Race Bib

STATE #4

I decided on this race in Chicago because I had the itch to fly again, use my medallion status and rack up a few extra miles before the Sky Mile changes all but box me out from Silver status starting next February thanks to their new $2500 spending rules.  Plus I was interested in doing a summer run but preferably in a cooler climate.  I had a feeling that it would be cooler than normal for the midwest especially since it took forever for the ice to melt completely off the lakes.

Chicago

Well, it worked.  When I arrived in Chicago the day before, it was much cooler than I expected.  It must have been about 72, dry as could be, with a breeze.  It had been about 52 or so the night before.  Good lord, you couldn’t beat the weather!  When I left New Orleans, it was about 75 and thunderstorms, at 6am.  At noon in Chicago, it was sunny and 72.  It probably didn’t warm up much in New Orleans that day but it stormed most of the day and the humidity obviously 100%.  When I returned, it was well into the 90s.  Needless to say, there aren’t many (if any) large races in south Louisiana during the summer.  This is why we go to places like Chicago.  🙂

Metra Commuter Train

I had it planned on how to get to the expo at McCormick Center without a taxi since it is a pretty long walk south of the Loop but short enough that I wanted to walk it back and see the lakefront and Shedd Aquarium.  I was told to get on a particular train, as it was the last one for an hour.  However, this particular train ended up not stopping at McCormick.  I didn’t realize that until we had passed it and the train conductor came by asking for tickets.  I had a one zone ticket obviously because he looked at it, looked at me and asked where I was going.  I told him “McCormick” and he said this train wasn’t going to McCormick.  Oh well.  The guy in the ticket office had no clue I guess.  Luckily, the conductor opted not to punch my ticket and told me to get off at the next stop, reverse direction and that train WOULD be stopping at McCormick.  So I got off around 55th Street, reversed direction and got off at McCormick.  It was still a win because even though I had to go extra distance and come back, it still only took me about 20 minutes, and I cheated the fare (accidently of course).  This was much better than waiting another 40 minutes for the actual next train or walking there, or paying $20 for a taxi.

The expo was set up and organized well.  Getting in and getting the packet was easy.  I will add that I loved the tech shirts that they gave out, easily one of my favorite shirts now.  The bag was really nice also.  Unfortunately the bag only says “Marathon Series” and nothing directly related to Chicago.  I did run across a booth for St. Jude and their series of races besides the big marathon they do in Nashville.  I didn’t realize that St. Jude was directly involved with so many races.  The lady in the booth pulled up a website and the list was really long, of large races.  I knew of Memphis and Nashville, and I told her that we had just had a small little local 5K in Baton Rouge although it was for St. Jude.  She said they were a part of the Dirty South race in Monroe also.  I’ll definitely have to keep this in mind for future runs.

Ok, race day.  No sense in dragging out this recap forever about little things.  😉

Starting Area

It was about six blocks from my hotel near the Sears Tower (I still can’t get used to saying ‘Willis Tower’.  They aren’t even the main tenants right?  Isn’t it United Airlines now?  Maybe they should call it the United Airlines Tower.)  I do enjoy the sight of watching hundreds upon hundreds of runners merging together from various blocks of downtown at 5:30am into one steady stream heading to the starting line.  It’s a pretty exciting sight.  I saw it in Philly for the first time and it was just an awesome feeling.  Everyone coming from the Loop area was heading towards Grant Park where there were some 37 corrals.  At first this seemed pretty ridiculous.  Why 37?  It would take forever to get through the start line.  But they weren’t very large corrals and they lined them up to start about every minute or so after releasing the first few, so it really didn’t take that long.  I think it ended up taking me about 40 minutes which is about what I expected.  I was in corral 30.  Yep, slow time for sure.  Haha.  And the weather really was great, but I did notice a considerable rise in the humidity between Saturday and Sunday morning.

Go!!!

Mile 1

Ok, now’s a good time to admit that my ‘training’ for this race was by far my worst.  I wasn’t expecting much.  I knew going into this that I wouldn’t PR.  I never got passed 8 miles on any of my training runs due to various little reasons but ultimately due to laziness (I’ll admit), so I knew I was going to be struggling after the 10K mark.  But for the first mile, I felt pretty darn good.  We ran a course around downtown Chicago, to Lakeshore Drive, back along the Chicago River, across to the north but then back across to the Loop.  There ended up being a lot of turns in the downtown portion of the course.  There were also a lot of tunnels.  This really screwed up my GPS, but I read from previous blogs that this could be an issue and was expecting it.  I think my GPS was off by nearly a mile by the 10K mark because of downtown.  This is why my watch ended up reading about 14.5 miles at the finish.  Oh well; it’s part of it.

Mile 6 Band

I actually ran the first 10K not much slower than my norm.  I ran the first 5K in 34 mins and the 10K in 72.  I stayed on pace with the 2:30 group for much longer than I was expecting, but it was still probably much faster than I really needed to go with my lack of preparation.  As a positive note, I am getting more used to the 10K distance now.  I’m also getting used to running 8 miles as that seems to be my favorite stopping point.  (It’s one of those things where 8 miles is a perfect distance where I usually run and to add even 4 more usually seems like a pain, or redundant with the loops I do, but I’m just going to have to suck it up and press on in the future.)

McCormick Tunnel

Now, for being a Rock n Roll race, there wasn’t a whole lot of rock n roll.  I don’t think we came across our first band until into Mile 6.  There was a stage set up with jugglers or circus performers of some sort somewhere around Mile 4 which seemed odd, but I didn’t really see most of them anyway because I was running on the opposite side of the street.  However, the lady singing at Mile 6 was really good.  She was singing Feels Like the First Time – Foreigner.  I thought her music was by far the rockin-rolliest of all the groups out there.  I would also like to add, concerning the first third or so of this race, crossing some of those bridges can be really trippy if you look down.  Most of them have steel grates, which is actually really common in south Louisiana also with our drawbridges, but we don’t usually run across them.  So when I got to the first one, made the corner and saw people jumping up onto the curbed walk path, and then looked down… I immediately understood why.  I had a weird sense of vertigo on the first bridge.  I quickly jumped up on the curbed sidewalk also.  After that, I just never looked down.  Problem solved.

Mile 8ish

As for the back half, well… somewhere from around Miles 7-10 got really boring.  The course left downtown and the scenery became more lackluster.  There still really weren’t any bands playing.  There was one playing something folksy but he was in between songs as I ran by.  Then there was a set of drummers, which I ran passed a set in Philadelphia and they were really awesome.  I appreciated this group, but it just didn’t fit for me this time.  There was a Santa Clause (Christmas in July?).  Then after we ran down the opposite lanes of Lakeshore Drive before crossing over a lawn to the walking path, there was another sort of roadside band playing Barefootin.  I did appreciate them being there.  They deserve that much credit.  But I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t just a little boring.  I was walking much more in this stretch too, so the lack of scenery really didn’t help here.  There was more sun in places so I felt hotter and there just wasn’t enough to distract me.  Someone else made a comment about had they known there wasn’t going to be much of any music, they would have brought their own.  I think I would agree.  But looking back on this course and set up a week later, it really wasn’t as bad as I guess it could have been.

Final Stretch

Miles 11 & 12, personally my favorite.  This stretch on the walking path really was a Love or Hate deal.  Some people hated the walking path.  Turns out that there were still a few bikers and other people trying to do their normal morning routine and had to deal with racers blocking them.  Then there was the tunnel at McCormick.  No, not really the brightest idea I’d have to say.  Was there no way around it, like continued along the walking path?  And then there was the music.  I read several posts from people hating the music.  Yes, I’m biased.  I love EDM music.  And I thought that the DJ here, along with the set up was near about perfect!  They had speakers set up in various spots all along about a two mile stretch of this walking path, and the DJ himself was set up above yet another tunnel (albeit a shorter tunnel) around Mile 11.  So the idea of having nearly continuous high energy music pumped directly to me for nearly two miles was a godsend.  Granted, he may not have been playing EDM the entire time (from what I’ve read), but he was going pretty good by the time I got there.  By far, this was my favorite portion of the course.  Include an ice cold sponge bath and… Yes, my favorite portion of the course.  This really did make up for the dullness a few miles back.  Now all I had to do was actually finish.  A benefit here was having the 2:45 pace group catch me along this stretch.  They were a lot of fun and actually ran at a really good pace that I felt like I could keep up with and did keep up with until about that last water/sponge stop.  Then I think I got more focused on my sponge than actually keeping up with anybody.  Haha.

Willis Tower

The last mile was getting just a tad bit boring again, if it hadn’t been for looking directly at the Chicago skyline as we made our way towards the finish in Grant Park.  There was some ups and downs from Lakeshore Drive exit ramps that we had to go along.  (Speaking of hills, there was only one real pain in the butt uphill to cross a bridge coming back from the north to the Loop, but otherwise there were no real hills on this course.  I guess it was a little steeper than I expected.)  There was one final band playing just before the finish.  I’m not sure why at that spot unless they were meant to entertain some of the crowd at that point too, but the singer there was really good too.  (About the crowds, overall I found them to be pretty light, lighter than expected.  In most places I nearly found them nonexistent.)  Philadelphia still gets an A+ for their crowds.

So anyway, just under three hours later and I drag my ass across the finish line.  Good thing too because I was just starting to burn a bit from the sun.  I guess I’ll need to remember some sunscreen next time.  Now that I think about it, out of the four halfs I’ve done, this one probably had the most sunlight.  Philly was cloudy, Little Rock was icy, Kansas City was stormy.  I’ll need to make a mental note about the sunscreen.

Medal

Post race was excellent really.  I thought the medals were pretty awesome actually.  A+ on the medals and t-shirts.  A+ on drinks and wet towels afterwards, and sponges on the course, although I’d have to say B- as far as water/gatorade while on the course (not as well organized especially along the last couple of miles, but awesome volunteers, Thanks!).  I was somewhat disappointed about the lack of music for a majority of the event, but there were some shining stars among the course.  Cold War Kids was playing on the main stage after the race.  I like some of their music, but I didn’t stay.  I was more tired than I thought I’d be and I like nothing more after a long run than a cold shower.  If I had to drive back an hour or so, I would have stayed longer (disadvantage of staying in a hotel close by).  If there’s a cold shower waiting for me within walking distance, I’m heading to it.  So I staggered on back to the hotel, cleaned up, and then continued with some touring by visiting the Sears Tower (there’s that Willis thing again) and then on to the Magnificent Mile.

All things considered, I thought this was a great race.  Not my best course time (third, barely beating the time I walked through icy Little Rock), but great setting.  From what I’ve read about Rock n Roll races, I think this one lived up to its reputation as a good one.  Not to mention, of all the Chicago races there are, this is one of the few that actually runs on downtown streets which I certainly prefer, especially when you have 16,000+ people running all together.

I have signed up for the Jazz Half in New Orleans this November.  Time to cross off the home state.  I want to do the Louisiana Half Marathon (and may yet), but that race is getting to be really expensive already.  Wow!  Perhaps I’ll just run the 5K there.  The Jazz was barely half the price.  Plus I don’t think you can beat running down St. Charles Avenue Uptown.  I’m also contemplating going to Nashville in October, another cheap half marathon.  But I haven’t committed yet.  This would give me five for the year which would easily keep me on goal for all 50 by age 50, maybe even all 50 within 10 years although I do anticipate it getting harder to get to far away states at my convenience.

Stay cool the remainder of the summer (of course this applies for south Louisiana people and perhaps not so much for Chicago people, haha), and perhaps I’ll see you in Nashville in a few months.

Race: Rock and Roll Half Marathon – Chicago

Date: July 20, 2014, 6:30AM

Place: Downtown Chicago, Illinois

Time: 2:50:14