The Nike Rock n Run 5k Saturday was a blast. It was a nice was to try to run fast, and have fun at the end. I have lots of thoughts on it, but first I have to tell the most embarrassing part about myself.
I'll be honest. I'm a Cubs fan. I grew up a Cubs fan, and have part of a season ticket package for the Cubs currently. But I go to Sox games, because I love baseball, and Chicago. It doesn't mean quite as much to me when the Sox win or lose as it does with the Cubs, but I'm never rooting against them. And one of the best assignments of my professional life was covering the Sox World Series Championship games and the aftermath. In any case, with apologies, that's a long way of saying that I'm a North-sider. You are what you are.
So before last year's marathon, Nike asked me to be the honorary captain of their Northside team. They competed against a team of runners from the Southside. Before the race Saturday, sponsored by Nike, I figured I should wear a Nike singlet to race in. Well, the one I wore was from the Northside team, and I forgot about where I was running until I got there! Fortunately, noone threw anything at me, but there were a few sneers! That's ok, I deserved them.
The race itself was great. There were some organizational issues that someone commented on in this space. I agree with everything they mentioned, but none of that deterred from my experience. The only problem I had was that I didn't run quite as fast as I wanted. The course was nice. It ran straight down several Bridgeport streets, with few turns. The finish was spectacular, inside the park through the center field gates.
Unlike the Soldier Field run, we then were able to hang out in the park for the post-race awards and concert. They even had the concession stands open, and offered a free beer to all the runners. It was a little too early for me to take advantage of that, but I enjoyed the concert.
The Fleet Feet racing team seemed to have a big day, taking most of the top finishing medals. There were about 4,000 runners, so it was a nice, manageable sized race. As for my own race, I wasn't sure what to expect. Despite the advice in a previous blog entry, I failed to prepare myself to run fast. So I was hoping to run under 20 minutes, which is much slower than my p.r., but realistic, I thought. I went out in 6:30 pace for the first two miles, but then fell off it in the last mile to finish in closer to 20:30.
I started the race with two friends, Tom and Dan. We all finished within a minute of each other, but when Dan eased into another gear after the first mile, I failed to go with him, and that was that. I suppose that means I'll have to hit the track pretty soon and work on that speed as part of the marathon training.
And speaking of marathon training, Tom and I were talking about the calendar a little today during our long run and realized it might be about time to start ramping up the mileage. Fun and games are about over I suppose. There are really only about two and a half months left before the race, and while that seems like a long time, it really isn't. Our standard long run over the last month or so has been 10 to 12 miles. It's time to kick that up to 14-16 pretty quickly.
I hope your training/running is going well. I'll see you on the roads, as I start to up the mileage!
Oh, and if you have any interest in helping out my fundraising effort for the marathon, here is the link: http://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=226982&lis=1&kntae226982=98F051DC3012424697860B4B25F20264&supId=14678625
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