Saturday morning we got up early to get dressed for the Rock n' Roll Chicago 5k. We decided when we signed up that we needed that remix medal! Thankfully the race started at 7:30, so it wasn't too bad. We looked at the outside temps and saw it was in the low 60s. I'm from Miami, so that's cold for me. Plus the AC in our room was freezing, which messed with our brains. I put on my hoodie and we headed towards the start. Once we got outside we noticed the hoodies were overkill. Around my waist it went.
We lined up with perfect time, since our hotel was literally across the street, took some pics, and then off we went. I very purposely tried to be slow. I wanted to save myself for the next day's half, and I knew we'd be walking a LOT during the rest of the day. So we took it easy.
We ran through the museum campus, saw The Field Museum and the Aquarium, and then ran alongside Lake Michigan. It was a gorgeous day. The temperature was good and the sun was out making it all so pretty.
It was nuts, my friend from across the country and I were running side by side together. Pretty amazing.
We ran back through Grant Park, and crossed the finish. Not an amazing time, but not horrible.
Then we crossed the street to find the Bean, and take all of the pics.
We rushed off after out group pic, cause it was time to get cleaned up and head out for our food tour! It started at the Merchandise Mart, which was an amazing gorgeous art deco building. We ended up getting some info about the city and its architecture too.
This was a sidewalk walking food tour, so some stops were eating on the sidewalk. The first stop was the Doughnut Vault. And there was a line for this place, so you know they had to be good.
Buttermilk Old Fashioned with glaze. OMG, just amazing.
Our next stop, was the famous Chicago deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati's. We got to sit in the restaurant for this one. Part of the reason chose this tour was because we could get the pizza, and not have to make a meal of just that, since neither myself nor Jenn was too sure about it. And I'm glad I did that.
This was the most tasteless piece of "pizza" ever. Nothing had any seasoning on it. But I was hungry, so I ate the bland bread and cheese pie, which it totally what it was.
We walked around and learned more about the city, and took tons of pics along the way.
Our next stop, after seeing some amazing buildings and learning some more Chicago stories, was Xoco.
I was hungry when we got here, and stared in the window looking at what they were preparing. Little did I know that it was what we were going to eat next.
And hands down, this open faced veggie torta, was my favorite thing on the tour.
Our next stop was another sit down in the restaurant stop, Cafe Iberico, and the guide had mentioned that they had great sangria, so we had to get some to accompany our chicken pincho tapa. The onions were so delicious.
And our last stop was a great little local bakery, Fabcakes. We had a chocolate cookie nutella filled sandwich, and it was finished with sea salt. OMG perfect dessert.
The tour was great and more than enough for lunch. After we enjoyed our cookies, we headed to the Field Museum, to see dinosaurs and animals and stuff. We upgraded and got entry into the Jurassic World exhibit, cause, let's be serious, I'm a dork.
It was so cool. they had audio animatronic dinosaurs, a lab just like in the movie, with lots of amber mosquitoes, even "hatched" baby dinosaurs in incubators.
After that exhibit, we went back and explored the museum a little more. The "Sue" t-rex skeleton was amazing.
Now, I haven't been to a lot of natural history museums. I think maybe once in my life, so all of the taxidermied animals freaked me the hell out. If I just imagine they are models, I'll be fine!
We checked out as much as we could, and truth be told we were dead. We headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit and put up our feet.
After our little chill break, we headed to eat some sushi, at a great place that our food tour guide recommended. It was delicious.
Then it was back to the hotel to rest up before our early wake up for the race in the morning. I was so tired, I didn't even post my flat runner til the next morning.
Read about the half marathon in my next post!
No comments:
Post a Comment