2015 Philadelphia Marathon Expo

Race weekend is here!  

I felt crazy with anticipation all day today as I waited for the work day to end so I could take the train over to Philly for the expo.

As soon as 2:30 hit, I biked home to change, then headed to the train station.  Of course I wore my 2005 Philadelphia Marathon shirt, my first ever marathon and the last time they gave out cotton race shirts.

At the expo I picked up my bib and meandered around the booths, sampling various foods and talking with a few race directors.

I was really looking forward to seeing Bill Rodgers talk at 4 o'clock.  He's a legendary marathoner with wins at Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and many other major marathons on his resume.  All told, he's run 60 marathons.  I saw him speak at the expo 2 years ago, and his talk today was much like it was then: unscripted with no visual aids.  He has self-diagnosed ADHD, and his talk veered abruptly from advice to race stories to plugging his book to the current state of marathoning.

I couldn't care less how scatter brained his style of public speaking is, though.  I'm pretty sure that because he seems to talk off the cuff, no two talks of his are ever alike.

He fielded questions at the end, and I couldn't think of anything to ask him, though now I wish I had asked him how he dealt with nerves before a big race.  Now that race weekend is here, the nerves are starting to kick in to the point that I'm fighting back brief waves of nausea.

At any rate, I was first in line at his booth after his talk and bought a copy of his book, Marathon Man and had him sign it.  He was such a nice man and I can't wait to read the book. I'm sure I'll write a review of it soon.

I walked out and took one more picture for good measure, then headed back to the train to go home.

Less than 48 hours until the marathon.