Race Recap: Storm the Stadium

Solider Field, the day before the Bears vs Rams game

Yesterday (Saturday the 22nd) I headed out on a beautiful fall day for Storm the Stadium, my second stair climbing race of the year. This one was quite different than Hustle Up the Hancock - outside instead of inside, up and down instead of just up, and different sized stairs in each.

This is the first time that this event has been put on, and man, the organizers have a LOT of kinks to work out. After having done so many races this year, there are things that I have come to enjoy, and even rely on, like a cool race-specific tech shirt, signage and helpful volunteers to tell you where to go, Gatorade to guzzle when you get thirsty, a gear check to store your stuff while you're racing, and open bathrooms to use after you've drunk all that Gatorade. Storm the Stadium was missing all of this stuff!

Plus I'm almost positive that the friendly but clueless volunteer at the start screwed up the official timing; there was a chip reading mat at the start that he unplugged because he was annoyed with the beeping. But each beep is the confirmation that each person's unique chip has been recognized at the start - right before I started, a guy ran up and was working on it, but they had me start anyway. So we may never know my official time!

But the core race experience was actually really cool. We started at the bottom of the highest deck of seats, on the west side of the field where the stairs are really steep, and climbed up and down seven flights. At the top, the view was gorgeous, and I couldn't help but stop, catch my breath, and get a picture.

At the top! Gorgeous view of the lake.

Then I had to run down to the lowest level of seats on the east side of the field, and climb up and down all the really nice shallow stairs from the concourse to the edge of field, from one end zone to the other. And that was that!

If I ever manage to watch a Bears game from these seats,
I might pass out with joy. :)

Today, the day after, my calves are KILLING me. But I still went out and did my 12 mile run at 6:00 am, and the crazy thing was that my legs didn't hurt at all while I was running, but after I stopped ... ouch. Despite stretching and using The Stick to massage/roll out the muscles, now I can barely hobble around the room. Hopefully tomorrow will be better!

Look what came in the mail today!

Ahh! I'm really doing it!

I absolutely can't believe that the marathon is two weeks and two days away - the past month has flown by since I've been so busy with work. And my marathon training has suffered a bit in quantity, due to exhaustion and to simple lack of available daylight hours in which to run. But I'm confident that I'll be ready, come October 7th!

If you're planning on coming out to watch the marathon, please let me know, via email or phone or Facebook or whatever - I'd love to try to meet up with you while I'm running! Last time I did it, in 2006, through some luck and some planning I was able to see someone I knew every 3 miles, and that was super motivating (plus I was able to steal sips of all their various coffee drinks).

I'm officially on the "taper" part of the training, and am planning on doing 12 miles on Sunday morning. Almost there!

A New Race!

I'm excited to announce that for September, I've signed up for a new race - new for me, and new entirely because this is the first year it is being run. Storm the Stadium is a 3000 stair climb race in Soldier Field this coming Saturday, the 22nd of September - perfect for me because I really enjoyed the Hustle Up the Hancock race I did back in February, which was about 1600 stairs. Of course, I haven't done any stair climbing since February, but marathon training should count for something, right? :) Stay tuned for a post Saturday night to report on how it went!

August Training Recap

August 2012 Stats:

• 19 days working out

• 118.5 miles running

• 64 miles on the bike

• 44 laps in the pool and 1.75 miles in the lake

Wow, I seriously cannot believe I ran that many miles this month! So, from here on out, all of my races are running races, so it is definitely a relief to know that I don't have to work in any more swimming or biking or stair-climbing - I just have a singular focus on getting my miles in before October's Chicago Marathon!

If all goes according to plan, in September I'll run 17 days for a total of 128 miles and cross-train 5 days (but, in all likelihood, that cross-training just won't happen). But I am going to get those running miles in, come hell or high water! (The latter of which I may be experiencing in just a few minutes if I head out into this post-Isaac storm that promises to shower the Chicago area for the afternoon and evening.)