Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon Weekend – Part 2

Forgive me for not having this up yesterday! I came home to a whirlwind of “real life” demanding my attention and didn’t have the time to finish writing it up! The good news is right after landing in STL and picking up my daughter I went grocery shopping and prepped breakfast casserole and portioned out meat for our meals for the week – so no excuses for not eating right this week!

Our first full day in Pittsburgh was filled with all kinds fun… Press Releases, Ribbon Cutting, Getting all dressed up for a cocktail dinner… It was awesome! Saturday we were scheduled to drive out of downtown to Dick’s Sporting Goods Store Support Center. We eventually made it there and let me say, I was immediately impressed! They call it the “Castle on the Hill” because it is such a big building with one of those long winding hills leading up to it. 

So basically, we learned that you could totally live at the offices and never have to leave. They have a cafeteria, a sit down restaurant, dry cleaners, post office, Starbucks, a gym (including full basketball court!)… We joked all you needed was a place to sleep… until we happened upon a bunch of tents set up. Of course, you can sleep in the tents! The Gym has showers. Seriously, you don’t ever need to leave!

I learned that Dick’s Sporting Goods was actually started because Dick was working at an Army/Navy store and the owner asked him to set up a fishing supply area and then told him it was horrible and he didn’t know how to run a store. He went and borrowed $300 from his grandmother and started his own store. Never let anyone tell you that you can’t!

We got to see some super secret Product Development areas that we weren’t allowed to take pictures of… one of which was the Reebok design room (apparently Dick’s owns some part of Reebok’s clothing line? Not sure how that all works) But I can tell you that there are some FUN things coming… in Spring of 2014! Ha. Those guys plan ahead! They also have a “lab store” which is an actual store layout where they can try new marketing set ups and product placements. So neat!

Before we left we had to get a picture in front of the sign! (By the way- it was kinda chilly, so if we look weird thats why)

From here we headed back to downtown for lunch and another stop at the Expo. We had more time to walk around/shop around and had to exchange some of our gear. Mr Dreamer got in on the expo fun… Since this whole weekend was centered around the #runfor campaign he made a sign with the (only) reason he’d ever run…

haha. I love that guy. We then got to head out to an actual Dick’s Sporting Goods store with a generous gift card in hand. I walked out with a new pair of Reebok Nanos for both me and the Mr and some Under Armour shorts and sports bra. I had plans to use the gift card on some of the Reebok CrossFit line they sell online at DicksSportingGoods.com… I’ll show you more when it arrives!

After shopping we headed back to the hotel to chill out for a bit before dinner. I wanted to get my race gear together so I didn’t forget anything… like when I forgot my Garmin when we left for my last Half and made Mr Dreamer turn around 10 minutes after leaving…. haha, oops.

I also made sure I was hydrating for the race. I’m loving this new water bottle!

We walked to dinner with the rest of the #runfor crew, including Steve Bell (check out his new blog!) who was featured in the first video of the #runfor Series. Of course there was carb loading…. in the form of this amazing pizza.

I may or may not have ended up in Market Square with the hubs hanging out and indulging in some not so pre-race friendly beverages… we ended up back at the hotel and in bed by a semi-decent hour… and the pre-race jitters were kicking in!

Full race recap to come tomorrow!

What are your pre-race rituals?

 I was compensated for this campaign with Dick’s Sporting Goods. All thoughts and opinions are my own.