Chicago Get Lucky Triple 7

Through the cold wind, rain and snow I finished it!

This is the first half marathon for 2013. This is part of the Team Ortho series and wanted to do it to add the medal to my collection.

This race offered a 7k or triple 7k (1/2 marathon). Since I predicted that I would be in full swing in my training the 1/2 would be ok to do. Sure enough I was prepared to complete it.

I’ve been concerned about the weather and watched the weather throughout the week. As with Chicago weather it would be nice one day and then change. Saturday came and it was overcast and misty, I thought it wasn’t too bad.

We arrived at soldier field and boy did the wind pick up! We walked around just to keep warm. Finally they announced to line up because the race was about to start. Then we were off!

When running south along the lake it wasn’t too bad, it was just cold. When I got to the turnaround and started running north the wind picked up and it was really cold, first it started to drizzle, which wasn’t too bad. Then the rain started to hurt, then I realized that it was snowing! That’s when it started to get miserable. At that point I really wanted to finish it and soon!

When I got to the 11 mile mark I just kept telling myself 3 more miles. The one thing I didn’t like about this course was there wasn’t that many cheerers along the course. Usually at the end I get motivated by the cheerers to push ahead, so this was a challenge to finish the last few miles. When I passed the 13 mi mark I knew I was almost done and pushed myself and crossed the finish line.

My official time was 2hrs 42min 26sec. Overall did pretty good considering I was miserable for most of the last half of the race! It felt so good getting that medal! After that, all I wanted to do was get in the car and get some food and something hot to drink!

Till next month when I run the RunAbe 1/2 marathon down in Springfield and the Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago…all in the same weekend!