Chi Town Half

First half of 2017 and this is one that I haven’t participated before so was looking forward to this one and they have interesting medals. The start was at Montrose Harbor and it the kick off was at 7:00. By the time we got there it was still a bit chilly but it was clear and it was supposed to get warmer.

I was placed in the green corral, which was the last group to go.  This was the first race that I ran that they did not have the national anthem before we started. The route stayed along the lake path. We ran north and it brought us up to the turnaround by Hollywood beach. We headed down south and when we got to Foster we cut through the underpass and ran around the park and went back through the underpass and continued south along the lake path.

We continued down and went along the eat side of Lincoln Park Zoo. Just before the end of the zoo we looped back and headed back north. We ran through the path right next to St. Joseph’s hospital which is my regular route. When we approached the finish they routed us through the bird sanctuary and then had us run through the Montrose park area to complete the 13.1 miles.

The course was good, it was flat and the weather was perfect for running. The only thing was that it was on a busy path and we had to share with other runners and bikers.  At least being in the slow pack I wasn’t with a big group. I finished the in 2hrs 41min 25sec. I tried doing intervals which worked pretty well. I did run 1 mile and walk 30 sec. I kept that through mile 9, bit started getting tired. Then after mile 12 I started getting a cramp in my left thigh. So I increased the intervals. But I felt that it was a good start and I will continue with the intervals.

Chicago Shamrock Shuffle

It’s my sixth time running this 8k Shuffle. . All week I have been nervous that the weather was going to be cold and rainy,  I’ve been checking every day hoping that the weather will change. Sure enough it did change for the better!

We arrived early enough to find parking and get in my corral. I was placed in corral G which was the second wave. The corral wasn’t released until 9:15.  The course was the same as previous years. We started on Columbus and ran up to Grand Ave.  From there we went south on State and went around the Loop area. When we arrived on Michigan Ave, I knew we were very close to the end. We turned on Roosevelt and then turned north on Columbus and saw the finish line.

I finished in 56 min 45 min. Which was better than my finish time last year. I almost achieved a PR but missed it By 44 seconds.  A good start to my 2017 running season.