2012 Monster Dash

What a beautiful day for a run, sunny and in the low 60’s. I was worried because for the past few days it has been raining in Chicago. The weather started becoming nice on Saturday so I was very hopeful.

The Monster Dash was a fun run, mainly because a lot of people were in costume. You had a choice of running a 5k, 10k or a half marathon. I opted to do the half. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t make it with a costume, so we designed on that was lightweight and was warm enough.

Being a Disney freak, I decided to go as a running Mickey Mouse. I am pretty happy how it turned out. I didn’t get a chance to get judged on my costume because the line was very long and I wouldn’t be able to start at the gun time.

The race ran along the lakefront so there wasn’t a lot of cheerers along the course. But there a few and it really helped. It was pretty cool because you can tell that families come out to see the costumes. If you think about it it’s like a Halloween parade. There were a lot of great costume, but only took a picture with one, a guy in a Harry Potter outfit, another favorite character of mine.

My personal cheerer was there and he made me a really great poster, unfortunately I didn’t see it when I was running, but able to see it when I finished. I finished the race at 2hrs. 42min. 59sec. I did better than my last half. I m very pleased with this run.

Overall it was a fun race, although it was a little congested at the start and along the coarse up until we got to the main pathway. It was fun running with others in costume, and it had a nice insiders medal.

Happy Halloween!

Brisk morning for a Race

Today I participated in he AIDS Run & Walk. You could do a 10k or 5k run or a 5k walk. I did the 10k. The weather was perfect for a run, upper 50’s with minimal clouds.

The course started at soldier field, and went along the lakeshore path on to Hyde Park. I’ve never been on that path before, it is a very nice path with great views of the ok and the city skyline.

The race began with some comic and musical banter with Wanda Sykes and Michael Feinstein. Although I was really close I wasn’t able to take a picture with them. Once the blew the hon we were off. Since the course was along the path, there wasn’t that many cheerers along the course. I found that the cheering and signs really help you going and motivates you to go faster. They haven’t posted the official time, but according to my running app I finished in 1hr 10min 23 sec.

I tried something new for this run. I got a packet of KT tape at the Disneyland expo. I taped my feet for my plantar fasciitis, it seemed to work well. I wanted to try it before I do a long race, I think I will do it for my next race in October the Monster Dash half marathon.

The post race activities included a dance performance by the Chicago Gay Cowboys, singers and viewing of a portion of the quilt. What was missing were the bananas. Overall it was a good race and I would do this one again.

Update: they posted the times. I finished at 1hr. 8min. 40sec.