My last post left off at the finish line, but I’ve always wondered about after a marathon, so I thought I’d share with you my experience.

As soon as I had grabbed my bagel, banana, etc., I immediately picked up the phone to call my mom and find her. I needed a hug and badly. I also, very literally, needed someone to lean on. I think we were both a little delirious from the heat, because we had a hard time finding each other. I had told her I was walking towards the family meet-up area, but then I sat down and forgot to tell her that. Eventually, we met up by the flower truck, where she had a bouquet of sunflowers waiting for me (when I was little, my favorite song for her to sing to me was “You Are My Sunshine”) and a balloon.

I remember her telling me we could get a cab if we crossed Michigan Ave. We stood out there for about two minutes, and I realized everyone else had the same idea. I remember thinking, even if it hurt, I’d rather start walking back to the hotel than stand there waiting for a cab with thousands of other people. We got probably about 60% of the way back to the hotel when I finally found a cab. At this point, my mom was walking around in socks because her feet hurt so badly from putting on new sneakers that morning and wandering Chicago in search of her marathoning daughter.

We got back to the hotel, and I hung out a bit with Bobbi, Meghann and Kelly. And stretched:

We walked next door to get burgers at 312:

I got two more Goose Island 312s here, and they were much better than the ones I had at the finish line.

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We went back to the hotel room, and I took a looooong nap. I woke up around 8 absolutely ravenous but still too tired to go out to eat, so we ordered deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati’s to the room:

I woke up yesterday with a terrible cold (I’d been sick a few weeks ago and I think my body’s been fighting this off since then and surrendered after I made it run a marathon) and decided that a boat tour would be the perfect way to see a little more of Chicago without having to walk. We walked over to the Corner Bakery for breakfast, and I had eggs, toast and fruit.

And we went on the boat tour. 

Our adorable tour guide.

Marina City, otherwise known as the corn-on-the-cob building. Every single apartment has some kind of amazing view, and they are all pie-shaped, which must make them really hard to furnish.

Skyline.

Lighthouse.

Apparently at one point, the Coast Guard turned this lighthouse over to a private civilian to take care of, and he started throwing wild parties there, so the Coast Guard took it back.

Me and my mom 🙂

The airport and flight back yesterday, in one word, sucked. I was feeling really sick at this point and incredibly tired. I usually take a little something to relax on flights, but feeling so sick, I didn’t want to fall asleep in the cab on the way back and have the cab driver have to wake me up. There was a massive storm in NYC last night, which I made it back before, but there must have been storminess in the air, because there was definite OMG-I’m-going-to-die turbulence at one point. I made it back, got some Pump, wrote that epic marathon recap post and went to sleep.

Back to my regular routine…

But now, I’m a marathoner 🙂