warsaw

On Monday morning, I headed to the Berlin airport to fly to Warsaw.

It was either a 6 hour train ride that would put me in at 1p, or a 1.5 hour flight that would get me in at 10a. Plus..I'm a proponent of walking it out after a race. Breakfast was a plum filled donut since I was hungry and they were out of croissants. Darn. 

Propeller plane. I was terrified.

However we were rewarded with chocolate as we left the plane.

I ubered from the airport to Old Town where my hotel-esque/apartment place was at.. $2 uber ride and it was like a 20 minute ride. Let's just say I ubered everywhere on this first day due to you know, the legs. First stop - pierogis at Zapiecek which apparently is a Polish food chain there. To be honest...the compote tea I had was the best part of the meal (like a tea made from dried fruit). 

The Museum of the History of the Polish Jews was the only place I really trekked out to on my own two feet. Glad I did, I passed the Warsaw Ghetto on the way.

After...3 hours at the first museum (audioguides make you appreciate the experience), I learned that the Warsaw Uprising Museum (which was recommended by Uber driver #1) was going to be closed the next day...so I ubered over there. In which I discovered Warsaw is not just an "Old Town" but has a little cosmopolitan downtown too.

I then Ubered to the Warsaw University Library which was very green and pretty! Lighting wasn't in my favor..

Then I trekked back to Old Town and discovered some cute little side streets on the way.

Back to Old Town.

After rolling around in the hotel for a little bit, I headed out to dinner at Podwale 25 Kompania Piwna, as recommended by good ol' Foursquare and Yelp. Started off with a dark beer, and mushroom soup (which was soooo good). Not pictured is a giant bread basket that came with the meal, a pickle, and a huge piece of chocolate cake that I devoured. There was also some live Polish music. All of this for 20 bucks. Warsaw is cheap ya'll!

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Didn't expect the fish to be served like this. I was a little freaked out and didn't eat all of it. However, the fries were a different story. 

My little apartment/hotel was a 30 second walk from this!

Day 2... not feeling as sore so the world was my oyster.

Almost forgot to selfie! 

Breakfast just isn't as important to Europeans...but this was still good.

Old Town Morning.

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The square by my place.

I went on a random walk along the Royal Route - my intention was to go to the art museum since it was free on Tuesdays...but I got a little sidetracked... this is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Then I needed to use a bathroom desperately..so Starbucks it was... where I had a PSL with soy milk and it was incredible.

After some shopping I found myself on top of the tallest building in Warsaw.

The views were quite nice! 

Then I found a super cute healthy spot for lunch!

Then 6 hours later I arrived at the art museum. I was very excited to see something built in legos then I realized what he was doing.

This was the building that had the observatory at the top.

Not pictured: Long exhausting walk to the UPS store to pick up my train ticket to Prague. Yes, Polrail lives in the 1900s and insists on printing and shipping paper train tickets. They could not ship to my hotel because my hotel was more like an airBNB and there was no receptionist desk. Don't get me started on this situation.

Eventually I ubered from the UPS Store back to the hotel, and then grabbed dinner outside in the Square. It was such a cute little outdoor restaurant! They had blankets. This was probably my best meal in Europe on this trip - I had a beer, water, pumpkin soup, and these amazing pierogis. Not even 20 dollars.

My dessert was very classy.

And thus closed my last night in Warsaw!

berlin

At long last... I have organized my pictures from this year's Europe trip. 

The following combine my iPhone 7 pictures with my Canon pictures. You will likely be more impressed with iPhone photos thanks to the HDR.

Brandenburg Gate selfie is a must.

Berlin Wall Memorial with a fellow selfie fan.

The museum alongside the Memorial.

More of the original wall, this time at the Topography of Terror.

@ the Topography Terror. Needless to say, this was not the most uplifting day.

Stumbled (accidentally) into the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

Random art installations were abound in Berlin.

Very impressive to see Brandenburg in person. Even cooler to run through!!

Then meandered to the East Side Gallery in the evening, a segment of the Berlin Wall that they use for different art installations. Very cool.

On Day 2, started off strong with an amazing breakfast.

Then, I took a nice walk through Kruzeberg to my AirBNB "Experience"...

Which was a guided canoe tour of Berlin! Such a beautiful morning - it was the first day of fall. There were swans and boats that we had to navigate around...

See?! So cool!!!

The view on the water of the Oderbaum Bridge.

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And we rowed right through/under this art display - Molecule Man!

Then we headed over to a Turkish market that only happens twice a week for lunch. So much for no new food before a race! I loved this rowing experience overall by the way. It was a perfect day for it!

Then after rowing, I went to the race expo, the heading back to the AirBNB to refresh myself/charge my phone, and then headed back out, finding myself by the Cathedral for Golden Hour.

Lighting was on point.

Quiet Saturday morning for Day 3.

I had a nice breakfast and took it easy as it was the day before the race...so easy that I don't have any other notable pictures from this day besides the Shakeout Run with Oiselle girls! I think I just went souvenir shopping... 

On the last day, I ran the race then still managed another 8k-9k of steps...

This is probably a good time to point out the weather forecast was completely wrong for this day. The morning was supposed to be clear and the evening rainy, but...it flip flopped.

285 brutal steps up the Victory Column. My intention was to climb this immediately after my race to get an epic post-race photo with my medal but I could barely walk immediately after the race...

Beautiful views of the city.

Love the yellow of the trees. This was where we started and finished the Marathon.

The marketing material was not photoshopped.

Great sunset for the last night in Berlin.

the chicago marathon

Last month I made a game time decision…

When registering for marathon lotteries last year, I was betting that I would get into either Berlin or Chicago or neither. Not both. But… I got into both. So I was definitely excited about Berlin and decided to make that my goal race and plan out of vacation out of it… I played it by ear during training regarding Chicago, and when the last day for deferral came up (September 19^th), I was feeling strong, no injuries, so I decided to go for Chicago too knowing full well it was 2 weeks after Berlin and 5 days after I got back in the States.

Needless to say the week leading up to Chicago, I did not get great sleep but I was carb loading very hard as I didn’t eat many meals in Europe. My main goals were to finish with no injuries, have fun, and hopefully finish under 4 hours.

Short and easy flight in.

I flew into Chicago Saturday morning, dropped my stuff at the hotel, grabbed breakfast from the Goddess and the Baker, then headed over to the expo shuttle at the Hilton Chicago.

Had a solid breakfast sandwich too.

The expo hadn't even opened yet so it wasn’t terribly crowded like the nightmare that was Berlin.. Nike, North Face, and Saucony had some really cool Chicago Marathon gear. I gave into a Nike tank! Nuun also had a good deal for 3 little containers of electrolyte tablets and a Nuun Chicago water bottle for $15.

I had to partake.

Cooling down the beer with Kombucha.

I love Nuun!

From there I explored Milennium Park, grabbed lunch at a fast casual vegan place, watched the Ohio State game, then grabbed dinner at Whole Foods.

Fake chicken of course.

Thank you Whole Foods Hot Bar.

The next morning..race morning! For my corral/wave, the suggested arrival time was 530a (the race started at 730a). But since I was 0.3 miles from the starting line… I left my hotel at 645a, lol. I randomly ran into one of the Oiselle girls I met up with in Berlin walking in through security, and then we ran into another Oiselle girl in our corral. 

Ran into Sheila, I met her in Berlin!

Her third marathon in 3 weeks. One more to go this weekend for her!

We eventually crossed the start line around 748a or so.. it took a while. Overall I was feeling really good, just excited to run this race! And then I had to go to the bathroom. I had a feeling this was going to happen and it wasn’t anything causing me to cramp thank goodness! I was right behind the 3:45 pacers.. and didn’t really want to lose them but knew I had to go.  I hit up the bathroom at the 5k mark and then somehow caught my way back up to the 3:45 group a mile or two later. 

Nothing really notable happened to mile 6 or 7 when I felt a weird cramp in my left shoulder.. luckily it was in my head. We had plenty of shade options for the first half… and then the second half hit. 

One of two action shots from the course. Pretty sure the other photographers didn't take pics because I was likely walking..

It was around mile 15 where I remember saying to myself, “Omg I have 11 more miles to go” and the wheels just came off from there. My hips were just feeling so weak, my hamstrings were doing some weird tightening things, so I began walking through every aid station…like the WHOLE aid station, drinking all of the Gatorade and some water (which I barely had in Berlin..) and then just walking/running along as I could. Folks passing me were cheering me on but I was like…you know, I’m good, just ran a marathon two weeks ago, it’s all ok, lol.

I kind of missed the Oiselle Cowbell Corner at Mile 17 so that was disappointing on my part.. and probably the next best moment was coming through the Mexican area of Chicago. The crowd support there was insane. Apparently I missed out on someone handing out bags of gummy bars. Words cannot express how disappointed I am about this still. From there we headed into Chinatown where with the energy there I got a little kick back in my step with less walking (this is around mile 21).

Chinatown! One of the few times post-halfway point where I was happy..

Then the last couple miles, I was able to jog it out for the most part thankfully. I finished in 4:14:09. So not a sub-4…but I finished with no injuries, and… I tried to have fun. Lol. 

Still feeling that Chinatown love.

Overall, the crowd support for this race was really strong, there were some bands along the course like Berlin…but Berlin had way more bands. Way more. And the crowds there were loud there too even with the poor weather.  I would do Chicago again… if I trained for it specifically.  Though... I don’t think I would have PRed this year had this been my goal race considering the weather. However if the weather is good for this race…. It is known to be PR and BQ friendly and I can see that – it’s very flat!  Also, I will commend Chicago – the logistics and organization of the marathon weekend and everything leading up to it, including the app, were outstanding! 

Typical post-race selfie.

Not so typical post race selfie.

The post-race snack game was on point.  Great job Chicago Marathon!!

And Pizza. So good.