Once again I'm playing catchup on my blog. Its been hard to get excited about blogging recently. Maybe its because I haven't done anything very exciting that I think you will all want to read about. However I have gotten lots of comments on my lack of blogging so go ahead and keep reading if you so desire....
The past weekend we were in Chicago for the Chicago Marathon. It is one of the top marathons behind the New York and Boston marathons I believe. Its huge! The convention center that we were in for the expo was the largest ones I've been in. Its hard to give you an idea of the magnitude of the place but to attempt lets just say that it never felt crowded even though 40,000+ people walked through the area in 2 days.
It is really cool to see these massive events from set up through completion. You get a good sense of what it takes to put on one of these events. And its just cool to see so many people excited to be a part of something (especially something that encourages a healthy and active lifestyle).
We started setting our booth up on Thursday as usual. There were a lot of big name running companies at the event and their booths made ours look small in comparison. Nike out did everyone hands down. They were the official apparel supplier for the event and they had brick walls around their huge booth, plexiglass windows looking in, about 20 registers and a massive hanging structure above the booth that supposedly cost half a million dollars to put up.
A shot looking down through the Nike booth being set up
Oh that reminds me that during our set up I had to deal with all of the labor union guys and electricians to get our big sign hung over our booth and make sure that we got power. Its amazing how much it costs to do things like that. It is also amazing how much influence you have as a girl. Adam found that out the next day when he tried to get shoes out of storage and was denied but then when Heidi, the snickers rep, asked they let her do whatever she wanted (and didn't charge her).
On another random note I thought that these half dressed mannequins were funny. If you walked around the convention center on Thursday you saw half dressed mannequins everywhere. And they were always missing pants or shorts. It was weird.
During the expo I spent quite a bit of time checking out the other booths around us. Mizuno had the outside of their walls wrapped in scenes depicting some of the 29 neighborhoods that the race went through. I thought it was pretty cool.
Mile 0.0
On race day we did grassroots marketing at the local Crocs store instead of setting up our normal tent at the finish line. It was nice to do something different for a change and we were all really excited about it because we had come up with all of the ideas for it and made the day happen. We actually got to be marketers, coming up with the ideas, instead of implementing someone else's ideas.
The Crocs store was conveniently located at mile 2 of the marathon so a majority of our plan was based around that location. We had bought spray chalk and created a Duke (the Croc logo) stencil, so we sprayed the Duke logo onto the streets in front of the store and on the sidewalks. We also had balloons that spelled out Crocs and other colorful Crocs balloons that we decorated the street with. It all created a festive atmosphere and we had fun doing it. Once the race started we handed out cheer signs and prizes to people who brought us raffle tickets that we had handed out at the expo. At one point I was scared I was going to get stuck on the opposite side of the street because I was handing out cheer signs and the elite racers passed. I was worried the huge crowd of runners would start coming and I wouldn't be able to get through for an hour or so before they all passed! I made it though. After we had passed out most of the freebies we had we wandered to the finish line and passed out the rest. It was a long, tiring day even though we were done by 1.
A view up to the finish line
Overall I was really excited to be a part of the Chicago Marathon. Its awesome to see and be a part of such a large event. There were a lot of foreign participants, which was different than other races we have been to. I loved it. Different languages are so much fun to listen to. I just wish I was better at learning them! A group of French runners stayed at the same hotel so I tried to understand what they were saying in the elevators. It was fun but my high school french skills are definitely lacking.
On Monday we stayed in the city to do some shopping and explore the city. While I was wandering the Magnificent Mile I found a crowd of people outside the Nike store. They had covered their windows with the names of every person that had completed the marathon the day before. Brilliant marketing! It got people excited to come check out their names (take a picture with it) and got them to the Nike store where most of them seemed to be buying more Nike branded Chicago marathon apparel.
I also found this building...
Monday we also had Chicago style hot dogs which were good but not stellar. And we got Garrets carmel corn. The carmel corn was much better. :) Most of the day I spent shopping and hanging out which was fun because I hadn't been shopping in a while.
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1 comment:
Interesting... your photo of all the names distorts them as well. I thought it might just have been the photo I took. I wonder what causes that to happen.
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