I had a great time in Chicago, even though the Bulldogs lost in the national championship game. They still had an amazing season!

Monday: 8.7 mi, road
Tuesday: 2.7 mi, road
Wednesday: 6 mi, treadmill
Thursday: 4.8 mi, treadmill
Friday: no running
Saturday: no running
Sunday: rest (travel)
Total: 22.2 mi

I had to piece together this week as best I could due to travel. Monday, I knew I had to get in a medium-length run, and I felt pretty great, despite a 50 mile week the week prior. Tuesday, my normal rest day, I sneaked in a very short run before my final FE prep class. It turned out I could have run after the class, since it only lasted about an hour (instead of 3), but whatever.

Wednesday we left for Chicago, and I ran on the treadmill when we got to the hotel. I’m going to pat myself on the back for that, because it was tough to work up the motivation to run after sitting in the car for almost 7 hours. It kind of sucked but I survived, and watched part of The Hunt for Red October while I ran. I’ve never seen it before, and it was on mute (I was also listening to music) and had captions, but I think I got the gist of it. After I ran, we went out to dinner and I ate a burger and fries in about 40 seconds.

Thursday, I got up early (early-ish) to run on the treadmill again before we checked out. I felt pretty crummy while I was running and actually had to pause the treadmill a few times to drink (and also to turn the AC on full blast). I finished with about 40 minutes to shower, get packed, and check out. We drove in to the city to our VRBO condo, and then walked over to the bar where the UMD Alumni party was, then to the United Center, then did plenty of walking around the arena (and also screaming and clapping and jumping around) and walked home after the second game.

Friday was a free day, so we did plenty of walking around the city. I got in 22,000 steps according to my fitness tracker, between walking to the El, visiting the Field Museum, watching a Twins game, and heading home. It’s so different to be in a walkable city with an established public transportation system. I’ve spent all my life in the suburbs or in Duluth (which is not walkable and the buses aren’t more convenient than driving), except for the three years I lived in Champaign while attending college, round 1.

Saturday was more of the same, walking down along the river and then heading to the bar, and then the arena for the final game. My legs were killing me, not because of the walking, but because of all the standing. That was tough on my calves for some reason.

Sunday we drove back to Duluth so I was basically sedentary. Oh well.

It was nice to have some days off running but still stay active. I am not counting any additional miles beyond the 22 I actually ran, but I still consider this an ok training week. It’s not like I sat on my butt like I usually do on non-running days!

Less than 3 weeks before the race! I really need to get focused on it, I’ve kind of been pretending it’s in the far-off future.