Our goal was simple, beat our time from the Country Music Marathon. For most of us, not Karen, our goal was pretty easy. Mom walked a good portion of the CMM due to an injury...and I bonked around mile 8 due to the heat, both of us finished on the bad side of 3:00:00...Karen, on the other hand, finished with a respectable 2:55.
The flight out was uneventful and short...we got to Midway to our Shuttle in no time...after a short ride into town, we made it to the Hotel Burnham, our home for the next few days. I have always been intrigued by the Kimpton Hotels, ever since Samantha Brown did a bit on the Hotel Monaco which seemed like such a nice hotel, I have always wanted to stay at one. Long story short, I loved this hotel, the building was 113 years old, stood across the street from the old Marshall Fields building, and at one point Al Capone's dentist was on the 8th floor. Pretty cool stuff. Anyway, we got to the hotel, stored our bags because the room was not ready yet, and then caught a cab to the Expo...
The expo was fantastic. Most of the same players from the CMM expo was there...we got to see Kara Goucher get interviewed, eat lots of samples...make a few souvenir purchases and meet up with Lou and Byron, our running mates from Fleet Feet Nashville...of course, I also had to take pictures at the Disney booth...
and also the medals...
We finished up and went back to the hotel...our rooms were ready, so we went ahead up...it was a smallish room, about what you would expect at a boutique hotel in a 113 year old building...but, it was really comfy. Perfect for us...Karen especially liked the Aveda soaps and shampoos...the view was amazing. We had a full view of Macy's, the Joffrey ballet (at night, we could see the classes going on) and the Chicago Theatre...
I took lots of other pictures at the hotel, check out my flickr page if you want to see more...
After the hotel, we were hungry, really starving actually...we hadn't had time to eat lunch and the maple clif bars really didn't act as the lunch we wanted...so we hit Pizano's around the corner for pizza...we were seated immediately and ordered our pizzas...
It was delicious...and we knew that we wanted to try to be somewhat good on Saturday as far as eating goes, we we wanted to get the deep dish pizza out of the way. After our dinner/lunch, we went back to the hotel to settle down...
Saturday, we woke up early and walked around town a bit to see how far the starting line was for the hotel. Good news, we were about 3/4 mile from the starting line and about a mile from the finish line. A decent warm up and cool down from both lines. We met Mom and Gordon at Potbelly for sandwiches, it was awesome. After that, we went down towards the Magnificent Mile...Guess what, we found the Disney Store!!!
So, we walked up and down the mile and then took a water taxi to the Navy Pier. At the navy pier, they had plenty of souvenir shops, a ferris wheel, some other assorted Carnival rides, several restaurants...and unfortunately rain. We messed around there for a bit and then took a taxi back to the hotel. Now, Karen had wanted to see the Harpo Studios and visit the Oprah store, so we dropped Gordon off at the hotel and then took a taxi to Oprah's block. We took some pictures outside the studios, then went over to the Oprah store. Now, the Oprah store has pretty much what you would think. A whole bunch of crap with an 'O' on it...I walked around the store took some pictures, and while Karen was trying on an 'Oprah' fleece...I was asked to stop taking pictures. Now, normally, I am pretty compliant, but I could not wrap my brain around why this would be. It is a tourist trap...of course, it made me take more pictures...
So, by looking at the picture, you are an accessory to the crime...we decided to walk back to the hotel...it was about 2 miles...we walked by the Sears tower and took some pictures, then went back to the hotel to change for dinner. For our pre-race meal, we opted to go back to Pizano's to carb up. It was a nice meal, then back to the room to be in bed by 8:00, we had a 5:00 wake up call and had to get our gear ready...
We all got a good night's rest and then went down to our corral...before getting there, we noticed a lot of the sponsors had set up tents and were giving away lots of fun stuff...fruit, bottles of water...it was a nice touch. We found our corral and our running group easily!
What was great about this race is that the corrals were sent quickly...like every 1-2 minutes quickly...before we knew it, we were up front!
The race itself was great. The course was flat and fast as promised, the only issue was that we had to go through a few tunnels at the beginning that threw everyone's Garmins off. It also could have been the tall buildings, but everyone's distance was about a mile off. Mine righted itself at some point, or at least came close to righting itself. The course took us north through Millenium Park and into the city, by the Magnificent Mile, by our hotel, and then south to and out and back by the Mccormick Expo center, soldier field, and then the back portion was right next to the lake...it was pretty awesome...
As we crossed the finish line, we were IMMEDIATELY met with cold towels and COLD water...snacks, and of course, our medal...then exited towards the same tents that we saw earlier...we drank our water, I grabbed a muscle milk and then we headed back to the hotel...
It was a great trip and race and wouldn't hesitate to go back next year.
Next up...Vegas.
I have us booked for 2 nights at the Luxor for the Las Vegas Half Marathon in December...We also start our Marathon training for Disney on Sept. 12...so we should have plenty to blog on running wise soon!
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