First month training for a race: check!
First 5K of the year: check!
Now that's I've got one race under my belt, I'm pumped for the upcoming months. Meredith T., a fellow Rambler and avid runner who will be doing the NYC marathon in November, participated with me in the Chicago Foundation for Women's second annual 5K Race for a Safe State. This particular event raises awareness of violence against women, which is an issue I recently became interested after visiting the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic in Chicago and reading a Tribune article about domestic abuse and the law's inability to fully prevent it.
Rain clouds daunted us from above but held off during our run. Walking to Grant Park in my flips flops, short track shorts and Shamrock Shuffle tee from 2005, with my running shoes dangling my bag, I felt like a real athlete of sorts. It was like I was gearing up and on my way to the big race, sorta reminiscent of my track and cross country days. And I actually felt nervous! Texting back and forth with Adrienne, she assured me that I was being ridiculous since I can pull a solid 6 miler outta no where and be fine. True, I confirmed, except those days are rare (but when they do happen they are amazing...).
Anyway, I met up with Meredith and we prepped ourselves. There weren't too many participants so we stood pretty close to the starting line. Finally we were off! Meredith and I started off strong; we shed our race tees, opting for our racer backs only, less than halfway through because of the humidity. At the 2 mile mark our pace was between 8 - 8:30. I've raced this path before and for whatever reason, it always gets me at the halfway point. I just begin to teeter out.
Meredith paced us for the rest of the race, then pulled ahead of me in the last 100m. Some guy at the 3 mile mark told us we were in 6th and 7th place for women-- woo hoo! I actually finished 8th with a time of 26:50 (which is under my revised goal of 27 minutes), which converts to a pace of 8:38 per mile. Not too shabby. The "winning" time for women was 25:37 (8:14 min/mile), which is totally doable. Next time? :)
Post-race Meredeth and I loaded up on Luna bars then sat in the grass to chat. Apparently Steve W. has become quite the runner, she told me. Since going through training for the fire department he took a liking to running-- and this is a guy who used to think running was the worst activity on earth for the body! I'm glad he's been converted. As both Meredith and I can contest, it can become a totally consuming addiction. I'll have to ask her what her exact phrasing of it is, but we're definitely geeks when it comes to the sport.
6 Hours, 29 neighborhood and numerous gel packs later, Chicago Marathon 2008 is finished! The temp reached 84 degrees that day, and 33,000 runners participated.
A big thank you to all of my supporters for helping to make it happen. Adrienne and Dave made sure I was fueled at mile 9, Teri met up with me at mile 13 to run by my side through the hottest part of the race, I bumped into Rodrigo and Addy at mile 18 while grabbing more gel packs, and Rodrigo found me on the bridge and sprinted the last 200 meters with me (in his flip flops!). It was awesome!
And even more amazing is over $700 will be donated to Hope Runs, which will help its children's program in Tanzania and Kenya. Read more about it at www.hoperuns.org. And fittingly so, the male Kenyans dominated the race this year. Read the Tribune's coverage here.
Along with all the congrats and hugs and handshakes, a question I keep getting is will I do it again next year. If you asked me around mile 23, the answer would have been a exasperated, exhausted and angry " NO WAY!" But a month has passed, the pain wore off, so only more time will tell. Running is addictive so odds are, another marathon is on the horizon. :)
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