Chicago Rock n Roll Half Marathon

The half marathon started an hour earlier than the previous day’s 5k, so we had to get up really early to travel down to the start area. This is the first half marathon that I did travelling from our new home in the north side of Chicago. We had to decide either to take the train from our location that would take us about an hour to travel, or drive down to the Belmont stop that would take us down to the start in about 20 min. We decided to drive to Belmont.

By the time we got to the start area, I took my usual picture at the start and then gear checked my items. And of course I had to take one last bathroom stop before going into my corral. As usual the line was super long, and by the time I was next in line they already started releasing the corrals. My corral was towards the back so I did not worry…too much.

I made it to my corral just as they started moving the 2nd wave towards the starting line. I did get to see the woman that dressed up as a Starbuck cup last year, this year she was dressed up as the Art Institute. I knew it was her because she had 2 green lions on her shoulders.

This is my sixth year running this race, and I like the changes that they did to the course. In the past couple of years they have been keeping us close to the Loop area, which is nice because you get to see more of the buildings and landmarks of the city, i.e. The Picasso at the Daley Center, the Chicago Theater, Union Station just to name a few. This year they routed us by where I work and along that street there was a long line of people holding the U.S. Flag in memory of veterans that have passed away.

Once we maneuvered through the Loop we exited the area when we turned right at Michigan Ave and went south down to 31st Street. Just before we arrived at Martin Luther King Drive they set up the guitar man which marked the 9th mile of the course, so only 4 more miles to go. We turned left on MLK drive and turned back around and went back down MLK drive and turned again on 31st street.

We crossed over Lake Shore Drive and turned left onto the street headed towards McCormick Place. Just before arrived at McCormick they had the sponge station. On a hot day that station is most welcomed. Today wasn’t as humid as in the past, but it was still a welcoming station! We ran through the McCormick Place corridor, which you needed to watch where you ran because it had a lot of holes. Towards the end of the corridor they had a DJ with a light show, then we were back out in the open.

We ran up to 18th Drive/Museum Campus Drive and took a left and then entered the southbound shoulder of Lake Shore Drive for the last stretch of the run. We exited Lake Shore Drive and made our way north on Columbus Drive and the finish was in sight. I finished in 2hrs 36min 28sec. The weather was way much better than it was in the past and they had more aid stations towards the end of the race which was a nice addition. Also, I am glad that they switched from passing out the GU packets and instead gave these liquid energy packets that had the consistency of juice.

I knew a few people that ran this race with me, but I did not see them this year. I hope they had a good race and hopefully see them in the upcoming races.

Chicago Rock n Roll 5k

They streamed lined the course this year, and I liked it, except for the areas where there needs to be some paving work to get rid of the crack and ditches, but otherwise I liked the new course. We started off on Columbus and ran south until we veered left to head towards the museum campus. When we got to the bridge where we ran underneath lake shore drive we shared the path with the oncoming runners, so we had to make sure that we stayed to the right. At that point I saw the leader of the race and he was hoofing it.

We ran towards the lake and then started running north along the lakefront trail. Once we were close to Balbo that is when the ground was full of cracks and ditches and I had to make sure of my footing so that I don’t trip. When we went just past Jackson they had us loop back and we started to run south towards the museum campus again.

This time I was on the other side of the shared path and I saw that there were a lot of people coming towards me and knew that I had a good pace for this one. We then merged with the sidewalk next to Lake Shore Drive and was heading towards the end of the race.

When we reached Jackson we took our final left and the finish line was in sight. I kicked it up a bit and finished the race in 32min 37sec. Again, this is the first part of the Remix Challenge for this series, I just have to do this one again tomorrow, just 3x longer!