With that in mind, Lee and I had one of our most exciting (and exhausting) weekends in a long time. We took Friday off of work and went to Chicago for a long weekend. This had been a pre-planned trip so I could check another item off on my bucket list - run a race in Chicago. On Saturday, I would be running the ZOOMA Chicago Women's Half Marathon. When I began looking at things to do the weekend we were going to be in town, I quickly realized somehow we had planned our trip for the same weekend as Lollapalooza and our hotel was about a block away from it. Tickets had of course been sold out for months, but somehow I was lucky enough to find some for face value.
Thursday night I was up far too late and only got about 45 minutes of sleep before the alarm went off and we had to head to the airport for our flight. We landed around 8am and made our way to get our bags, shuttle, and arrived at the hotel where thankfully our room was ready for us. Friday was spent doing a little exploring on foot, playing in the Chicago Sports Museum, taking Lee to the Hershey store where he was literally like a kid in a candy store, and caught a movie with some of the most entertaining people we've ever encountered in a movie theater.
That night we went to a local restaurant that had a gluten-free shrimp risotto on the menu online that I couldn't wait to try. Except, when we got there, the shrimp risotto was no longer on the menu. I asked our server and they happened to have shrimp and were kind enough to make the dish for me even though it wasn't on the menu. I got my stuff ready for the race the next day and got a few hours of sleep before that alarm went off once again. We loaded on the bus and headed to the starting line. It was immediately clear that this race would by far be the smallest half I had ever run. In the end, there were less than 500 finishers in the half marathon. It was a tough race for me. I hadn't had enough sleep for a few days; definitely had not had enough food; it was warmer than I had anticipated; and either more humid or smoggy than I thought it would be. But, I made it to the finish. Along the way I stopped to talk with Lee for a minute and did some box jumps with a fitness group that was working out along the lake.
Back on the bus we got to head to the hotel again. When we got back it was definitely time for some caffeine, so we went to the coffee bar in the hotel lobby. Sadly, I did not see chai on the menu and didn't see a reference to soy milk. I had learned my lesson the night before though and once again asked if they had soy (yes) and chai (yes), which made me extremely happy. We got cleaned up and started heading over to Lollapalooza. We weren't sure what to expect, I thought I may fall asleep at some point from the lack of sleep and running a half-marathon that morning, and we were prepared to feel really old. Plus, we weren't sure if our tickets were even going to work since I bought them from someone online and they were the only tickets listed for face value. Success! We were in (after security made a scene about my gastroparesis medication; which I don't think they ever fully understood what it was).
We made it all day, I even managed to stay awake the whole time. I think Lee was a little disappointed I didn't want to eat more food. He got a lobster corndog (which I stole a bite of) then we got loaded tator tots that we split, and that was all we had all day. Once we made it to the end of the day, we headed to the room to get cleaned up and go get some food. That's when it happened. About 11:30pm we were sitting at our table, he was eating his burger sliders and tator tots, and I was staring at my side of mac and cheese that looked amazing but I just didn't have an appetite, and we hit the wall. I was at the point that I could have fallen asleep on the table right then. Sunday morning, we went to a nearby breakfast spot that I had read some amazing things about. We went somewhat early, about 8:30-8:45, since they don't take reservations and I knew there would be a wait. We were right, they said it was about an hour wait (which ended up only being about 30 minutes). It was so worth the wait though for my Caramel Apple Pecan Crepes (my tummy wasn't too happy with the choice, but at that point I could deal with it just to eat some food). The rest of the day we wandered around the city a little bit and went to the Field Museum until it was time for our flight home.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend that I'm not too sure how we survived what I refer to as "Bucket List Saturday" since I did three things on my bucket list in one day. Now, I think I'll take about a month to recover.
What's on your bucket list and do you have plans to check it off?
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