Kara rocks Chitown!!!

Congratulations Kara!!! Overall winner of the inaugural Rock 'n Roll Chicago Half Marathon!!! Good weather conditions, nice, flat course = dominant performance by perhaps the best American woman marathoner today! Pretty awesome she beat all the males and just cruised though. Unfortunately, I missed the race but was there in spirit!

Here is a cool article detailing the state of the union in running in general with some pretty cool statistics including the neat little statistic that women have now surpassed men in the amount of runners participating in road races! Awesome to look at if you like numbers...

Quick weekend update - was in Chi for a wedding this weekend, ran 0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No excuses, not overly pleased with it and got in a "whopping" 31 miles on 3 runs last week. I guess the rest was nice, but need to pick it up this week. Monday evening, ran over to Pat and Crystal's and got in an easy 3 miles with her on the trails. Hit 8:21, 7:55, 7:45 for our 3 together, then I ran back home and tacked on a couple more around town. Felt good to run again, but was certainly getting tired at the end. Weather has gotten nasty in this area - very humid and hot. Total mileage: 7 miles - splits averaged around 8 min/mile.

Early this morning, got in some good miles on the trails. Was disgustingly humid, and never felt good at all. Started kind of slow, but picked it up just a tad after a couple miles. Never really got into a rhythm, although the middle miles kind of went by fast. Last mile was pretty awful, as my legs felt like concrete blocks and just had trouble breathing in general. Crystal was calling out the splits (didn't bring my Garmin), so don't them on hand but I can guess. Total mileage: 9 miles - splits ranged from 7:47 to 8:20.

Glad to get that run out of the way, it was just awful. Ideally, want to get in my long run tomorrow evening, and if I'm lucky my pace run on Thursday morning. That would give me a ridiculous 37 miles, only needing to get in 8 in Denver which would be pretty easy. Might save the pace for Friday morning while Tim is at work, but I will figure something out!