Chicago Running Bloggers Meet-up

Given that I'm running the Shamrock Shuffle tomorrow (in green striped knee socks, a green sparkle skirt and a white shirt that says "I run with fast women" on the front and "magmilerunner.com" on the back - say hi if you see me!), today should have been a "day off" from running. A day I could have actually slept in! Except ... I helped organize a running bloggers meet-up for this morning. And Kelly was picking me up for it around 7:30am. Another Saturday morning of thinking "why do I do this to myself?" as my alarm goes off.

Answer: because I love running, and I love meeting other runners!

Olive "greeted" Kelly through the front window when she picked me up this morning (she said that's how she knew she had the right house ... which probably means my crazy cat lady status is official), and we were off to Chicago. Specially, $2 Chicago parking. As Kelly was turning down random streets in the south Loop, I had to ask "where are you taking me?" But what I was really thinking was "I told my husband/parents that I was meeting up with some people I meet on the internet in the Big City and you're taking me to some out-of-the-way 'parking lot' ... " Just kidding. Sort of.

We did make it to the mythical $2 parking lot that was actually $2, the only drawback is it was 1.5 miles from Millenium Park. Lesson = $2 parking is good if you are in running shoes/clothes, but I wouldn't recommend it for date night.

Anyway ... we made it to The Bean by 9am to meet up with our newest blue-clad running blogger besties. And there were pictures, duh.

Left to right: Katie - Live Half Full, Kim - Ilax Studio, Erin - Eri-thon,
Bobbi - Zero to 26.2, Kelly - Running Kellometers, me, Rachael - A Runner's Crave

After giggling our way through obligatory self-portraits in The Bean, we walked over to the Lakefront Path and started the running part of the meet-up. Even though Kelly and I are racing tomorrow, you can't meet up with a bunch of runners and not run. (Not that we wouldn't have had fun and/or have enough to talk about.)

By Oak Street Beach

We headed up to Oak Street Beach and back down to Navy Pier, which was just over 3 miles. At Navy Pier we headed to the Shamrock Shuffle expo for bib pick-up and to meet-up with more bloggers. We ended with lunch at the Navy Pier food court - not the most glamorous or tasty, especially being in the middle of the city, but when you're dressed like this and spend all your money on race fees and compression socks, you don't have many options: 

Left to right: Kim - Ilax Studio, Katie - Live Half Full, Sara - Run, Gingerfoxxx, Run, Kelsey - Ready Set Feast!,
Bobbi - Zero to 26.2, Kelly - Running Kellometers, Rachael - A Runner's Crave, me. 

After that, Kelly and I walked the 2.5 miles back to her car and headed back to my house to drop me off. And she got to meet my parents. I think that means we're going steady now. As running partners.