A story of going from being a non-runner to planning for a marathon in three years...

Monday, March 26, 2012

Multi-talented Weekend

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From here

I had a busy weekend!  I didn’t manage to make it to the pool but I did run AND bike! 

Saturday morning started out early with a Chicago Running Blogger Meetup at “The Bean” in downtown Chicago.  Thankfully I was able to stop by my office and drop off my stuff before meeting Kim, Katie, and Bobbi and walking over to The Bean to meet up with Maggie, Kelly, and Rachael.

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Bloggers taking pictures.  That’s what we do.

 

And, yes, we color coordinated on purpose. 

We ran out to Oak Street Beach and then back to Navy Pier for a round trip of just over 3 miles.  We took it nice and easy and mostly just chatted. 

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After our run we met up with a few other bloggers at the Shamrock Shuffle Expo and explored the wares.  To be honest, I’d never gone to an expo for a race I wasn’t running and this month I’ve gone to two! (Kim and I went to the NYC Half Marathon expo when we were there)

Sadly, I had to take off early to get Jason to the airport for a trip.  So, I left before lunch and booked it back to my office to pick up my stuff and catch the train.  And when I say booked it, I mean it.  I didn’t really budget enough time and had less than 20 minutes to run 2 miles.  It’s been a while since I pushed the pace like that but I still managed to bust out two sub-9:00 miles.  Woo hoo!  These legs still have some speed in them yet. 

Of course, that basically wiped me out for the rest of the day and I ended up taking a two hour nap.  Oops.

Sunday, though, I was recovered enough to ask Kim if she wanted to go for a bike ride.  She had a 12 mile run on her own schedule but still agreed to bike a huge chunk of the Millennium Trail.  I biked with Kim for the last 4 miles of her run and then we did a 26 mile ride on the trail for a total of just over 30 miles of riding for me.

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By the way, I’m SO glad I ordered new bike shorts. 

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The padding in my current tri-shorts is pretty shot.  I’m a little sore today.  Of course, some of that may be because I was riding my road bike on crushed limestone which is like driving a car with no shock absorbers on a cobblestone road.  Oh, and there were hills.  Major hills.  My glutes and quads were shredded when we got done.

All in all, it was a great weekend workout-wise.  It was really fun hanging with new people and getting outside on my bike for the first time this year.  I’m looking forward to more blogger runs and more biking!