It’s Bloggin’ Time

Chicago here I am!!!

You totally do not understand how excited I am to be here!  I’ve been counting down the days until I could get here and meet some of my greatest friends and see a new city!  I’ve had the travel bug for a bit and the adventures are just getting started!  I mean, Chicago this weekend, Portland in two weeks, my birthday two week after that (tbd where I’m going to go)…the sky is the limit!  It’s great being able to plan my own schedule too because then I can take time off when I want to!

Anyhow, I woke up at 4.30 because of my internal clock and moped around, kinda napped and juggled with the idea of going for a short run before taking off on the plane.  But I decided against it, since I was starving (because I never ate a real dinner last night…kashi sunshine and blueberries anyone?) and I still had some crap to pack up…or take out. Hah!

So I had basically the same thing for breakfast that I had for dinner, but with a banana, and some milk.  Yes, regular milk to boot,but just enough to get it wet is all, otherwise my belly would be pissssssed.

  

I went to get some $$ and see if there might be any last minute picks for a dress at Target for the cocktail party tonight but it was a no go, so we headed off to the airport!

Wanna know how small my airport is?  Look, you still have to walk on the tarmac to the plane!

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But look who I get to hang out with, the whole journey to the Windy City!

We took off and the stomach screamed lunch so I obliged with the sad lunch I brought along: raspberry chocolate chip muffin, pb sandwich and an apple.  Food for the soul (or cheap) baby!

And of course I was still hungry and ate a raspberry chocolate luna bar.  This thing was so smashed it was sad.

We finally arrived in Chicago and headed straight to the L train to get into the city and meet up with some awesome bloggers!  As fast as I could I turned around and got ready for the cocktail party!  Wowzers!

I bet this would make boys wish they were healthy living bloggers…I mean, look at all these beautiful girls!

There were some appetizers available that I was ready to devoir, but was pretty disappointed, especially since I was starving having not eaten since lunch on the plane!

I had a small plate but wasn’t too happy with the flavors, so left most of it to be taken away.  Luckily I was so busy meeting people that I had very little time to think about eating…

But look who I ran into!!!  Some of my favorite Floridians!!!

The beautiful writer of Operation Beautiful and Healthy Tipping Point, Caitlin!

 

And one of my favorite and most inspiring runners, Meghann!  I miss this girl!

I also met, for the first time, Gabriela, of Une Saine Vie!  I was so excited to see her after reading her blog for so long!!!  Yay!

Of course I met up with some of my favorite bloggers like Gena, Jennifer, Chandra, Heather, Gina, and [[blogger names]].  Whoohoo!

And of course because I didn’t eat a very good or dinner period, I demanded Fro yo!!!  The Chicago Native Jenn suggested we go to Yogen Fruz.

I was simple and boring and just got a vanilla with chocolate chips and graham crackers!  I should have gotten the chocolate because the vanilla was only subpar, but hey, I had fro yo and I’m no complaining!

As soon as I got back to where I was staying I cleaned up and totally crashed.  It may have been 8.30 my time but I was exhausted from all the traveling!  And I had to be up at 5.30 for my 11 miler the next morning!  Eep!

5am came around and I was awake a 1/2 hr before I was supposed to be up, but I dozed in and out until my alarm screamed at me.  I had a quick snack of pb, jelly and bread, downed some water and was out the door by 6am!  Gotta run early since Chicago is hot and HUMID!!  But no where near as bad as Florida.  Mwahaha.

I headed out to Lake Shore Drive to do two laps that I mapped out and meet up with Jenn after hitting mile 9 for the last three miles of my run!  I was lucky enough to have some cloud cover because otherwise I would have died (no joke!) and with Jenn running with me I was able to finish the run! It was so nice having some different scenery, it being flat and no altitude!  I’m not sure if it was exactly 11 miles, but I finished in 1:44:26 and couldn’t be prouder!  I haven’t run that long is well, months!  And I felt good too!  Thank goodness for chewing those 6 Gu Chomps to keep me going!  It was like having getting a 2nd and 3rd wind!

After cleaning up because seriously, I was soaked to the core, I headed over to HLS with Jenn and snagged breakfast as soon as I could!  They had a nice spread of Bagel Thins, fruit, Oikos GY, spreads and some more stuff I can’t remember because I didn’t take a picture!  Bad blogger!  Here was my plate though; def didn’t eat all the fruit because I drank too much water and got too full.

And thank goodness I had this in my purse otherwise I have no idea where I would have gotten my protein from!

I shared it with Jenn on our Bagel Thins and topped it off with some strawberries.  I also ate some of the honeydew but that was about all I could tolerate before I started to feel sick. Not a good feeling...I actually had already been feeling sick since after finishing the run with some nasty GI discomfort, but I’m trying hard to deal with it.

After munching and settling a bit I set off to check out the booths around the Great Hall where the main speakers were doing their thing!

There were lots of booths by anyone from Attune foods, Arnolds/Orrowheat, Stoneyfield Farms, Frito Lay, Athenos, Operation Beautiful, and Bagel Thins!

Ah, one of my favorite bloggers!

 

And now I’m sitting in a lecture about pre and refueling from exercising!  I’m learning lots about how to refuel after my runs, even this morning!  Ack!