Cleveland Rocks – Day One: LGA to CLE, Cleveland Marathon Expo and Hyatt Regency Cleveland

note: This is a trip report and a marathon report.  It is divided into day one and day two. There is also a post for a review of the Hotel Fitness Center and one for the hotel’s jogging map.  

I decided to go to Cleveland to run the Rite Aid Cleveland Marathon.  What motivated me to choose Cleveland?  Most people recommended  marathons in other cities, but I thought, Hey, I’ve never been there before, they have a Hyatt and they have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum.  That sounds like enough to me.  And, with that, I registered for the marathon, booked a flight and made a reservation at the Hyatt Regency Cleveland at the Arcade.

Well, things weren’t entirely going as planned.  As it turned out, I didn’t know anyone who was going to Cleveland.  And I came down with a raging sore throat/cold a few days before my trip.

I flew out of LaGuardia Airport Saturday morning.  At the Delta Skyclub I prepared a bagel with peanut butter and jelly to take along with me knowing I’d have to leave the hotel for the marathon too early on Sunday to have breakfast there (Such a waste of a Hyatt diamond breakfast…).

I arrived at Cleveland Airport – it was exciting to see the welcome poster from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

And a corridor of notable concert posters:

I also came across this interesting Superman display “Welcome to Cleveland – Where the Legend Began.”  It is not a poster, but a life-size superman!

Before leaving the airport, I stopped in at the Airspace Lounge.  I’ve been to other Airspace lounges at JFK and BWI (see review: JFK).  Entry is $20, which includes $7 credit toward food or drink.  Entry is free if you have an American Express Platinum card.

I  decided it would make most sense to go to the marathon expo first, as the IX Convention Center was only 2 miles from the airport.  How much could a taxi cost in Ohio? $5? $10 at the most?  Wrong.  It was a glorious cluster $16 rip off.  Oh well.

The IX Convention Center was huge and the expo was nice.  I bought two shirts that say “26.2” and a bag of sport beans (jelly beans for runners) and caught the free shuttle bus to downtown.  The bus was a classic yellow bluebird school bus.  Those always bring back childhood memories.

I took a quick walk around Cleveland – I always loved the FREE stamp statue – I never realized that this was it’s home! (Query: if it’s FREE, why do they need to fence it in?)

The Hyatt Regency, Cleveland at the Arcade is literally in the picturesque Arcade, a Cleveland landmark. It truly is breathtaking.  I was upgraded to a large suite right on the Arcade!

The living room area:

The bedroom:

The bathroom:

The hotel was so sweet – they put a humidifier in the room knowing I wasn’t feeling well  (A special thank you goes out to Twitter’s @HyattConcierge!).

It was now late Saturday afternoon and I felt pretty awful.  I’m fairly sure I was running a fever.  I sat half-catatonic in my beautiful suite half-wondering if I’d be able to run the marathon the next morning.  Although there was a “pasta feed” on the ground floor of the Arcade, I opted to drag myself to the hotel restaurant for dinner and I then returned to my room.

On recommendation of friends, I made myself tea.  There was a nice selection of  Tazo teas in the room and I chose the orange tea.  It was quite good but  became delicious when I added some Woodford Reserve bourbon (Thank you, Delta Airlines) and ginger ale.

I went to sleep not certain what I would do the following morning – to marathon or not to marathon, that was the question.