Friday Five – Sweet Home Chicago Edition

I haven’t done a Friday post in F O R E V E R so I thought I’d participate today with Fairytales and Fitness for the weekly linkup! Feel Free to join in!

As you all (most of you?) know, my Chicago trip was not the one I originally expected, not the one that I thought I would have back when I booked my airfare and hotel, but nonetheless I made the best of it. After all, my love was still running the marathon, plus I was going back home where my best friends live; what’s not to love about that?

Let’s not delay this any longer!

I’d like to share with you what the highlights were of my trip (not in order of importance – they are all equal highlights)

The Chicago International 5KM

Yep… while in Chicago I “ran” the 5KM on the Saturday before the race. Not really “allowed” by my physio but… I figured if I walk/jogged gently I would be fine . Welp… I actually “ran” the whole thing! I don’t regret it, I didn’t have any pain from it and I had no nerve-pain after-effects from him. That’s a win in my book.

Seeing Friends

Not only did I get to see local friends, I also got to see International Friends from the Running the World Facebook Group, and I got to see (although WAY too briefly) blogging friends! Definitely a highlight! We were pretty busy with meet-ups, drinks, eating, etc. This kind of travel really give me so much energy and fill up my heart with love. It’s always hard to go back though.

Marathon Support

Of course there is no better place (in my humble opinion – but I haven’t travelled EVERYWHERE…) to support the marathon than CHICAGO. Unfortunately though, I missed Ron 2 of the 3 points that we had agreed upon, but that was likely due to me either being on the wrong side of the road, or the fact that he already had removed his long sleeve shirt at the beginning of the race – so I was looking for something he wasn’t wearing! ha! I DID see my running friend Marijke at the 4 mile mark and was able to high-five her to give her (hopefully) a bit of a kick. I also missed pretty much EVERYONE else. It’s so hard with the start times being staggered. I’d have to stay at the same point all day to see all the runners I wanted to support.

A Bit Of Local Culture

We had 10 days in the States, 4 full days before the marathon and 6 almost full days afterwards. While we didn’t want to do much walking before the marathon, to save the legs, we still walked a lot… it’s so hard not to! Especially when you are an active person, it just seems more logical to walk a few blocks somewhere than take public transport or an uber everywhere. But, yeah, Chicago city blocks are a bit farther than at home! So prior to the marathon we stayed in the downtown area (well, up at the top of Michigan Avenue), with exception of going down to the Expo. After the marathon we:

• Went to a Chicago Blackhawks Game (and they won against the Edmonton Oilers!)
• Went to a show at Goodman Theatre
• Went to the Chicago Center for Architecture
• Went to the Museum of Science and Industry

Of course we also ate, drank and were reasonably merry but probably the most important on the food front is that Ron has now tried Giordano’s Pizza (2 years ago), Lou Malati’s Pizza and Gino’s East… just Pizzeria Uno and Due to go! A close second were the donuts bigger than your face at Stan’s Donuts like the one below.

Mini-Trip to Milwaukee

A dear friend from school (and I mean, elementary school!), Michael, was living in LA forever with his partner and when Ron and I got married almost 11 years ago, we did a road trip out to see them. However, back in May they suddenly packed up and moved to Milwaukee (job change) so I couldn’t resist the urge for us to travel up and see them! Ron had never been, so why not? From Chicago, Milwaukee is about an hour and a half with the train and not really expensive ($50 round trip per person – that’s about the same what we pay to go the same distance here in the Netherlands (which would be my old commute to work, about 80 miles). It was actually Michael’s birthday the day we went up as well!

As we arrived right at lunch time, we first went and had something to eat, discovered Milwaukee has a “Bronze Fonz” statue so we absolutely HAD to walk over to see that and then we went to the Harley Davidson museum (not a biker but love HD motorcycles – and now I not-so-secretly want to learn how to ride) to spend the afternoon. Once we were finished, we headed over to Michael and Alan’s place and had an amazing dinner and tons of catching up, laughter a few drinks may have been consumed as well… SO SO good to see them.

Is there more?

Nope! That’s really my trip in a nutshell! I “ran”, I walked, I got cultured and most importantly I got to fill my heart up with friendship to keep me going for a while. With patience, hard work and some luck I’ll be back again next year, maybe even for longer, but definitely to run the marathon and finally tick that off my big bucket list!

So tell me – have you been to Chicago? Are you Team Malnati or Team Giordano? Have you ever eaten a donut bigger than your face? Have you been to Milwaukee? Did you grow up watching Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley? How do you balance out city trips – Do you try to cram it all in or do you seek balance with some days of rest and relaxation (and cocktails)? Have you ever run a race against the advice of professionals (and did you regret it?)