The tenth anniversary of September 11th was a somber anniversary to be sure. But it was also a day to go on with life as planned, to move forward. Sounds like a good theme for a run huh? And so that was my plan early Sunday morning. My alarm went off before 4am to get me up and ready for the hour drive north to the Great Lakes Naval Air station for the Fort 2 Base run. Yes, it was early, but this was a day you don't even think about minor sacrifices like that.
We made good time getting to the base, then waited patiently to get inside as they searched every car at the security checkpoint. I'm not one to worry a lot about those kinds of things, but I definitely felt secure being on a military base on this anniversary.
We parked at the base, then because this was a point-to-point race, we boarded buses for the 20 minute ride in the darkness to the start line at Fort Sheridan. Once there, the sky started lighting up with the sunrise. Race organizers predicted before the start that we would all be setting a P.R. on this day. Not only was that due to the ideal temperature, but the fact that hardly anyone had ever run this distance in a race before. It was ten nautical miles, which equals about 11.5 miles on roads.
Soon enough, we were off and running. I was not looking for a race effort, but instead a good workout, and friendly conversation as I ran with my friend Dave Zimmer. He's training for the New York marathon, and wanted to run about 8 minute/mile pace. Sorry. On this day, it was just too nice. We started out a little under 7:45, and felt great. So we kept that pace the entire time, finishing in about 1:29.
Much of the race was on the Green Bay trail that winds through the north shore nearl the lake. It was scenic and peaceful. Once we entered the base, we were greeted by some family and friends along with lots of personnel from the base, who manned the water stations. We hit a huge downhill section around ten miles into it, which was nice except for the realization that we would have to go back up again before finishing. And we did. The steep uphill was nearly a quarter mile long, and came at about the 11 mile mark. It was a little bit of a shock to the system, to say the least, and it made the finish line a few minutes later all the more welcome.
The finish area was complete with a band on stage, and lots of good food and drink from race sponsors. Hats off to race organizers and volunteers for a nice morning. Complete results are here: http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?eventLinkageID=138313
Fort 2 Base actually wrapped up a great running weekend for me. Saturday I got to meet and run with many of the folks from Runner's World magazine who were in town to run the Chicago Half Marathon (which was also Sunday). They had a large group of runners they trained for the race as part of the Runner's World Challenge. Among the folks I got to meet were Kristin Armstrong (author and Lance's ex), and David Willey (Runner's World Editor-in-Chief). They are some pretty inspiring runners, and I want to tell you all about it, in my next entry. In the meantime, here is a link to the story of their race: http://challengeblog.runnersworld.com/2011/09/chicago-half-marathon-race-recap.html
Til then, see you on the roads........
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