#racereport Rock n Roll Chicago 10k

Photo-heavy post because that's how I feel like rolling on this one.  You're welcome.

After last year's very tough RnR Chicago Half Marathon (in which I ran 18 miles training for Detroit), I said I would never do another RnR event.  I wasn't impressed with the bands at all and I didn't feel like it was worth the cash.  However, the opportunity to see my friend, Renee (who now lives in the Netherlands), was a very good reason to never say never and sign up for the 10k

Renee and I met up at the expo. Decent expo and I drove a Toyota for a $10 gift card, which I used to buy a pint glass.

Love the shirt.

 After walking around the expo for a bit, Renee and I headed to our hotel and I set out Flat Bari.

 We stayed the the Congress Hotel, which I would highly recommend for any races starting or finishing at the north end of Grant Park.  Literally only a few blocks from the start/finish for the Half.  I had a mile walk to the 10k start line down Michigan Avenue.

Took the stairs because the elevator was "busy".

 Renee's friend, Becky, also came into town to run the half marathon and hang out with Renee.  She was a riot and we may have been a little slap-happy by the time we finally got ready for bed. (Note-I recommend packing your own breakfast for races like this.  The girls really wanted bagels and we had to hit about 4 or 5 places before we found any at 9pm at night.)

As usual, I slept very little before the race and was up extremely early.  The temps were already AWFUL with a dew point of 72*.

 We got up and got ready, then took an obligatory, pre-race blurry picture.  Renee and Becky needed to get to their start and I headed south to mine.

 The sunrise over Grant Park could not have been any more beautiful.  It almost made getting up at 4am worth it.

I'll be honest, seeing how tiny the starting corral was really shook me up.  I was very concerned that hardly any people were running and I was going to end up DFL.  Turns out it was really small but I did pretty well considering how hot it was.

 I was in a port-a-potty line 3 minutes before the start, so I jumped back out and self-seeded myself in the 2nd wave.  There were 3 waves and they went off about a minute apart.  Easy peasy.  Luckily, there was no line at the potties about 1/2 a mile in so I stopped to pee.

This was the only picture I took and it was around the 2.5 mile mark.  I was completely drenched in sweat and was stopping at every water station to drink and dump water on myself.  I couldn't even operate my phone so I kept it tucked away.

 I finished in 1:10:05.  I was hoping for 1:15 with how hot and humid it was, so I'm happy with this time.  The best part was finishing 46/167 in my age group.  I'm not sure I've ever finished that high, so clearly the heat really affected the runners.

One of the best parts of the day was the afterparty.  Last year, the band sucked and I didn't stick around.  This year they brought in Andy Grammar and he put on a great, hour-long show.  I was there early enough (thanks to running the 10k instead of the half) to get about 15-20 feet from the stage.  

Super fun weekend with lots of awesome girl time and a great concert.  Not too shabby.

Did you race this past weekend?

Three Things Thursday: I said I wouldn't race...

Yep, awhile back I said I was taking time off from racing to get my twins off to college in the fall.  Well, best laid plans and all...

I somehow managed to get three races on my schedule for this summer.  Now, running in the summer can be frustrating at best and downright awful at worst, so I have no goals for these races other than to go have fun.

1.  Rock N Roll Chicago 10k - After last year's negative experience running the RnR Chicago Half Marathon, I decided I would never do another RnR race.  Too much hype, too much money, and not enough bang for the buck.  Plus, this one is in July in Chicago and it's like running on the surface of the sun.  That being said, when my friend Renee told me she was coming from the Netherlands to run, I couldn't let the opportunity pass by to see her.  I'm not in half marathon shape, so I registered for the 10k.  If you are going to be in Chicago July 18-19, let me know and we can try to get together!  Rumor has it, Meb will be there!!

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2.  Meijer LPGA Classic 5k - A week or two ago, I was approached by the good folks at Meijer regarding joining a team of 10 bloggers to run the 5k associated with the Meijer LPGA Classic at Blythefield Country Club.  Meijer, Kraft and Gazelle Sports have teamed together with Kellogg's to support food pantries in the Midwest through Simply Give and this even is one of their major fundraisers.  The race is on July 25 in Rockford, Michigan as part of the LPGA Classic weekend (July 21-26, 2015).  As part of the event, I will also be attending the final round on Sunday, July 26th where I will get to watch some of the best women golfers in the world and then share my experience with all of you.  Maybe I'll even be inspired to take up golf!  If you are local to the West Michigan area, I strongly encourage you to come out and support our community through this great event.  As part of your race entry, you will also receive 2 tickets to the tournament.

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3.  Labor Day Bridge Run - On September 7, I get to check off a major item on my bucket list.  I'll be running 5 miles across the Mackinac Bridge from St. Ignace to Mackinaw City.  This race is open by lottery and even though I said I'd never enter a lottery for a race, I threw my name in for this one.  Somehow I actually got in.  After confirmations were received, the race was opened for the general public and as of today, there were still spots available to run (they limit this to 500 people) so if you are interested, click the link and get registered.  If you need a place to stay, let me know and I'll see what I can do to help.  Following the run, there is a community walk across the bridge which is open to anyone so it would make a great family getaway if you can swing it.  If you are running or walking, please let me know!  I'd love to say "Hi".  I still can't believe I get to run over this beautiful bridge!

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There you have it...a lesson learned to never say never.  Here I went into the summer saying I was taking time off from races and now I'm running three in the next couple months.

Are you racing this summer?  Any races on your bucket list?

Rock n Roll Chicago Half Marathon #racereport #rnrchi

So I ran this "little" half marathon yesterday - the Rock N Roll Half in Chicago as part of my weekend 18 mile long run for Detroit Marathon training.  I had won a free entry from Megan and managed to convince my almost 17 year old daughter to make it a girl's weekend and run the 5k. The promise of bling is what got her (she is her mother's daughter after all).

*warning - this post is picture heavy and will be a bit long, kind of like the 18 mile training run. You might want to grab the beverage of your choice*

The Expo

The expo was held at McCormick Place - a huge convention center on the lake.  My twitter/DailyMile friend, Angie M, was staying with us, so we hooked up with her when we got into town and grabbed lunch. Since we were staying a few miles north, we navigated the CTA bus to get there.  You had to walk about 3 miles inside McCormick to get to the expo (we joked they should've held the 5k there in the AC, running back and forth down the massive halls).  The expo was quite large, with all the usual booths. We spun some wheels for giveaways, collected water bottles and chapstick. Crap like that.

Obligatory staged finish line picture with my girl.

We were just walking around the expo, checking things out, and then this happened....

OMG that's Dorothy Beal!

Dorothy Beal (aka @mileposts) noticed my I Run The Body shirt and waved me over.  She asked to take a picture with me :)  Talk about fan girl freak out.  She was super sweet and very adorable, and even commented on my instagram of the picture.  Definitely the highlight of the expo for me.  We left after walking around for an hour or so, and then did more walking.  My girl wanted to walk to Navy Pier and then we walked some more to find dinner.  For the record - I do not recommend this the day before running 18 miles.  Luckily, our bus passes got us the almost 2 miles back to our hotel in time for light's out at 9:00.  

Sun starting to go down behind the skyline.

Race Day

Angie and I got up at the butt crack of dawn (actually 3:45 is much earlier than the butt crack) to run 5 miles before the half marathon.  Let me tell you, there are a lot of very interesting people on the streets of Chicago at 4:30 in the morning.  I think my favorites were a really stoned guy without shoes on asking if he could run with us and the 2 girls doing their walk of shame and one commenting "OMG, they are already out running".  Yep.  We are badass like that.

5.13 miles along Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive in 56:47 (11:04 pace).  Being bad bloggers, Angie and I did not take a post 5 miler selfie.

We got back to the hotel and I helped Kaylee get ready for her 5k.  Then we walked the couple blocks to the starting line. (Note - if you plan to run this race, the Congress Plaza Hotel, while being the #1 most haunted place in Chicago, was ideal from a location standpoint.)

Beautiful sunrise over Grant Park.

Awake and ready to go!

There were 36 corrals, which is simply insane.  Kaylee was in 17 and Angie in 16, so hugs and off they went while I joined the mid-pack people in corral 21.  It took almost 30 full minutes for my corral to get to the starting line with the wave start format, and even with that it was still pretty congested.  

Once I finally started (remember it's been about 90 min since I finished the first 5 miles) it took awhile for my legs to want to get going.  I had decided to run 5 minutes/walk 1 minute for the 13.1 but in the first 2 miles I just ran to try and get away from the crowds.  I was also a little pissed to see how many people from corrals 34, 35, 36 had already started as I passed them in the first mile (you could tell corral by the first numbers on their bibs).  I get that had they started in their actual corrals they probably would not have made the cutoff times, but really? What's the point of having corrals if they aren't enforced?  

Chicago Theater and the "L".

Saw my girl with her bling outside of our hotel at mile 6.

The race snaked around downtown for about 7 miles and then headed south to Bronzeville and out to the lakeshore.  For a Rock N Roll race, it was very quiet.  There were some pockets of great spectators but there really wasn't any on-course entertainment until after mile 5.  I think there were some magicians or something before that.  The bands were all really good but you only saw them for about 5 seconds as you ran by.

I was very happy to see the water around mile 10.

We ran through the underground tunnels at McCormick Place, where I saw one girl fall (it's very dark) and my Garmin got all screwed up.

Fun inflatable outside McCormick's tunnel.

I was sad that we didn't stay along the lakeshore longer, but the lake trail does move back toward the city just south of Soldier Field. The trail was also very congested with walkers at this point and I was trying not to piss people off when I would pass them to run and then do my walk breaks.  (The run/walk experience should be it's own blog post.)

Sun's out/Guns out! Soldier Field is just beyond the trees.

I had managed to drink about 60 oz of Nuun/water during the course of the 18 miles.  I even stopped a couple times to refill my bottles during the race and I'm glad I remembered to bring an extra Nuun tablet with me. The heat and humidity really kicked my ass and I was getting discouraged.  I was also mentally DONE at about mile 8 during the race (mile 13 for my run) so knowing I could walk every 5 minutes became a lifesaver.

Done!

I finished the half in 2:34:48, which was an 11:49 pace average and as races go, one of my worst.  Over the course of the 18 miles, I averaged an 11:36 pace, which was a little bit slower than my prescribed training pace (I was supposed to run 18 at an 11:29 average).  Considering the heat and humidity, I need to just be ok with this.

Finish Festival

There was the usual assortment of gluten-laden items at the finish line, so I grabbed a banana and a chocolate milk.  The ice-cold wet washcloths were heavenly and a very nice touch. (There had been wet sponges around mile 11, too, which was awesome.)  I met up with Kaylee and Angie and we hung out in the Westin VIP tent for awhile (Angie had scored us passes).

Neither Angie nor I wanted to fight the lines for Michelob Ultra (and Kaylee wouldn't have been able to get into the beer tent area anyway) so we held off on beer until lunch.  Before we left, I had to get a picture with these guys though.  They had been on the course and were actually really funny and super enthusiastic.

Stilt guys!

Overall Impressions

Honestly, I was disappointed in the race itself (not my run but the overall race) and unless I scored another free entry I would not run this one again.  I had really high hopes for Rock n Roll but I thought it was kind of boring.  There weren't enough bands/entertainment for all the hype and while the course was ok, after awhile the city all just kind of blurs together (this coming from someone who really loves Chicago and running in the city).  The HM race shirt is nice but the 5k shirts were unisex.  Had I know this, I would've gotten Kaylee and XS because the small is really big on her.  The medals are really cool, though, and bling definitely matters.  My girl managed to PR her 5k by almost 3 minutes, but said it was very congested for the entire 3.1 miles and it made it hard for her to hit the goal she really wanted.  I'm still super proud of her for getting outside her comfort zone and racing.

It's not a Chicago race unless there is a bling pic in front of The Bean.

Did you race this weekend?  Have you ever run Rock n Roll Chicago?

Friday 5: #rnrchi indecisiveness

This weekend's 18 mile long run will be done in conjunction with the Rock n Roll Chicago Half Marathon. I've never done a Rock n Roll race so I'm really excited for that piece.

The other 5 miles?  Not so much.

The past couple days have been punctuated by indecisiveness.  It's kind of gone like this..

1.  It's going to be hot so I'm going to wear my usual Athleta running skort.

2.  Every time I wear those skorts I chafe in some nasty areas, so I guess I'll wear capris and suck it up in the heat.

3. If I wear capris, that means I get to sparkle!

Pretty sure this is flat Bari - ignore the unmade bed.

4.  Should I run with music or just have fun with the on-course entertainment?

5. Who am I kidding? I'm not running 18 miles without music.  I even figured out a way to wear my shuffle that doesn't bother me or make my headphones fall out!

Ignore the sweaty post-run nastiness.  Note to self-don't forget the sunscreen.

Are you running Rock n Roll Chicago?  Want to join me for an extra 5 miles at 4:30 am?  Seriously. If you do, message or tweet me and I'll let you know where a few of us are meeting up!

Motivation Monday: Ready to Rock 'n' Roll

Last week I hinted at finally registering for a race.  I'm starting to see some improvements in my injuries and I'm feeling ready to tackle some distance again.  Here's my fun news!

I won an entry into the 2014 Rock 'n' Roll Chicago 1/2 Marathon from Megan at I Run For Wine!

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I hadn't planned on running a 1/2 this spring or summer but free was just too good to pass up.  To make for a fun weekend, my daughter is also going to race.

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The promise of bling and music convinced her to run the 5k while I'm out busting my ass over 13.1 hot as Hades July miles :)  The good will be the company before and after the race, but mostly I'm looking forward to using her beer ticket.

This will be my first Rock 'n' Roll race - a bucket list item for me.  I probably wouldn't have chosen Chicago in July, but it works into my schedule and will probably be a good lead-in to the start of marathon training.  

Have you run a Rock 'n' Roll race?