Aurora's Blog

Picking up from yesterday –

The Rock ‘n’ Roll series always has a booth set up to sign people up for more races in their series. This time, in addition to that, they had a special large, swanked out booth  specifically for the Vegas race.

I walked by a blackjack (for play money) table where this kid, Aidan was being a total pro. It was hilarious.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll series people said they want to put Rock ‘n’ Roll Vegas in the same league as Boston or New York. Well, good luck. That’s gonna be a humongous feat to accomplish. Of course, why dream if you don’t dream big, right? So, kudos to them for setting their sights high. I’m can’t wait to run this race in December and see what all the hype is about.

Ryan, the dealer,  let me in on blackjack, giving me some totally-not-for-real-money chips. He was hilarious. He was cracking jokes and had everybody in stitches when he would do the hand wave thing pretending to making gestures for the imaginary security cameras.

We played for a while until at some point, I went all in. My thinking was, “I’ll leave this booth, or at least be fake rich.” I hit on 19 (with the dealer showing a face card), and I got the 2 of hearts! 21, baby! Ryan, Aiden, and I all cheered as though it were totally real. By then end of my time at the table, I had turned 100 fake dollars into 1,900 fake dollars! I couldn’t make my lucky streak end. So at some point, I decided to scoot the fake money over to Aiden (although he didn’t need it). He was doing a great job becoming fake rich all on his own. I moseyed on to more booths as Aidan probably become a fake millionaire.

There was a new protein bar here that I hadn’t seen before – PR bars. They were pretty delicious. This expo had tons of snacks that I like – LaraBars, Clif stuff, Marathon bars, and these new PR bars. I like ’em all. And I like ’em all even more when they’re free at expos!

At this expo, there were two – that’s right, two – booths giving free massages: The Manchester Grand Hyatt of San Diego, and MassageHeights.com.

Craig from Massage Heights gave me the best massage I’ve ever had in my life. I told him I was going to be a rock star someday, and when I am, he can come around Europe as the tour massage therapist. Or, you know, I’ll just get a massage from him if I’m ever in San Diego and have disposable money for massages. (It could happen.)

The best thing about Craig was that when I asked, “Are you tired of giving massages,” his response was something like, “How could I get tired of doing what I love to do?” He talked about how he adored his job; it was his calling. Even when I was waiting in line, I could see that he always had a smile on his face. His energy was infectious.

There was a huge booth at this expo for McDonald’s. Seriously. ‘Cause obviously the first thing I think of when I think of McDonald’s is marathon runners.

As I was getting ready to leave, my friends Marty and Wendy were starting their volunteer shifts. I stopped by, and said hi for a second. They invited me to stay and volunteer with them. And I would’ve loved to have a volunteer adventure with them. (They’re pretty wonderful, and I kind of adore them.) But alas, I needed to go sleep!

I went to bed around 3:30pm. It was awesome.

Now that the expo has finally been sufficiently (okay, more than sufficiently) covered, I can tell you about the race tomorrow! (Spoiler alert: It was phenomenal –  one of my favorites of the year.)