Chicago Rock n Roll – Half Marathon

Day 2 of the weekend completes the Remix Challenge with a half marathon around downtown Chicago. Arrived in Grant park at 5:45 with plenty of time for the 6:30 kick off of the first corral. This year they placed me in corral 30, which I think they had a total of 38 corrals. They released the corrals pretty quickly, so my wait wasn’t too long.

They also made some changes with the course this year, which I think they did to accommodate the 10k running with us for a portion of the beginning of the course. Also they had us make a lot of turns in the downtown area, it kind of seemed that they did that to keep us in a lot of shade, because last year with the heat we were running a lot in areas where there were less shaded areas. This year it wouldn’t of mattered because it was overcast and it was pretty cool.  The breeze was helpful in keeping a pretty good pace.

For the first half of the course I felt really good, only stopping for a bathroom break and at the aid stations.  I saw Rick at several points along the course and he took really good pictures of me running the course. By mile 8 I started feeling drops of rain. It wasn’t bad until mile 9 it started drizzling then it started to downpour. By that time I crossed lake shore drive and was on the road headed to McCormick place. I started to hear thunder and then lightning. Some course marshals were announcing that there are thunderstorms above us and that shelter was just ahead.  I reached the shelter area which was the enclosed drive at McCormick place which was along stretch.  By the time I was at the end the thunderstorm passed, but it was still drizzling.

By the time we got on lake shore drive heading north it stopped raining, but running in soggy shoes was very uncomfortable and challenging. I took a bunch of walking breaks from mile 11 till the end.  To add to the challenge, my wireless earbuds cut out on me, so for the last couple of miles I was music less, soggy shoes and soaking wet from head to toe!  I finished in 2hrs 56min 3sec. I am happy with my finish time, with this race weekend I feel that I am back in my racing groove, and right on track with my training for the upcoming challenges.

Chicago Rock n Roll – 5k

Part one of the Rock n Roll Remix challenge was the 5k today.  The morning was a bit cool, but it warmed up quickly. We arrived at Grant Park at 6:30, plenty of time for the 7:30 start. I was  assigned corral 8, which the were not really strict about, there were a lot of people in the higher corrals in with ours. When our corral was about to start a lady in front of me turned to her friend and had a worried look and told her “I have to go to the bathroom” boy we have all been there.

They changed the route for the 5k from previous years, which turned out to be a better course.  We started on Columbus and went north up to Randolph. From Randolph we ran towards the lake, where we turned south and followed the lakefront path down to the museum campus. The route looped us back north.  With this route it had more tree cover and it had us finish right by the concert stage.

I finished in 34min 04sec.  I felt good running today and I beat my time from last year. Hopefully tomorrow we will have similar weather conditions and my legs will feel good as it did this morning.