Chicago Marathon Training Week 16 and Weekly Wrap: 10/3-10/9

What a week! I can now say I'm a marathoner! :) My time in Chicago was a blast! It was great seeing running friends and making new ones. I got to spend the whole weekend with my sis, we both ran the marathon and it was so nice exploring the city together. Look out for the recap of my first marathon sometime this week on the blog. 

Here's what last week's workouts leading up to the Chicago Marathon looked like:

Monday 10/3 -
Scheduled: Off
Actual: Off
Tuesday 10/4 -
Scheduled: 1 mile w/u, 6x3 mins @ 8:13-8:23 pace w/ 2 min jog rest, 1 mile c/d
Actual: Off. Took another rest day since I figured I needed another recovery day with running the San Jose Rock'n'Roll half on Sunday.
Wednesday 10/5 -

 

Scheduled: 5 easy miles
Actual: 5 easy miles with friends. I've got the best running friends since they greeted me with cowbells and signs as a sendoff for Chicago. So grateful for friends like them. They are awesome!
Thursday 10/6 -

Scheduled: 4 easy miles.
Actual: 4 easy miles.
Friday 10/7 -
Scheduled: Off
Actual: Off
Saturday 10/8 -

Scheduled: 10 mins easy shakeout
Actual: 2 mile easy shakeout run with Kelly Roberts.
Sunday 10/9 - 

Scheduled: Chicago Marathon
Actual: Chicago Marathon

As to the weekend, it started early on Friday when I got into Chicago and luckily my sister and I arrived around the same time in the morning. We took the Blue Line train from the airport to a stop that was supposedly close to our hotel however we ended up getting lost. Google maps or just the GPS in downtown Chicago is just horrible. What was supposed to be a 20 min walk turned out to be about a 45-50 minute walk or so. Oh well. 

We checked into our hotel, the Sheraton Grand and were able to check in early. It's a nice hotel and only .6 mile from the start of the race. After dropping our bags off, we headed to the expo. We took a shuttle from the Hyatt (nearby hotel) to the expo which was at Mccormick Place Convention Center. More about the expo and the friends we saw will be in my race recap.

The highlight of Friday evening was meeting both Meb and Sarah Crouch. Both are great athletes that are very inspiring. We watched them do a Facebook Live interview talking about their running journey and marathon prep along with some tips. It was so great being so closely watching them and then taking pics with them afterwards.

Thanks to Marcia for inviting me and my sis to this along with other bloggers Holly and Wendy. It was so great meeting them! Thanks also to Generation UCAN who sponsor both Meb and Sarah. We learned that their products provide healthy energy powered by SuperStarch. UCANS's idea of sustaining blood sugar is the key to performing your best and their product prevents the spike and crash of sugar-based fuels and is gentle on the stomach so no more bonking or GI distress. It all sounds interesting and I'm looking forward to trying it out since we got some samples.

Saturday morning started with Kelly Robert's shakeout run. It was really cool meeting her. She is so fun to talk with and very relatable.

On the run I met some new running friends, both from CA. Stephanie from Santa Clara and Angela from San Francisco. It was fun talking with them and I am even planning on seeing Stephanie since she is doing a relay at CIM and I'm already planning on cheering on some friends that are doing the marathon. 

After cleaning up after the run, we had brunch at West Egg Cafe. It wasn't bad, I had an omelette and I was pleased with it. It was nice because it was close to our hotel and not far from where we had to catch the boat for our boat tour. The boat tour we took was Wendella's Architectural Boat Tour which was nice, but since we go there about 10 minutes before departure, we didn't get a seat on top. What we should have done was get there 30 minutes early so we could get a better seat, but it was still alright. The views we got of the city were awesome.

 It was also great to take the boat tour with Holly. It was nice seeing her again.

After the boat tour we headed to Millennium park to see the Bean for the first time. It's a cool structure.

For dinner we met up with some friends from Twitter at Tufanos. So cool meeting James, Kat, Deb, and Graham! Dinner was yummy too. Afterwards we called it quits for the night to get ready for the marathon the next morning.

Sunday was of course the marathon and I'll say we finished! More about the run will be in my recap later this week.

After the run, we cleaned up and looked for a place for lunch. We were hoping to eat at Giordanos but the wait was way too long. We ended up getting Dim sum and noodles at MingHin Cuisine which was delicious. I even got some bubble tea!

After that we pretty much called it a day. We were tired. That pretty much sums up my week. Linking this post up with HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin for their Weekly Wrap. 

Have a great week!