Rock 'n' Roll Chicago - who's in?

[GCRCAdmin (Jim)]

Who all's going to Chicago next weekend for the RnR 1/2 Marathon?

I know I'm going and I'm 99.99% sure that John Moyer's going...

Anyone else?

Jim

[John Moyer]

Yea that was a safe bet. 

[Chuck B]

Sorry, I had to bail on it.  Flying to London that morning for 4 weeks.

[Chuck B]

John Moyer finished at 1:56.  3:02 for Jim Damm.  Nice work gentlemen.

[John Moyer]

Chuck, you didn't missing anything but a warm and humid race. At times it felt like I was in Houston. One temperature reading early in the race read 70 degrees. The humidity had to be in the 90% range.  Towards the end runners were dropping left and right.

The best thing about running a half is that after 13.1 miles you get to stop running. I'm not sure I could have gone much farther this morning. I was shooting for anything under 2 hours so 1:56 was too bad considering the conditions. I know I'm in the minority but I'm not a fan of the Chicago Marathon and I'm now less of a fan of the RnR Chicago Half Marathon. I mean it really was another well run CGI event although I didn't really tax them too much. I walked the mile to the course, ran the race (didn't take anything from the support stations) and walked back to the hotel.  All I really asked for is enough running room to run.  Not on this course...I think the corral system was a rough guideline. I would like to see CGI incorporate a verification system and be a little more strict in enforcing who is entering the corrals.  There were plenty of people who had no business being up front.  Seattle did a much better job.  It was crowded for most of the run and a couple of miles before the finish the course ended up being a small bike trail not much bigger than the sidewalk/bike path on 518.  And let me add that like Seattle this is not a Garmin friendly course; Too many tunnels, too many tall buildings and missed place mile markers. Just about every mile marker was off. I thought it was my Garmin losing the signal but at the end my watch read 13.1.

The good news is that my next RnR race is Philly and that's probably the best half marathon in the country. Here's to better weather.

[Frank B]

Congrats to both of you on hard earned medals. 

[Houndrunner (AKA Dennis)]

Great job guys fighting the heat & humidity. 

[GCRCAdmin (Jim)]

I don't think there's much else to add - the last few miles were crowded on the path, especially around the Shedd Aquarium ~mile 11-12 where we were running on a 6-ish foot wide sidewalk with waist-high concrete walls. 

I was dripping sweat around mile 3 - just before mile 1 we had the "honor" of running on Lower Columbus street, which is a nice tunnel with warm-air exhaust vents...  (Chicago has some streets that are "Upper", "Middle", and/or "Lower" which refers to the physical level of that street above the other levels - Wacker has all 3...).

My Garmin was way off with both my Saturday and Sunday runs through downtown, but at mile 5 (when we hit Michigan Avenue and were skyscraper-less - boom, my Garmin was right on...)  On Saturday, I was literally "flying" through downtown when I looked at the map...

At the end of the race, I collected my water, my medal, my cool wash-cloth, 1 orange - the only thing left that I didn't take was a Lara Bar or a Popsicle - out of Bananas, out of Cytomax, out of the other "snacks" I'm used to at an RnR event - and continued walking straight up Columbus Drive back to my hotel - into a nice Ice Bath - the off to the White Sox game, a walk up the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue), North Beach to cool my feet in Lake Michigan, over to Giordano's for a pizza to go, off to Garrett's Popcorn (snagging some of the last popcorn of the day), back to Giordano's to pick up my pizza, back to the hotel to get the bags, to the Orange Line "L" to Midway, then my 9:40pm flight home.  (I think I did another half marathon after the race, with all of the walking I did...)

[Frank B]

Sounds like the tour de Chicago was better than the race.