tour of the course, which was the best idea ever. It let us know what we were in store for–we got to see the course ahead of time…so we knew what hills to expect. Now I remember the course better after the fact, which is good too.

That took 2 hours–so by the time we finally left (had to wait for our shuttle for a while…) and got back to the hotel, we were STARVING. We needed food, fast!

After searching the internet for some decent eats within walking distance, I found a vegetarian place called iPanema cafe. They had a small lunch menu but everything looked amazing. I ordered the tempeh ruben and melissa ordered the brie sandwich, which we each split so we could share. They both came with sweet potato fries and a side salad.

They were both delicious. Of course, I had to carb up with a slice of vegan pumpkin cake.

The frosting was a vegan cream cheese, and inside was like a pumpkin pie filling…the cake was moist too–I couldn’t have asked for a better lunch in Richmond!

After we were both happily fed but not too full, we went back to the hotel to relax and wait for Chris to come in. His train was due in at around 5:30. The shuttle picked him up he came and unpacked and we chilled out until it was time to get something for dinner.

On another note: Chris signed up for the marathon a while ago, but decided against running it. He came to Richmond with no plan to run the race (his max training run was about 16 miles a month ago) but after talking to guys on the train about running and marathons, he decided to run the race!!! Thankfully, he was wearing his running shoes on the train and brought shorts and a running shirt so he was set to go. Thankfully, I also picked up his bib and tshirt at the expo!

We walked to The Village Cafe for dinner around 7pm–we didn’t get our food til about 7:30. I was worried that it would be too late of a dinner before the race, but played it safe by ordering banana pancakes! I didn’t want to eat too much so I saved one pancake and only ate two. They were really tasty.

They gave us HUGE pitchers of water to drink, which was perfect actually–must stay hydrated!

We had a lot of fun at this place-it seemed very laid back and our server was awesome. He automatically split our checks up too, something I noticed they do a lot at the restaurants here.

We all had our chance to order our “safe foods” for pre-race. Melissa got a pizza.

Chris got spaghetti and meatballs! I have no pic of that but here’s one of me and Chris. 😉

It was a great choice for dinner since we all could order what we wanted.

We went back to the hotel and got our race gear ready and pinned our bibs on our shirts.

It was early to bed for us–we were running a marathon in the AM!!!

Stay tuned. 😉