If you are like me, you are excited that the Olympics have begun, but now we've gotta wait another week until the track and field events begin! And they make us wait until the last day until the men's marathon! Oh well, in the meantime, there are plenty of local races to keep us busy. I had a chance to enjoy two of the best last week. They are on opposite ends of the running spectrum, but both were great events in their own right. And both made use of the beautiful lake front.
First, Elvis is alive. Well, the city tried to kill him, but he survived. The folks from Fleet Feet scheduled the annual Elvis race quite some time ago for it's new location and day. They had it planned for downtown near Columbus and Balbo where the marathon starts. Then the Bears schedule came out. And they had an exhibition game the same night. Oops. So the city at one point told Fleet Feet they could not hold the race. Then they relented and allowed them to move it to the Lake front path near the Columbia Yacht Club. Good thing.
It was a great evening. They had the largest group of runners yet, about 2000, and possibly the best party. I was one of the emcees, but the highlights included some of the best dressed Elvis costumed runners I've seen in the 11 years they've been holding the race. And Elvis performer Doug Church put on a terrific concert after the show.
And the runners stuck around! Everyone got a coupon for a free beer from Goose Island at the post-race party. And it seems like most everyone redeemed them. They had to expand the size of the beer corral several times to accommodate the huge crowd. They also had great pasta from La Vita restaurant in the VIP tent. It made it worth 
saying a few words before jumping into the run so I could qualify as a VIP!
The run itself was great also. I planned to jog 7:30 pace miles. But once we started I got amnesia, and started off at 6:45. It felt comfortable, so I kept it up. The weather was nice, and relatively cool. I figured, what the heck? It was a self-timed event where they noted the winners in age groups and the first 'Elvis', but otherwise there were no official times posted.
By contrast, I learned about my official time from friends in the Chicago Distance Classic even before I checked myself. This was a more formal half-marathon race. The most striking thing about it was that it was pleasant weather! As race owner John Bingham said on the podium 
before the race, there are never moderate temperatures for the CDC. It's always incredibly hot! But not Sunday.
I got there a few minutes before the race started. 6:30 in the morning is a little early for me to be at a starting line, but I made it. And in the spirit of a race put on by John 'The Penguin" Bingham, I started in the middle of the pack. They started the race in 4 waves. I got off with the third wave, about 7:30 after the first wave began. I intended to use it as a training run, and that's about how it went. I couldn't get going much quicker than 8:00/mile pace early on, and I settled into that after a few miles, and realized I had no desire (or energy) to run faster than that. But I managed to get the run in, and race back home to Elmhurst in time for church at 9:15. That may have been the fastest I moved that morning!
The CDC really has become a great race runners training for Chicago or another fall marathon. There were plenty of those runners out there who put this on the training schedule. There were also plenty of first timers. Chicago Endurance Sports trained several hundred runners for this event. Congratulations to everyone who finished their first 13.1. My wife's uncle, Mike Lock, was among them. He is 47 and relatively new to distance running. But he finished in under two hours and felt great. Now he's thinking about running a full marathon! I think stories like his are what makes running such a popular sport.
Meantime, as far as my own week of running, in retrospect, I suppose I had it confused. I ran the fun run fairly hard and the more serious race pretty easy. But that's just the way it worked out. I won the same prize money for both (zero). Both were fun events, and generally good training runs for a fall marathon. And so long as you enjoy the run, that's all that really matters right?
Hope you have some enjoyable runs in the coming days....
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