Tomorrow morning is the Chicago Marathon and as I threatened in April, I’ll be one of the 45,000 odd* runners. (If you’d like to track my progress from afar, my bib number is 48874.) I actually went out a month ago and bought some new long sleeve running shirts for the event** since it’s being run in, you know, chilly October. Looks like that was a waste.

Feel free to come out and cheer for some folks — the route covers quite a bit of the city, so you might not have to go far to encourage a stranger. I was surprised to discover when I ran a half-marathon just how helpful it was to have random people yelling out my name (which they read off my bib) and I can only imagine it will be twice as helpful in this twice-as-long course. And if you do come out on the Northside, well, at least it won’t be quite as crowded in Wrigleyville as was feared.

Wish us all luck.

* To say the least.
** For myself, I hesitate to call it a ‘race’, since I’m going to be running so slow.