Howdy, friends! I’m back to recapping my time in Chicago–click here if you missed my race day recap. It was such a fun weekend to be in town! Chicago is one of my favorite cities, and it happens to be where one of my favorite friends lives. Here’s a recap of what we did before and after the race–including lots of food and a little bit of Hamilton!

I’ll rewind back to last Thursday, when we flew out late in the day and popped into Lyfe Kitchen for a quick dinner. We really liked it–they had a nice and varied menu with lots of gluten free options. Friday morning we were up relatively early–J wanted to pop into the November Project workout and I wanted to get rolling pretty early to the expo. We hopped on a shuttle around 9am from one of the downtown hotels and it dropped us off right at the expo–definitely a super smooth way to get there.

Having been to the marathon expos in both NYC and Boston I have to say this one was really well organized and actually not that overwhelming–although we did miss Shalene Flanagan’s book signing, which I was bummed about. We snagged my number and t-shirt and then I picked out my splurge marathon swag item–a red half-zip I have basically been living in since the race. It’s really easy to get overzealous and spend way too much time walking around (and shopping around) at the expo, so I’m pleased we were able to sneak out with just a few purchases. J did get me one of these babies as a marathon present and I LOVE IT. Totally worth spending the money for the real deal.

After the expo we meandered our way up to Wheat’s End Cafe, where had to keep myself from ordering every single thing on the menu–the entire restaurant is gluten free!! Nirvana. In the end we split a pumpkin cinnamon roll and I had a fig, brie, and prosciutto sammie. Next time I’ll have to come back and try the gf popover!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering down through the zoo–I’m not the biggest zoo person (they make me a little sad) but we had a great time. It’s super cool that the zoo there is free and easily accessible. We met up with my college bestie Deby and made our way to The Northman, which is a cider bar! So cool–I really loved the ones we tried. We need one of these in Boston, stat. The evening was spent catching up and chowing down at Homeslice, which has fabulous gf pizza. Good food, good times, good people 🙂

Saturday morning I harangued J into coming on my shakeout run with me, so we did some run-sightseeing and stopped by the bean for the requisite photo opp. We also checked out the runner reunite area to get our bearings for Sunday. Post-run we met back up with Deby and ventured to Grange Hall for my pre-race lunch burger. This baby is sitting on top of two slices of gf french toast and is topped with bacon, Canadian bacon, cheese, and an egg. WOOF. I swear there is actually a burger under there somewhere…

Basically all that eating had to be enough to sustain me through the many emotional ups and downs of finally seeing Hamilton!!! I am a total musical nerd and have been obsessively listening to the soundtrack for a good year, so when I saw the show was going to be in town I bit the bullet and spent way too much on a couple of tickets. I have to say that it was totally worth every penny–I laughed, I cried (a couple of times… ok, maybe 3…) and just absolutely adored it. It was hands-down it was one of the best theater experiences I’ve ever had. Other musical geeks, get at it–it’s worth it.

Post-Hamilton we grabbed a simple dinner at Whole Foods and hunkered down for some TV time while I prepped all of my race stuff. Then, you know, I ran a marathon (obviously it has its own post). After the race we wound down at Deby’s and then had lunch with another college friend. I’m usually not super hungry after a big race (the next day though, watch out!) so we took things easy. It was so nice to celebrate with these fine folks!

Just to make our departure experience extra exciting, we got to the airport to watch our flight get delayed due to the hurricane… twice… so we bit the bullet and decided to reschedule for the following morning, which meant staying at a hotel and eating some microwaveable meals for dinner. Definitely not a high note on which to end our weekend, but I was SO ready to sleep and grateful to get home at a reasonable hour. Overall it was a wonderful weekend and lovely to see so many great people and eat so many delicious things!

I’ll be back shortly with a more running-centric look at what went well, what went not so well, and what my future plans are in regards to the marathon.

Talk to you soon!

Leah

Linking up with Tuesdays on the run!