I found this race when I was looking at the dates for the Chicago Half Marathon. When I did my search I saw that they made a Chicago series which you would get an extra medal. There were 2 types of challenges. The first one is run 2 in the series and get a 26.1 medal and the second one was run all three in the series and receive a 36.3 medal. Guess which one I decided to do. Yup all three.
The course followed the lakefront path starting be Randolph and the Lake and finished at a park that I didn’t know existed!
Before the race I met up with a fellow running buddy that we connected through Facebook and Instagram, also we have a mutual acquaintance Dave Mari. As Bryan said…who doesn’t know Dave Mari…he seems to be everywhere in racing, and I still can’t believe I bump into him at the races that we are both at along the course or at the expo. It was nice to finally meet Bryan in person.
The race started at 7:00 AM, but I was in corral H so we didn’t start right away. It was a very brisk morning and I couldn’t wait to start running to get warm. Once we started, the sun started coming out and the wind slowed down, so it became the perfect weather for running.
Along the course I found a fellow half fanatic that I met down in Springfield at the Lincoln Presidential Half. It was nice to see Dawn. She wasn’t wearing her HF shirt, but I noticed her because of the blue flower in her hair.
I felt good running this course, although I had to take a couple bathroom breaks. FYI if you are running and you need to use the bathroom please lock the door, I had quite a surprise at the last bathroom stop!
Since this race was along the lake path, there were not that many cheerers to keep us going, so thank you to the volunteers for their encouragement and water/Gatorade! Also they had a few bands along the way. The one I really enjoyed was the Chinese Drum band.
I finished the race at 2hrs 36min 58sec. I did better than my time at Springfield. The after party was well planned, they had a breakfast for the runners and a bunch of booths, including a booth to engrave your medal. I also found a couple of HF that also live in the city.
This was a fun race, and it also offers a 10k that has a medal, so all you runners you can either do the half or 10k next year!
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