Hello, everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am SO tired!!!!!!! I would love to still be back in bed, but there's this pesky little thing called a job that ruins all the fun.
Chicago was AWESOME!! I am totally and completely in love with that city. I can't wait to get back and spend some more time sight seeing. The Wish meets were fabulous; we had the absolute best time together. Stephen and I drove to a suburb south of Chicago Friday night and then drove into the city Saturday morning.
Saturday morning Stephen and I checked into the Hilton and then headed down to the Expo where we saw John Bingham checking the timing chips for people. As soon as we walked down in the convention area, who do we see but Mel's lovely face and then came Cam and Howard and Pat and Lily and Jim and Anne and Bob and Darcy and Andrew and Karen and John--it was a mini Wish reunion. We talked for a few minutes before breaking apart to look at different booths, but met together again at the Chipotle booth and then here comes Jen and Paul and their very beautiful daughters.
The walk to Gino's was fun! Maggie and her son caught up with us about half way there and she and I had a great time talking about Chicago and hotdogs. (
Maggie I did get my hotdog from a vendor Saturday night and I got KETCHUP on it!!!!
). Like Pat said in the other thread, Carrie and Scott got to Gino's early got 2 huge tables for us and 4 or 5 pizza's ordered. We had the best time just talking and laughing--I hope we weren't too obnoxious to the other customers!!!!
After lunch everyone broke apart to do their own thing. Stephen and I met up with Cam and Howard and Karen and John at Navy Pier for a little carbo loading--Stephen and I carbo loaded with Ben and Jerry's.
After our very healthy meal, John and Karen headed back to their hotel and Carrie and Scott, Cam and Howard, Stephen and I did an architectural boat tour--that was awesome, thanks
Cam for such a great idea.
It was getting late so we headed back to the hotel with Cam and Howard while Scott and Carrie had dinner. I tried to get to bed early, ended up staying up until about 12:30, that 4:30 wake-up call came EARLY!! All of the Wisher's met in the lobby of the Hilton at 5:30 with Stephen and I being last, apparently my pre race meals were rearing their ugly heads, I was SO sick to my stomach that morning and for the entire half marathon.
Unfortunately I don't have a very good race report. I have to be completely honest and say I was extremely disappointed with the CDC and will probably not run it again. That doesn't take away from the wonderful time I had with my Wish friends or Chicago, but I was very disappointed with the race. Stephen ran the half with me, which we had never done before (other than a 5K when he drove me insane!!), it was nice running with him, but I knowI can't get to used to it as he is much faster than me and of course wants to run his own race. But it was nice having the company, especially on that course. I'll start with things CDC had zero control over--the heat and me being sick the whole race, and the lack of crowd support on the course. It was my worst half marathon time, but as I was using it as a training run for the Columbus full, that wasn't a huge deal. Now for my CDC complaints: I felt like the course was terrible--the first 4 miles of the race were downtown, so that was really cool and the last 2 miles were on Lake Michigan, but the other miles were terrible. I think we must have been in an industrial park, I know we ran through McCormick Place, I thought we were in a parking garage at one point, it ended up being an area underneath the convention center, where the dock doors are for deliveries. I also didn't like running on the highway by Soldier Field, we were in lane and right next to us were people driving 70-75 mph. It was awful. Another bad part of the race was that there weren't any porta potties on the course. At all. Stephen tried to go to 2 different places while we were downtown, both places told him there weren't any public restrooms. He ended up going down an alley. Once we got to the industrial park, there was no place to go and I didn't see anyplace once we got to the bike path by Lake Michigan. 2 or 3 water stops ran out of cups (I was having Disney marathon flashbacks from miles 19 and 20), Stephen and I were in the middle of the pack with probably 5,000 people behind us. I don't know if they found cups for them or not. And the final issue I had with CDC is a pretty minor one, but it made me mad none the less, they were handing out hand towels at the finish line but had run out by the time Stephen and I crossed. Like I said, it's a minor complaint, but how do you run out of something like a towel or a medal? You either didn't order enough (the race was capped at 12,000--they should have ordered 12,000 towels) or the volunteers were handing out multiple towels to people. Either way
. Like I said, I'm glad I ran the CDC, LOVED Chicago and the Wish meets, but we most likely won't go back. I don't mean to be such a downer, I really had a great time this weekend, I was just so disappointed with the Chicago Distance Classic.
I haven't had time to read back through the thread, so I'm off to do that, just wanted to post my race report. Sorry it was so long!!!!!!!
) etc 
This is a great group.
Say, have you ordered any WISH paraphernalia, or do we have to look for the sheriff in October? 
for your DH's neck. I'm sorry you didn't get your run in. 
Glad you're back!
YAY!
I would never do anything like that!!
Off to get laundry done. 
and entered!
