Race Recap: Santa Hustle 5K!

And this is it: my last race recap of the year! My December event was just a little old 5K - a little old 5K with over 8000 runners in Santa/Christmas themed attire! Last Saturday I got out of bed before it was light out to head down to Soldier Field to meet up with my friend Ron, who you may remember from my April event - he ran the Ravenswood Run 5K with me. But today I was particularly honored to have him join me, because it was his birthday!

In our Santa shirts, hats and beards!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day for December - almost 60 degrees when we started at 9:00 am. I arrived a little too close to the start time, so we had to jump the fence of a corral that wasn't too crowded; we ended up with all the 9 minute mile folks. You've got to see it to understand the sea of Santas!

We headed south from Solider Field under McCormick place, and as we ran by I got a nice chocolate chip cookie from the cookie station. In addition to the traditional Gatorade and water stations, this race had cookie and candy stations! The race turned back north along the lakefront path right near 31st street, and we ran comfortably to just before the end, where Ron successfully out-sprinted me to the finish line. My time was 30:03.90 and Ron's was 30:03.23, so I guess he beat me by 67 hundredths of a second. I'll get you next time, Ron!

We grabbed our water and treats, and followed the crowd of people across the lawns until we stumbled upon...the reindeer pen. Yes! There were actually two live reindeer just hanging out and eating grass right there on the lake front. 

Reindeer!!!

It was a nice race, well-organized, not too crowded, and fun in that silly, kitschy sort of way. And we headed to brunch afterwards to celebrate Ron's birthday and the completion of all 12 of my events for the year. Woo-hoo! :)

Race Recap: Hot Chocolate 15K

This morning was the 11th event of my Year of Racing Slowly - the Hot Chocolate 15K.

You know how in life, some days are epic-ly awesome, and other days, you're just trudging through to get to the next day? Well, this race was the latter for me, unfortunately.

It all started with me coming down with a nasty sore throat on Friday night and feeling tired and sick all day Saturday - and then when I showed up at packet pickup at 3:30 pm, I had to stand in a HUGE line outside in the cold for over an hour and 15 minutes to even get inside the Expo tent, where more lines awaited me. This morning, 5:00 am came way too soon, but I pulled myself out of bed, took some DayQuil and got ready. But then Eliana woke up right before I had to leave and she had trouble with the quick transition and was sobbing and crying for me as I left through the front door, and I felt terrible about leaving her. Then as I walked down the street to the Red line I realized that with the scene at the door, I'd forgotten my phone, my chapstick, my credit card/cash and my energy chews - nothing absolutely necessary, but a bummer all the same. Luckily, I did have my CTA card, so I hurried towards the Jarvis stop - only to find that it was closed for construction. I came really, really close to just heading back home, but I am a bit stubborn, so I changed direction and walked to the Howard stop. Of course, the trains were running late, so by the time I finally got down to the start I had to hop a fence to get into my start corral. But I made it, and a nice lady took this picture of me and texted it to my phone at home so I'd have it.

Can you tell that I'm feeling tired and sick? :)

The actual run was crowded, but I liked the course - the south side of the lakefront path is one of my favorite areas in the city, and there was a beautiful view of some of the skyscrapers above the river as we came up onto Wacker from lower Lake Shore Drive just south of the river. I finished the 15 kilometers in 1 hour, 43 minutes and 37 seconds. The Hot Chocolate race is known, of course, for the hot cocoa and fondue that you get at the post-race party, but I was so anxious about getting home to Eliana that I just cut over to the Red line right after I crossed the finish line and skipped the whole post-race party thing.

The bright side (there is always a bright side, right?) was that I actually felt pretty good while running, that I beat my previous time by 2 minutes and 56 seconds (PR!), that Eliana was in a great mood when I got home and we had so much fun playing and watching the Bears game together and that in the evening I enjoyed some Ben & Jerry's Phish Food ice cream to make up for skipping the chocolate treats at the end of the race. All's well that ends well, right?

This afternoon I mailed in my registration for the final race of my Year of Racing Slowly - the Santa Hustle on December 1st! Email or call or message me if you'd like to join me!

Race Recap: Chicago Marathon!

Wow, wow, wow. I'm still flying high on the endorphins (yes, endorphins!) from Sunday's race.

At the end of the race, with my #1 fan. ;)

This year's experience was so totally different than my experience in 2006. I didn't train very well that year, and didn't truly understand how hard it would be. In 2006, by mile 20, I was so emotional that seeing a little girl cheering her heart out made me start sobbing; by mile 23, I couldn't really form coherent phrases anymore, and by mile 24 I would jog for 2 blocks only to fall back to walking a minute later. It was rough; the 2006 marathon broke me. I finished, in 5 hours, 37 minutes and 36 seconds, and I was proud of myself, but I was absolutely miserable and swore that I'd never do it again. My only claim to fame was that I managed to beat the oldest man to run that year (82 year old Arturo Guzman) by 2 minutes.

Fast forward to this year. I trained really well from May through the beginning of September, which is difficult enough with a baby/toddler...but then when I started working again, that's when it started to feel impossible to fit everything in. I skipped or shortened some midweek runs, only did 14 miles instead of the traditional 20 miles three weeks before the race, and then managed to injure my calve muscles so badly two weeks before the race that I had to take an entire week off of running. On Saturday, when I did a little 2 mile run just to warm up, I had a nasty cramp in my quad on my right leg. So when Sunday morning rolled around, I was truly unsure of my ability to finish.

But along with the nervousness was a fair amount of excitement, and I definitely felt such a huge wellspring of support from my friends and family...my brother Daniel drove in from Cincinnati for the race, we had a tasty carb-loading dinner from my Dad and Kathy (Wits End Catering, y'all! Check them out!), and so many friends wished me good luck via this blog, email and Facebook. So I crossed the starting line with a smile on my face. I first saw some familiar faces just past mile 4 in front of LaSalle Street Church, but was distressed when I ran up and tugged on the (unexpectedly) locked doors to the front of the church building, as I was planning on getting rid of all of the coffee/Gatorade/water I'd ingested that morning in their nice clean bathroom! Oh well. Savva was waiting for me just before mile 5, and he gave me a bite of bagel, some Chapstick, and a big hug before I tasked him with finding me some sunglasses (I'd dropped mine accidentally when taking off my sweatshirt while running) and then ran off. At mile 7.5 I saw a friend that I used to work with at Lake View, and then at mile 9.5 a family that I used to babysit for when their kids were little. High fives all around! Just past mile 10, there was Savva again, along with Lisa and Daniel. Check out the cool new sunglasses.

My peeps make the awesomest signs.

I was still feeling strong, eating a few Clif Shot Bloks (these sorta jelly gooey carb things) and walking through all the water/Gatorade stations for little breaks. Just after mile 14, I remembered why you're never supposed to wear gear that you haven't previously worn on a long run - my cold weather running tights were starting to chafe. And right then, at that moment that I realized that it was beginning to hurt, I looked up and saw on the side of the street...a man in a gorilla mask holding a pot of Vaseline out for the runners. Perfect! And strange.

I next saw my cheering crew at mile 16, and my legs and feet were definitely starting to hurt. I got some ibuprofen from Savva's magic backpack of necessary things, slapped a bandaid on one spot on my shoulder that was chafing, and set off again into the sea of people. In Pilsen, around mile 19, I came upon my Dad, Kathy and their beloved dogs waiting for me with a beef taco and some wonderfully warm and sweet coffee. Some may say that beef is not the ideal marathon food, but now I must respectfully disagree.

When I hit 20 miles with my mood still good, my thoughts still coherent, and my body merely aching rather than screaming in pain, I started to have this wonderful, incredulous but ecstatic feeling that I would actually be able to finish and it wouldn't be so so so bad!

Just before Chinatown, after mile 21, I saw Savva and Lisa again - Savva then headed to the finish and Lisa jumped in to run with me. We chatted, and I told her about some of the funny signs I'd seen: "I don't do marathons...I do a marthoner," "Hurry up, the Bears game starts at 3," "Worst Parade Ever" and "Go Wunners, Go!" with a picture of Homestar Runner. I was definitely getting pretty tired at this point, and ugh, it hurt, but Lisa kept me going to mile 23 when she jumped out and Daniel jumped in. This is tradition, now, as last time he also ran me in for the last three miles. The only difference was that last time I was going so slow that he just speed walked next to me, and this time he had to jog. He almost made it to the finish line, but just like last time he got kicked out before the turn onto Columbus because he didn't have a bib number.

So before I knew it, I spotted Savva on the sideline just 200 meters from the finish and gave him a huge hug and kiss before sprinting towards the finish line, grinning like a maniac. I did it!!!

At the end, I met up with Mom, and Danny again - here's a few pics:

With my beloved Mommy

And my awesome little bro

So I finished in 5 hours, 18 minutes and 55 seconds, improving my time from 2006 by over 18 minutes! I had to check, of course, how the oldest man did - this year, it was an 85 year old gentleman and he took 6 hours and 45 minutes, so I totally swept him and kept that particular win streak alive. Just out of curiosity, though, I then checked to see how the oldest woman did, and found this:

Yes, that's right - not only did the oldest woman to run yesterday finish about 50 minutes faster than me but 5 out of 10 of the women in the 70-74 year old age group beat me by at least 25 minutes! I guess I still have some work to do on my running. :)

All in all, it was an amazing day and I am so glad I did it, and I may even want to do it again! Thank you to all those who have supported me, whether by coming out to cheer, praying for me, getting me a card and an AWESOME Chicago Bears cookie (thanks, Latin colleagues!), or giving donations towards the nonprofits in the Year of Racing Slowly project. You are all appreciated so much!

I can't believe the marathon is TOMORROW!

Ahhhhhhh!!!

But I'm so excited. :)

Here's what I'll be wearing tomorrow, so if you're out spectating, please watch for me!

If I'm feeling warm!

If I'm freezing my ass off! :)

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!