Old Town In-Home Personal Training

The Old Town Triangle District, a City of Chicago landmark since October 28, 1977, is bounded by Lincoln Avenue, North Avenue, Wells Street and the former Ogden right-of-way. The 1871 fire destroyed the houses here. Residents rebuilt small wood-frame worker's cottages before a city ordinance banned further wood construction, and the eastern blocks later filled in with brick and stone rowhouses and apartment buildings. An older home means working with the room you have, and your trainer plans around it. In years past we ran resident fitness programs close by, at K Square on Wells Street and SoNo East on Blackhawk Street.

The Triangle's east edge, Wells Street, is a block from Lincoln Park, which the Chicago Park District runs along the lakefront from Ohio Street Beach north to Ardmore Avenue. The Chicago History Museum sits in the park at 1601 N. Clark, right at North Avenue. Keep heading east and you reach North Avenue Beach, with its blue-and-white, ship-shaped beach house and the Lakefront Trail along the shore. When the weather cooperates, your trainer can move the session outside for tempo runs, sand drills or core work on the grass.

If your trainer drives, check the signs on your block. On Residential Parking Zone streets during posted hours, a car needs either a City sticker showing the matching zone number or a daily guest permit. The City Clerk sells guest permits only to residents of an established zone, in sheets of 15 and up to 45 per household every 30 days. Each pass is valid for 24 hours from the date and time written on it in ink, and it goes in the lower passenger-side corner of the windshield. Keeping a sheet on hand makes a standing weekly session simpler.