nat [dot] waz: Race Judicata 5k

Chicago Marathon FINISHER!

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. :)

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Race Judicata 5k

Race Judicata, sponsored by Chicago Volunteer Legal Services (CLVS), is a race that Illinois Legal Aid Online (the organization I work for) looks forward to all year round. This year we gathered 17 people to run on our team, and our women's team placed 3rd overall. Yahoo!

The race whooped my butt and definitely reminded me that I'm not a short distance runner (as if 3 miles is that short, right?). I finished at 26:16, which is faster than my time from last year so I'm satisfied. Rodrigo almost died but he finished around 25 minutes. Trust me, we enjoyed a couple of brewskis afterwards.

My boss Lisa and co-woker Teri are rockstars. I'm more than 10 years younger than each of them and they ran better than I. Both also ran a marathon so I'm soliciting advice from them, but of course. :)