The Chicago Marathon doesn’t have the lottery of New York. It doesn’t have the qualifying standards of Boston. Registering for Chicago doesn’t involve hoops, hurdles or luck. You wanna run? It’s as simple as paying your $150 ($175 for internationals) before 45,000 of your running friends do.

Because of that, the opening day for marathon registration has lacked some urgency. The race will reach capacity, but certainly not in 24 hours or even a week. The organizers tried to change that this year with a Chicago Marathon Launch Event at Fleet Feet's Piper's Alley location. They opened registration for attendees a night before the “official” opening of 12 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1. And they invited Abdi Abdirahman (@Abdi_Runs), who last month qualified for the marathon at the 2012 Olympics – his fourth Olympics – for a three-mile fun run.

Abdi was very friendly, joking during a Q&A session with executive race director Carey Pinkowski that a local cross-country team had put him through a tough workout. Abdi’s unlikely to run Chicago this year – he’d have eight weeks to recover from the Olympics – but told the audience he’d like to come back eventually.

A few other takeaways from Abdi:

- Wearing pants and several layers, he might have been a bit overdressed for the 50-degree Chicago weather. But he normally trains in Arizona.

- In preparing for the Olympic trials, he peaked at 110 miles/week.

- His diet is simple: everything but fast food.

- Besides core exercises, “looking” at weights is as close as he gets to weight training.

Abdi Abdirahman won’t be taking one of the marathon’s 45,000 spots. But how about you? Starting at 12 p.m. CST on Wednesday, February 1, registration for 2012 opens. What’s holding you back?