November 9, 2014
1st 15k - Hot Chocolate 15k
Chicago, IL
Time: 1:48:14 Pace: 11:37
Place: 10413/14184 overall; 6630/9678 female; 698/1118 fem. 40-44
Yes! my first photo with both feet off the ground.
I had a credit with the Flywheel people. I pulled up the app and ordered a car. I got the error message that there were no cars nearby. What? Crap! I gathered my things and ran to the corner to catch the #22 bus.
A very nasty bus driver kicked us all off the bus early, somewhere on Hubbard. I'm not really familiar with that area so it took me a minute to figure out where i was. I ran around the corner and found State street, saw the Chicago theater in the distance and ran south. It was about 5 minutes to my start time. I was never king to make it. Luckily there were about 30k people doing this race which means it's going to take a while to release all the corrals.
The course got nice and roomy after the 5kers went on their merry little way to the finish line. At this point in the course they stated handing out hot chocolate related treats like strawberry marshmallows and tootsie rolls. i didn't take anything and from the looks of all the pink goo on the ground the marshmallows were not good.
After 6.2 miles I still felt good enough to keep running. My strategy, the one I decided at the absolute last minute, was to walk through the water stops only and ditch my usual run walk deal. I point out 6.2 miles because just about 2 months ago I had run my first 10k (6.2) miles straight through without walking. At 6.3 miles I could have switched to a run walk and beat my record but something in me wanted to see if I could do 9.3 miles. And whaddaya know? I did it! At 7 miles I felt awesome and couldn't believe I wasn't hitting a mental wall.
There was a small part of the course where we went north and then back south on the same street. I could have easily jumped into the south bound land and cut part of the course off. I joked about it to myself. I would never do it!
As I was amazed at how well I was doing, the friggin' hills came. And by hills I mean tiny little inclines that someone from an actually hilly area like San Fran would laugh at. Up and down. Up and down. Really? It was ridiculous. But I made it! And without hyperventilating, I crossed the finish line and collected my medal! But not before screaming at some a-hole who jumped onto the course the last block to take a photo of someone. He probably doesn't know that it's poor form and extremely inappropriate to cross the finish line if you didn't run the race.
I hauled ass through downtown to the very end of the fenced in corrals. There I saw people in jeans. Awww crap! Walkers! These are the most annoying people in these novelty races. They always bring out walkers and first time runners who have no race etiquette. They also bring out the people who think they can do a 5k, go out hard and within a half mile the are panting and walking. And the folks who go out strictly to walk walk 6 across and you can never get around these idiots. Then there are the folks who have to stick with their friends at all times. They get 5 steps ahead and have to constantly look back and slow down so they can all stay together. I want to slap these folks.
After 6.2 miles I still felt good enough to keep running. My strategy, the one I decided at the absolute last minute, was to walk through the water stops only and ditch my usual run walk deal. I point out 6.2 miles because just about 2 months ago I had run my first 10k (6.2) miles straight through without walking. At 6.3 miles I could have switched to a run walk and beat my record but something in me wanted to see if I could do 9.3 miles. And whaddaya know? I did it! At 7 miles I felt awesome and couldn't believe I wasn't hitting a mental wall.
There was a small part of the course where we went north and then back south on the same street. I could have easily jumped into the south bound land and cut part of the course off. I joked about it to myself. I would never do it!
As I was amazed at how well I was doing, the friggin' hills came. And by hills I mean tiny little inclines that someone from an actually hilly area like San Fran would laugh at. Up and down. Up and down. Really? It was ridiculous. But I made it! And without hyperventilating, I crossed the finish line and collected my medal! But not before screaming at some a-hole who jumped onto the course the last block to take a photo of someone. He probably doesn't know that it's poor form and extremely inappropriate to cross the finish line if you didn't run the race.
I made my way through the giant crowd to get my big mug of chocolate goodies. I feasted, got coffee at Starbucks and went home to nap.
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