Seven Day Recap

First and foremost, I did make it to Chicago last week....YEAH!  After hanging out at Philadelphia International Airport for the better part of seven hours I was on a plane to the Windy City and arrived without incident.  I arrived at my hotel around 8:00PM and promptly threw on my running gear and headed out for five mile run through the city and then along Lake Michigan.  It felt great to get out and stretch my legs, especially after the frustrating travel day I had just endured.  One thing about running in a city with a Garmin (or any GPS watch), you really never know how far you have run or the pace your are running because the signal gets bounced all over the place thanks to the tall buildings.  At one point I think I was running at 5:30/mile pace and then a few minutes later I was going at 12:00/mile.  It wasn't until I downloaded all of my run info on to my computer at home that I was able to looked at the map of my "run".  It looked like I was running circles all over the city.

Wednesday
A relatively uneventful day, 4 mile run in the early morning, then meetings all day.  The run was great, I just love running along the lake as the sun is rising, even if it was 30F and I was wearing a pair of socks on my hands because I forgot gloves.  After my meetings I was able to make it up to Niketown...oh how I love Niketown!  I bought a pair of Portugal soccer shorts (I only run in Nike soccer shorts, they are little longer than traditional running shorts), a pair of blue running sockes and a LiveStorng rubber bracelet (my last on broke a few months ago).  I was in heaven.  After all of that it was dinner time with my co-workers and I pretty much pigged out (Tavern at the Park), duck egg rolls, crusted meatballs, garlic crusted filet mignon, onion straws....it was all so good and so wrong.

Thursday

I woke up early and headed out for a 6.5 mile run and brought my wife's camera with me (of course I don't have the pictures right now, but I will upload them tonight).  I ran about three miles up the shores of Lake Michigan to this beach club, then back down along the running path. 

I continuted down to Millenium Park where I ran past the Jay Pritzker Pavilion and Cloud Gate on the AT&T Plaza, basically a giant silver bean. 

If you look really closely, you can see my reflextion in the middle of the bean.

What was great about this run was that I actually stopped a few times to take pictures and really soaked in the city as opposed to getting glances of it like I normally do.  Just a great time.

My meetings wrapped up around 11:00AM and then me and my co-workers headed up to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs geat beat 13 - 5 (courtesy of the Arizona Diamondbacks).  Our seats were literally the last row behind home plate. 

Here's me walking front of the legendary Wrigley Field, the second game I have seen there.

It was a good time!  Following the game we grabbed dinner at the Twin Anchors and had ribs (they are somewhat famous for their ribs) and then hung out at a bar.

Friday

My 9:35AM flight home went off without a hitch (YEA!) and we actually landed early.  I hustled over to Lincoln Financial Field to pick up my race number for Sunday's Broad Street Run, then sped home so that I could be there when my daughter got off of the bus.  Picked up my youngest daughter from school soon after then waited for my wife to get home from work.  It was great to be home!

Saturday

Yeah, Saturday was all about yard work...after my oldest daughters soccer game.  I spent pretty much the whole day leveling our back yard, digging up trees and bushes, and just trying to beautify the back part of our yard (in preparation for some lawn making).  Of course this was probably the worst thing I could have done the day before a race....I was out in the hot sun all day, temps were around 90F and I was doing hard labor.  I would pay for this on race day.

I will add my Broad Street Run race recap tonight or tomorrow.  Just know that it was a hot and hellish day.  I ran OK, but not nearly as well as I had hoped to run.  Ciao!