Chicago Weekend Recap

Alright, finally a quick update at least of last weekend.

So as you saw from my post and picture, the team I was there supporting won and that was awesome, unfortunately the weather wasn’t great for the weekend and there were a few bad crashes, thankfully nothing for the Kelly team and I only heard of one instance of someone going off in an ambulance.

We flew to Chicago on Friday night and after our arrival at the hotel, went to get a bite to eat. Where we were staying, chain restaurant capital of the world. Seriously. If you wanted a chain restaurant, it was in this vicinity. We went driving down the road, figuring we’d go wherever looked good. Ended up at probably the only non-chain place in the area too. I had a reasonably good taco salad and raspberry beer (it was a brew pub) but no one else was impressed with what they had. Oh well. It was food. We went back to the hotel then and went to bed as it had been a long day. Unfortunately the Hilton Garden Inn we were staying at had very thin walls (now wouldn’t you think a newer hotel would be built better so as to keep noise out) and people were being loud so it was hard to get to sleep, not to mention sleeping in a double bed with two people isn’t great either, but oh well.

Saturday morning we were up and running errands and then over to the race site to set up the tent. I was helping out with the vendor tent, trying to encourage people to sign up to win a bike. We didn’t have a great turnout, but it wasn’t too bad. We had the ability to chat with people and that was fun on occasion, but unfortunately it got cold. We closed up in time to see the guys race finish, but most of the Kelly team had pulled out as they were told to avoid crashes and there was one early on and the big race was on Sunday. After the race we were back to the hotel to relax a bit, then L and I went to get a bit of food, nothing too exciting, we ended up at basically an A&W Restaurant, food was OK…

Sunday morning up earlier to be able to get out to the site for the earlier starts. (and no time for a run, which I hadn’t had time for on Friday or Saturday either, so my plans for the week of running cut from the planned 38 to only 22) More bad weather and not many people but we did our best. Closed down in time to see the last third of so of the race and it was an exciting thing to watch with the way the guys were riding. Seeing the win was awesome. We headed back to the hotel, showered off, loaded up and were on the road back to Minneapolis by 7:30 pm…it is about a 7 hour drive normally and with the rain and bad conditions we drove about 4 ½ hours and around midnight stopped for a bite and to sleep. We made the rest of the way back early on Monday morning and made it back by noon, not in enough time for the noon plans L had, but he cancelled them and we took a brief nap at my place and then he went home and I slept a bit longer, deciding not to come in for the half day I had planned, and I didn’t even run on Monday like I had wanted to. Oh well. All in all a fairly fun if not extremely busy weekend. Unfortunately I hadn’t gotten to see the friends I had planned on seeing and didn’t have numbers to call others so it wasn’t quite what I had originally planned either, but oh well. With luck I’ll be having lunch with some of them tomorrow and maybe see others on another trip.

So for the week last week running was a bust. This week, I’ve managed to get a 5 miler on Tuesday, and 9 last night, which is OK…Tuesday I was really tight by the end and last night I was really tight in the first 2 miles but loosened up, unfortunately I tired my foam roller after and I didn’t get anything loosened up the way I had wanted to. I think I need L’s help on this one.

Tonight, after work, I’m driving to meet my parents to have dinner and get their dog from them. They are going on vacation for the next two weeks and Max doesn’t get to come along…so he will be with me for the next two weeks…hopefully he’s not as naughty as he can be at times when he’s “abandoned”. At least maybe he’ll be happy that it’s only him and not another dog going to be there. He might enjoy that at least. We’ll see though. I might take him out for some runs with me. He’s a Jack Russell so lots of energy, although he’s gotten a little lazy….