I am off to ChiTAG in Chicago. Ugh..
20 Degree weather the week before my race.
It is not ideal, but I have to go. This is my event. I love it. It is the #3
market for press, the event is amazing brand exposure, fun for families, and
you can sell products on site??! WINNING!
I am on every cold and flu pill you can imagine. DayQuil, NyQuil, Zicam, EmergenceC, Advil and
I have enough hand sanitizer you could probably swim in it. I am putting up a
fight.
Thursday, morning I am up early to hit the gym. 1hr on the bike. I got this. I take a shot of EmergenceC and
head to the gym. This gym is AWESOME.
The Hyatt in downtown Chicago on Wacker for those of you ever looking to go to
Chicago. I am staying in the East Tower
and the gym is in the West Tower. I don’t mind.
I throw on my hoodie and walk over. Upon entering, I notice they have 10
treadmills, 10 elliptical, tons of bikes and even TriBikes! Granted they are
still stationary bikes but they have arrow bars and resistance changers. It was nice!
I actually felt like I was getting in a proper ride. I didn't want to leave. But alas, I did. I had to shower and head
over to the PR News Conference for the day. It was an awesome conference.
Later that night, we headed over to ChiTAG to see how set up
was going. Our booth was awesome, BUT our samples were stuck in warehouses and our live
Shark Mania game was in pieces in the middle of the country somewhere, but we
were looking good! Such is life, right!?!?!
That night, I switched hotels to be with the team. The W Hotel on Lakeshore Dr. It is a gorgeous
hotel and smells like the SPA when you walk in.
Bliss is their partner and it shows.
Josh and I had dinner at the bar.
He enjoyed a lovely beer that looked amazing and we shared a few pizzas…
they were yummy! And then it was off to
bed. It was 8:30. LOL. Luckily for me, I
have been sleeping by 10:00 or so regardless, so this wasn't too bad, but still
the thought of a wake-up call for 3:00am to be down and ready for 4:00 is always a
hard pill to swallow. But it is the
job. So.. I climbed into bed at 9:00
took my NyQuil and played Words with Friends and got cozy to fall asleep. At
9:20, I pulled down my eye mask and started to drift until everything went
wrong.
DING! DING! DING! Is as if everyone wanted to get on or off my floor.
The elevator bell was so loud. Then my
toilet started running, so it sounded like the sink was on the whole night and
then the icing on the noisy cake... the toddler next door yelling at his parents or babysitter or
someone so loud that someone called security, because the next thing I hear is
walkie talkies with static and 'OVER' and Call outs... it was awful. So I think it was probably around 10 when I
fell asleep and like clockwork, I was up at 2am. It must have been when the NyQuil
wore off. And of course I could not fall back asleep. So up I was. Shot of EmergenceC and I took that time to
repack all my stuff, shower and get ready.
I was in the lobby by 3:45 talking with the front desk when Josh
emerged.
He felt so bad for me and my night, but it is what it is. We had 6 Live TV Segments to get through and
I was not going to let it get to me.
SEGMENTS were a SUCCESS! 4 on CBS
and 2 on FOX – Good Day Chicago. By
10:00 we were finished. It felt like
4:00 in the afternoon. Josh and I headed
to get breakfast, it was so good. When I got back to the hotel, I fired up my
laptop and worked for a few hours before ultimately taking a power nap. I was out for 1:45. I should have with done 4hrs or 20min because
I was out of it for quite a while when I woke up. But all is good. I headed to the gym for another session. 1hr
bike 15min run. I was great. Another
episode of Switched. I was a happy girl.
Plus Rob, one of my co-workers, popped in so we were able to catch up. It was fun and the treadmill was no knee pain!
Granted, it was only about 1mi, but I will take it!
That night was a small team dinner, Susie,
Josh, Maria and I and it was heavenly!
Saturday morning I was up bright and early again –
5:00am. This time I had to get in 3miles
on the tread (no solid pain, only a little towards the end), before the Blogger
Breakfast we were hosting at 8:00am and the doors opening at 9:00am. It was brutal, but I managed. More EmergenceC and DayQuil and I was good to
go.
The show, it was great. We doubled our sales goal for the day. Our
real-life dinosaur from Erth’s Dino Zoo Live was a smashing hit and the toys
and games in our booth were phenomenal.
Everyone was having a blast!
That night our entire team, 18 people went out for a fun
Italian dinner. Everyone was laughing and telling stories it was pure team
bonding at its best. It was awesome.
Sunday. I flew home. Thankfully, not any sicker than I was
when I left.
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