The dash offered a 5k 10k and half marathon, so there were a lot of participants this year. Also this year a lot of people I knew were running this run. My good friend Jo ran the 5k with his friend Christina and also Dinah, Shiela and DeLauna. The 10k runners included Evangeline and Dorinda, and the 1/2 marathon was myself, Dave, Chris and Sharon.
It was a very nice day for a run. It was much warmer than last year, so I was a little overdressed with my costume this year.
The race started at 8:00, not as early as other races and we got there early, even before they had everything set up. Nice thing about getting there early was that there were no lines to the bathroom.
There were no set corrals for this race, you basically lined up at the pace that you would run. We joined the 10 min mile. The course was the same as last year, so I was very familiar with the course.
As mentioned above it was a really nice day and the temperature went up to the 70’s. I wore my Mickey Mouse outfit that I wore last year, but with my half fanatics shirt. It got so warm that I had to take my base layer off halfway on the course. With my HF shirt I met another HF on the course and we chatted for a bit and found out that we both ran the Chicago Marathon. There was another potential HF that we traded notes on Facebook but didn’t find her in the beginning, hopefully she did well and qualified to be a HF.
I noticed this year that there were not that many aid stations and much less volunteers. At the aid stations they didn’t have enough volunteers that they had the water and Gatorade on the tables instead of people passing them out. Also there was another event happening by Soldier Field, it was a walk for breast cancer, so the path was filled with walkers and runners, and got really crowded. Once I got out of that crowded point it was close to the finish line. I finished at 2hrs 49min 20sec, still within my norm, I didn’t train took much this week because my left knee was still sore from the marathon, but I feel good with my results.
It was a great day for a run, I was glad to see Jo doing the 5k, it was Chris’s first half marathon, it was Chris and Dave’s birthday and it was my last half for 2014 and the 10th for the year.
I have a couple more runs lined up to finish up the year.
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