Chi Weekend Recap

Back from an awesome weekend in Chitown. Had a fun time seeing friends and family, and got to continue on with the birthday celebrations :) Friday, flew into O’Hare in the late afternoon to some pretty nasty rainy conditions up north. Met up with Anne and her boyfriend Ben for a nice dinner at an Italian place in the South Loop, then just hung out the rest of the night. Saturday morning, woke up early to meet with the New Balance running group. Weather started out in the lower 60’s, but warmed up a little as the morning went on. Ran with John, who planned on doing 15, and we headed south on Lakeshore for our loop. Tons of people on the trail, probably from marathon training, but is always awesome to have so many people around. Felt ok the first few miles, but stomach started to act up a little and I didn’t feel too great. Probably didn’t help that I ate nothing in the morning and was still recovering from a cold. Looked for a bathroom close to our turnaround, but couldn’t find anything so just sucked it up and kept going. Sun came out for a bit, and started to feel like last year’s marathon – HOT. Pace wasn’t too fast, but legs were starting to die out. Last few miles, we started to pick it up, but fortunately the clouds moved in and it got windy so cooled down a bit. Looped back to the store, where John had to run to feed the parking meter – decided my legs were toast, and called it a day. Total mileage: 11 miles – splits were: will update later, average was 7:53.

Got back to Anne’s where she prepared an awesome breakfast for us, then took a nice nap. Headed downtown to meet up with a couple friends and watch the Illini game, then headed out to my Chicago birthday dinner with some childhood buddies. Enjoyed a great night, and was sad to go early the next morning but I’ll be back in 10 days for the marathon :) In the evening, got in some mileage, but not what I wanted. Felt pretty tired from the busy weekend, and didn’t get started until pretty late unfortunately. Did a loop around town – weather was cool, but felt a little humid to me somehow. Legs just weren’t there and had trouble keeping any sort of decent pace. Stopped at Pat and Crystal’s to say hi, but could never get it going after I left their house. Cramped the entire workout and felt dehydrated, but might have been from my crappy cold. Cut the workout short, and decided to just cut my losses and end the bad running week. Total mileage: ~5 miles – splits were: 8:00, 7:18, 7:13, 7:29, 7:31.

A crappy way to end a crappy week, and I vowed to get a good night’s rest and have a much better and aggressive Monday. Got in 28 miles last week (BLAH!!!!), and missed more days last week than I had all of September! Woke up on Monday to some pretty chilly weather – temps had dropped about 10 degrees, and was pretty windy – perfect fall weather! Got back from work, decided to get in some good mileage today since I was feeling better. Did a quick out and back, legs felt good and just was happy to be in cooler weather, albeit pretty windy. When it gets windy, my body tends to push a little more, so I was paying attention to my Garmin quite a bit this run. Cramped a ton the first 2 miles – not from hard pace, but from lack of hydration since I didn’t really drink much of anything all day. Finally got into a pretty good rhythm after I worked out the cramps, and cruised home. Had to slow down at many points since I was getting carried away on pace – felt slightly winded, but more from the wind. Pretty happy with the results, and felt 180% better from the last couple runs. This run felt very easy for once! Total mileage: 4 miles – splits were: 6:48, 6:52, 6:58, 6:54.

Waited 20 minutes for Pat and Crystal to get back, went over to their house and finished my workout with them. We did our scheduled 4, and felt great. Good to have Pat back on our runs, and he demonstrated he still has a pretty vicious kick at the end. Total mileage: 4 miles – splits varied, but we averaged 9:19 miles. So got in 8 miles today, and legs felt pretty rejuvenated from the easy last week. More excited that the weather is cooperating all of a sudden, and thinking we are going to have some spectacular running weather in a couple weekends!

Amar, Mark, and I rooting on the Illini