The last race for the year was the Chicago International 5K, which has become a part of the Chicago Marathon weekend. I wasn’t going to run the marathon this year, and who knows if I will run another marathon again.
My friend from South Carolina was coming up to run the marathon, and he decided to run this one with me. Running a race with a friend is much more enjoyable and it also helps keep my pace.
The forecast called for rain, and sure enough it rained when we were travelling down to the start. They blocked off the start area so Rick dropped me off as close as he can, and again this was a weekend that there was a release at the Disney store for a limited edition item that I wanted, so he went to wait in line for the item. When I got dropped off it was still raining and there was thunder overhead.
I met up with my friend, Jason, at the Daley Center building and he informed me that the race was delayed by 15 minutes. So we were huddled with the other runners waiting for weather to lighten up. The rain wasn’t the issue…it was the thunder. Once we got the clear, we headed to the start. There wasn’t assigned corrals, so we just entered and waited with everyone else. The rain stopped and it started to warm up.
When they released us, we headed west on Washington Blvd. for a block and then turned right on Lasalle. We took another right on Lake street and got a glimpse of the Illinois State Building. We took a right on State Street and headed south. We stopped by the Chicago Theater and took a picture and then continued south to Jackson and took a right.
Here we passed the first mile marker and ran past the Sears Tower and took a left at Wacker Drive and followed that street to Harrison where we took another left heading east toward the lake. When we reached Michigan Ave we took a right and headed south to 11th street and looped around and went back north on Michigan Ave.
Once we arrived on Congress Parkway we took a right and saw the finish line. We continued through and finished in 36min 57sec. This was a fun one to run, it was like being part of the Marathon weekend without running the 26.2 miles!
Chad's Blog for Running, Disney & Movies 