The Buckingham Fountain 5K

Right before our wedding extravaganza (3 weddings in 7 days!) week started, Adam and I ran a 5K downtown in Grant Park. I had been flying the day before and we got delayed in Washington DC at Reagan National. Reagan has, in my experienced opinion, some of the best airport food out there. There is Auntie Anne's, Dunkin Donuts, Potbelly's, Panda Express, Cosi, a Sbarro-type pizza place, there is rumored to be a Legal Seafoods in another part of the airport but I have never confirmed that, but my personal favorite is Fuddrucker's.

I have been a lover of the Fudd or Fuddy's, as I used to call it, since the days that I would spend my holidays from school working downtown at my mom's store. Her full time employee, Rebecca, and I would spend the entire morning discussing our lunch plans. Fuddy's was definitely in the rotation. My favorite thing would be to get the kid's hot dog meal (mainly because the Fudd Dawg was a half pound, grotesquely too big hot dog) and we'd split an order of Fudd Fries. I'd get about 10 cups for the jalapeno cheese sauce and ketchup and we'd eat about 50 pickles each. Sometimes I'd dip the pickles in the cheese sauce, but I digress. Anyway, I love Fuddy's... a lot. So of course since we were delayed and I would be missing dinner time I decided to eat there. They had this sweet employee meal deal where you could get a burger, fries and a soda for around $7, which I think is a great deal for Fuddrucker's and an especially great deal for any type of airport food. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, it was probably the worst dinner possible for someone who would be running a 5K the next morning.

I slept the night before the race on the most uncomfortable bed in the world (which has since been thrown over the balcony and into the dumpster!) so I wasn't exactly feeling my best come race time. The race itself was very cool though. It was benefitting the restoration project of the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. For those of you non-Chicagoans, it's the fountain at the beginning of Married with Children.

Yeah, that picture did not come from race day, it was definitely a little bit drizzly and not as pretty out. The race wound around the park and through the museum campus, which was really fun. I was huffing and puffing and thinking about ralphing up my Fudd's the whole time, which infuriated me because I wanted to beat Adam. We finished in 30 minutes, 33 seconds, which means that we kept better than 10 minute mile pace! Remember, I am super slow so it's the little victories that count. We got pretty nice shirts from the race that are made by American Apparel, which is a GREAT store for t-shirts (and 80's Fame-type outfits, if you are in to that sort of thing).

This week also officially marks 16 weeks until the marathon!! I have done absolutely nothing since the beginning of June so it's time to get cracking and get the mileage up. I got some awesome new shoes to break in when we were in San Antonio from my brother's gf's store (Run Wild Sports, it's at the Pearl Brewery so check it out when you go down to get your fresh veggies at the farmer's market!).

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good: Tracee's wedding weekend... This deserves an entire post of it's own. I think (not clearly remembering due to Lone Star beer haze) that Charlotte took all of the pictures with her camera, except for the ones that the professionals took of us because I swear they were obsessed with our two cute couples :) Anyway, I'll write about it as soon as I get pictures because we had such a great time hanging out with one of my oldest and dearest friends and her beloved. The four of us got to sit with the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner, which was a great and unexpected treat. Awesome party, T-Bone!!

The Bad: Having to come home to Chicago to major projects. It took me about five days to actually feel like I had a handle on the organization. It also rained on the two days that we had the actual heavy moving to do. Grrrr weather! I don't want to move again for a LOOOONG, LOOOONG time.

The Ugly: On the way home, I ended up with the very last seat on the last United flight of the day. Since Adam is able to double dip with buddy passes between me at United and his mom at Southwest, he had a better chance than I did to get home on SW later that night. So we said our tearful goodbyes (haha, jk) and I ran onto the plane. I was sitting next to a man that had boarded at the absolute last second and I think he was legally blind. Anyway, like a fool, I got out my iPod for the ride, shoved it in the seat pocket and started reading United's award-winning magazine, Hemispheres (which you are free to take with you, along with the SkyMall catalog, oh how I love inflight announcements and the company propaganda that is the Hemispheres!) since you can't have your music on for take off. The guy next to me started asking if I had been re-routed off of another flight too, I told him that I was actually flying stand -by, which was the reason for my late boarding, which of course led to an "I work for United" diatribe. Turns out he's a super frequent flier. Two hours and ten minutes later, we were finishing our conversation and I got off the plane, sans iPod touch. SADNESS! I will look for it at O'Hare when I go back to work, but I have like a .00004% chance of getting it back. So, I hope that someone from SkyWest Airlines is able to enjoy my sweet and very random taste in music.

Thank goodness I got an iPod shuffle from Adam for Valentine's Day or I'd be totally hosed!!!

Lamest Blog of the Year Award

I swear, I'll get back to writing someday... it's just been a really wild couple of weeks and my brain is fried. It's been awesome (and extremely handy) to have Mom in town but I am looking forward to some much needed peace and quiet around here.

I have awesome before (and hopefully soon the after) pictures of the condo that was a complete distaster scene and stories from the trip to Texas. I promise this won't be the lamest blog in the world for much longer.

Crazy Busy...

My blogging is going to suck for the next week and a half or so. We had 2 weddings last weekend and another one this weekend in TX, to be followed by some MUCH NEEDED R&R and then we have to move all of my stuff across town and paint at least one room. I can only think about a few activities at a time in order to keep from being overwhelmed.

On a random note, today, June 4th, is my second anniversary at United. How scary is that? In theory, you would think that with 2 years under my belt I'd be gaining some seniority, but with no one being hired to replace me in the bottom of the pecking order in over a year, I'm moving up the pay scale and not in seniority. But my next paychecks will reflect my moving into the Year 3 pay catagory! Woo hoo!

We are flying Southwest to San Antonio tonight and I CAN'T WAIT to get there. I'll be the pasty "northerner" dripping with sweat and complaining about the insanely hot temperatures (it was about 60 for the high here yesterday, FYI).

Have you been lately?

www.thisiswhyyourefat.com

They have some really sick ones right now. There's been about 3 pages of updates since I last checked. Some are SOOOOOO nasty!!

My submission of a Rolando's Super Taco hasn't made it yet but I will keep checking and maybe take better pictures the next time we go (which will be in about 2.5 weeks!!!)

Soldier Field 10 Miler

I somehow procured part of this weekend off because I was originally planning on going to a Bachelorette Party that ended up being moved to a different date. I was fine with that because there was a cool race yesterday that I had been wanting to run anyway. The store that I get most of my running gear from is called Fleet Feet Sports and they, along with Adidas, were sponsoring a ten mile race that ended inside of Soldier Field (which is where the Bears play). Bazan and his family were also planning to run. We got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the field.

Our entire group before the start...


I started in the 11 minute mile corral because I think it's better, for my race ego, to pass people than the be passed during a race. There were a lot of people running and the race got crowded at times but it wasn't too bad. It was sort of frustrating because I think the 10 mile distance fools a lot of people into thinking that they can do it without any prior training, maybe becuase it's a little less daunting than a half-marathon? But I still think most people would need to either be super athletic or do at least a little training to be able to run that distance and if you are going to start in the 9 minute mile corral, please don't start walking at the one mile marker. (ok... mini-race rant over)

It was a beautiful day and we were running on part of Lakeshore Drive and the south portion of the Lakefront Trail. I wanted to finish in 1:45 and I DID! Woo hoo. My chip time was 1:48:01 but I had a 4 minute bathroom break in the middle of the race. As always, I learned a lot. Namely, not to forget to bring something (gel, race jelly beans, shot blox) for after the 1 hour mark. I think that is kind of my threshold for needing more fuel. I also ran in an Under Armour wicking shirt, which was fabulous for me but not so much for Adam, who couldn't find me at the finish line. I need to have a wicking shirt made from the BCI sponsored transfer so that I can be visible again.
The finish area was pretty cool. It just went by so fast because I was very concerned about finding the banana area and getting something in my system.

Outside the stadium after we finally found each other. Thanks to a random lady who let me use her cell phone!


Coach Amy was in the cheering section for this race.


We got sweet medals! All in all, I'd say it was a success and I'd do it again.

The never-ending saga of the bike

Because I realize that in order for me to have the motivation to get up and run/work out each day that it helps me to have an end goal in mind, Adam and I decided that we'd do a triathlon next summer. Here in Chicago they have what's called a sprint so it's less daunting than your typical Ironman and I have decided that I would probably be ok at it, given my former awesome competitive swimming background (nevermind that I really don't like freestyle and would much rather be butterflying or breaststroking) and the fact that running is not that big of a deal for me anymore (and hopefully after the marathon, a measly few miles will seem like a piece of cake). This leaves me with only one problem. The bike part. In the seventh or eighth grade, I was riding bikes with my neighborhood friends Shannen and Will (it might have been rainy... anti-smart) and Will somehow flipped over his bike and chipped his tooth. Since then, I have been semi-traumatized by bikes. I had one in college that I rode for maybe 2 weeks before I realized that the campus of Texas A&M is insanely crowded between class times and I was likely to hit someone due to my lack of recent experience. My mom also told my brother and I an extremely life traumatizing story about her childhood friend's experience with open-toed shoes and bike riding that isn't pretty. I might have some issues to work through here.

Anyway, I need a bike for said triathlon and just for life in general in Chicago in the summer without a car so my dad volunteered to be my benefactor for the purchase. Even though my very kind Dad is funding the purchase, I am still cheap and refuse to pay more than a couple hundred bucks for this crazy-Lance-Armstrong-leaning-over-all-crazy-shifting-gears-road bike that Adam claims I will "need" even though Chicago is so flat you can get away with pedalling for a minute and coasting for two minutes. Supposedly, I need to be aerodynamic to save my energy for the run. This all coming from my engineering boyfriend... ug.

None of this would be an issue except for the fact that I am short, I have short legs and MAJOR biking control issues that mean that I want to be able to reach the ground, not on tippy toes, when I stop. After searching the city high and low, Dad found and ordered a kids bike for me from target.com. It arrived last week and Adam and Bazan put it together on Friday night. It was an entertaining process because it literally did not come with instructions. Not kidding.

(I deeply apologize for the darkness of the pictures)


My maiden voyage (and only voyage) on the bike. It wasn't as scary as I thought.

Adam decided to see if the gears would shift and it all went downhill from there. The guys were trying to figure out what happened. I still don't understand why shifting gears is so important in the first place. Bottom line, after some hideous noises, some part is irreparably bent so we have to take it back to Target tomorrow and wait for a new one to be shipped. Sadness!