Sixth year running this course and even though it is the same course it still one of the ones that I will continue to participate. It’s always on Memorial Day weekend and has a great charity that it donates to. You get to run along the south lakeside path and start and finish inside Soldier Field.
This is the first time our puppy Megs was able to come to one of my races and cheer me on. We got there fairly early, but was stuck in the line to get into the parking structure. It was ok because we had plenty of time to walk around and get myself to my corral. This year they placed me in corral M, probably due to my time last year. I didn’t train at all since the Shamrock Shuffle, so I wasn’t expecting in breaking any records on this run.
In recent years they have been staging the starting corrals inside the stadium. The higher letter corrals are first organized in the stands and are let out to the ground floor once the early corrals are let out. It didn’t take them long to send us out. They lead us out of the stadium and out to the street, where I saw Megs and Rick waiting. I waved and continued with the group of people.
We ran south and went through the McCormick Place corridor and routed us to Lake Shore Drive where we remained on there for a couple of miles. We were then routed to the lake shore path and came upon the turnaround just before mile 5. The temperature started to get warmer and it shade started to become scarce. After mile 7 I started taking longer walking breaks and enjoyed the lake views and the Chicago skyline.
As I approached the stadium, I texted Rick to tell him where I was so that he and Megs can be aware that I was coming soon. They greeted me just before I took the last turn into the stadium. She was so excited that she tried to follow me to the finish, but Rick held her back.
I finished in 2hrs 35min 16sec. I met Rick and Megs outside the stadium and she seemed to of had a fun time. It turned out to be a nice day, and it was a great way to start our Memorial day weekend.
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