Chicago/Wisconsin 3 & 4, 2nd 20 miler for Boston - Mar 1-13

Tuesday, Mar 3:
6am treadmill run in the hotel fitness room.  4.0 in 31:02, 7:46 average, 1 degree treadmill.  There was only 1 treadmill in the room, and two other guys came in a few minutes after I did.  I therefore kept it short and made it super progressive, going 8:20, 7:44, 7:41, 7:16, to try to give them the opportunity to use it afterwards.  Around this day, I started developing a bit of congestion.

Thursday, Mar 5:
Another 6am run.  Again, a guy waiting for the treadmill minutes after I arrived, but he ended up leaving mid-way, so I got in 5.0 in 40:57, 8:12 average, at 2 degrees = 7:52 effort.  During this workday, my ears started getting plugged, too.

On Friday, far more sutffiness... I get sick about once every 4 years, and my time had come again.  It ended up being mostly above the head, though, fortunately, and was mostly just congestion and some tiredness.  Flew home. 

Saturday, Mar 7:
The congestion didn't stop me from being determined to get in my 2nd 20 miler.  According to the Garmin, I went 20, although according to the Zombies, Run! iPhone app, I went 19.6.  Normally, I would go with the lower number and be conservative, then add on the extra lap needed to break 20, but this time, given I had already run for 3:13:26 and I was thirsty after going through my 1.75 bottles of water, I called it a day.  Close enough.  9:40 or 9:52 pace, depending on what distance you went with.  Went mid-day to the park, while I was feeling decent enough to do the run.  Normally, I would've gone in the morning or the evening.  I ended up running with a medium-weight jacket the whole time for sun protection.  It's ironic.  When it's cold, I wear sports bras because I love cold temps, but when it's sunny, I wear long-sleeved clothing.  I took a supplements like zinc, essential oils, turmeric, alpha lipoic acid, and probiotics to try to help my body along, over the course of the weekend.  I ate 2 cheese garlic bread slices during the run, and I liked it much better than the sickly sweet jelly beans from last week.  My legs had started getting tired halfway through the run.  I didn't bonk, but my legs were definitely not as fresh.

 

Sunday, Mar 8 - Flew back out to Chicago, after maybe 36 hours at home.  I somehow lost my Frommer's Day-by-Day travel guidebook over the course of the day, but I tried to hit the places that I remembered reading about in the book by following info on some apps.  Not the same, but it worked out ok.  I ended up doing a sort of architectural tour of Chicago, which I realized over the course of the day is really diverse.  The buildings come in all kinds of interesting shapes, and the architects there seem to have paid huge attention to details with lots of ornamental features on the buildings.  

I also went to Lagunitas brewery, which opened about 6 months ago.  They're still installing some of the equipment.  This place was very large-scale manufacturing plant-like, compared to the other breweries I've been to, which seemed more home-grown / local / scrapped-together / nano-brew-like.  They had a catwalk that did a loop around the building.  Because of all of that, the visual part of the tour was less fun.  You didn't feel like you were in and amongst the action.  I did like that the tour focused on the history of Lagunitas, rather than the brewing process, though.  Most beer tourists probably already know how beer is made, so it's nice to learn specifically about this particular brewery.

 

After the tour, I had a High West coffee, wood-aged coffee porter beer.  Unfortunately, I couldn't appreciate all of the aromas and flavors with the congestion.  

Tuesday, Mar 10:

4.5 in 37:12, 8:16 ave, 3 degree treadmill = 7:38 effort.  Did the run at night this time.  I was craving a run again after 2 days off.  

Thursday, Mar 12:

5.0 in 41:35, 8:19 ave, 2 degrees = 7:59 effort.  6am run.  When I travel for work, it tends to be a lot easier to get runs done in the morning, vs. at night, when I'm tired from the workday and digestion from a dinner out.

Friday, Mar 13:

60 min body weight strength session in the hotel room.  It had been about a week and a half, so this was overdue.  My planking ability suffered (2:45 this time vs. 4:15 last time).