Race Report: Shamrock Shuffle

Last Sunday, Adam and I woke up bright and early, met our friend Heather at the train and made our way downtown for the Shamrock Shuffle. I would describe it as a kick-off of sorts of the outdoor racing season here in Chicago and it's sponsored and run by the same people as the marathon and the course is basically the downtown portions of the marathon, except you never leave downtown and it's only 8K (thank goodness!!).

I'm telling you it's basically the Chicago Marathon when it comes to crowds as well! And 35,000ish people is fine when you are running 26.2 miles and there is time for the crowd to finally thin out but much more challenging when you are running only 4.97 miles. Plus, this is probably the first time in several months that many of the people were running outside (other than my 5K in San Antonio in Feb, it was my first time too) but FOR REAL, if you are not conditioned and cannot run from the start line, please start yourself in the back!

Anyhoo, it was crowded, which made me semi-cranky and my bladder was making me mega-cranky because I kept having to pee! Adam and I ran together until sometime after the 2 mile marker in which case I decided that I wasn't going to finish and I'd just meet him at the beer tent. Easier said than done, apparently, because I got yelled at by a course official to get back on the course and at that moment, I turned a corner and spotted the 3 mile and 5K markers. At that point, I figured I'd quit being a chump and get my full bladder back out there. I actually ended up running a much faster second half. The last bit of the race is exactly like the marathon, up "Mount Roosevelt" and around a corner to the finish. Mount Roosevelt is the closest thing we have to a hill in Chicago and while it's pathetic, it's still a hill and at the very end of the race. The whole time I was moving up the hill, I was cursing the people that were walking in the middle of the street (grrr!) and wondering just how on earth I'd conquered it after more than 25 miles in October!

Heather and Adam finished a few minutes before me due to my unfortunate almost wimp out and we all met up at the beer tent for the trademark Shamrock Shuffle debauchery.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, it was SO FREEZING COLD and kinda rainy/misty. Blech! It was especially sad when you consider that it was in the 60's and sunny on Thursday and Friday but at least it wasn't dumpy snowing like Saturday so we can be thankful for that.

***AVON WALK UPDATE***

I decided to try and add about 10 miles of extra walking a week, in addition to the gratuitous amounts of walking I do just getting around the city and to my regular gym schedule (that I am actually trying to follow again). Adding 10 miles sounds so easy but I forgot that walking just takes a long time! Last night I had 48 minutes on the treadmill before my yoga class and only managed about 3.5 miles. UG! So this week I'm at about 5.5 but my schedule was a little crazy at times so I'm going to work really hard to get all 10 miles in next week.

If you are a reader in San Antonio, please come and join Brooke and me at Taco Cabana on Blanco and 1604 for dinner on April 11th (6-8 p.m.)! They are donating 20% of all receipts from people that come in for us to our walk funds. I need less than $200 at this point so every little bit will help me reach my goal!

Grabbag!

• Upon venturing out yesterday, I discovered that our friendly neighborhood train station has nearly been completed. I don't know if I've ever mentioned it but they are doing an overhaul of the Brown Line and making it totally handicapped accessible. It's been a complete cluster of an operation and they spent years closing down the smaller stations to completely overhaul them. Since our local station also serves the Red Line and is a main transfer point, they couldn't feasibly close it down and the construction has been dragging on FOREVER. I'm sure they are still working on it (like the elevators) but all I needed to see was that the side of the station on my side of the street and nearest to the car that I want to be in was DONE and OPEN!! I was about to be that scary random person and do a jump for joy on the street. It's probably going to shave about 5 minutes from my day both in the morning and afternoon. It's the little things in life that really get me jazzed!


• I had a good weigh in at WW, which is hilarious considering I probably gained 3-6 lbs during Christmas week. Being so sick had one benefit! On the bad side, I tried to do 30 Day Shred yesterday and it was a huge FAIL. I made it a little more than half way through. Why does being sick take away all your strength? I was feeling so strong before. It's sad because I probably only lost muscle weight for my weigh in. Grrr. But I'm down 11 lbs so far so I think that is something to be excited about. I'm enjoying the way that my clothes are starting to actually fit me.


• Today I can finally wear my contacts again, no more eyedrops and no more glasses! I'm heading down to the MAC store later to begin the process of getting new eye makeup. I only have a few more days of the strep antibiotics and then I'll be back to being medicine free. For awhile there, I was thinking I needed one of those pill holders to remind me what I was supposed to take and when. My meds were confusing!


• We signed up for our first 2010 run yesterday. It's the 8K Shamrock Shuffle at the end of March. We missed it last year for a wedding so I am pretty excited. The past couple of years, the weather has been awful, snowy awful so I will be keeping my fingers crossed between now and then that it ends up being a nice day. Now, to get back in fighting shape for the run!


• We are hosting two students from my alma mater, Texas A&M, over the weekend. The Student Center sponsors a really awesome trip for students that are interested in local grad schools. I'm a really bad member of the local Aggie group so hopefully this will kickstart me into being more involved. And it'll be a fun experiment having two extra females in our teeny condo for the weekend. Hopefully they will enjoy our fine city and our fresh and new neighborhood train station :)

Bucktown 5K

1905 349 916 3379 JENNIFER BREDA 27 F CHICAGO IL 29:33 9:31


Yesterday morning we got up bright and early to run in the Bucktown 5K. It was a really nice morning, cool and crisp, and just perfect for a short run. My shin was kind to me during the race (not feeling quite as fabulous now, haha) but I was in the mood to run fast and I was really hoping to get a PR of under 30 minutes. Adam didn't enjoy the run nearly as much as I did, unfortunately everybody has those days now and then but he ran with me for most of it and did a great job, despite his very stuffy nose. As you can see by the results above, I hit my goal with a time of 29:33, which is 9:31 minute miles. Whoa! I ran under 10 minute miles? I can guarantee that's not going to happen for the marathon, just in case you were wondering.

I'm planning to rest my legs for the rest of the week, which goes against conventional wisdom but I'm listening to my body. It felt really nice to not run for five days last week and yesterday morning my legs felt so fresh and the shin felt good for the first time in about a month. I'm confident that a month or so of NO RUNNING after the marathon will give me the time to recover. I'm looking forward to fun times on the Wii Fit and actually doing my Jillian 30 day shred DVD. Maybe we'll actually get off our bums and join a new gym? That's going to become more and more necessary as the temperature drops.

Speaking of temperature, this is the forecast for the rest of the week:

TodayOct 5
Mostly Sunny
63°51°
10%

63°F
TueOct 6
Rain
58°47°
80%

58°F
Check Flight Delays
WedOct 7
Partly Cloudy / Wind
57°47°
10%

57°F
ThuOct 8
Showers
59°47°
40%

59°F
FriOct 9
Few Showers
55°41°
30%

55°F
Check Flight Delays
SatOct 10
Partly Cloudy
49°40°
20%

49°F
SunOct 11
Partly Cloudy
51°41°
20%

Oh please please please let it be 51/41 on Sunday!! That's perrrrrrfect running weather for me! Friends and family start arriving on Thursday, I can't believe my big weekend is almost here!

5K of debauchery

Last Thursday we ran the Chicago Fire Department's 5K for the Kids (not sure which kids we were running for, but I digress). Adam has been running this race for a few years because his company pays for their entry fees to a lot of local races (SO JEALOUS!) and it's one of his favorites because beer tickets are included with the entry.

I was scheduled for an 8 mile run that day as part of training so I ran from the condo to downtown (~6 miles) plus the 5K race. It was hot and I was not feeling so great about it because of our gluttony during the Boston vacation but we still ended up with 10:30 splits. I found a little bit left in me at the end of the race to kick it up a notch and make the boy sprint with me for a few hundred feet.

As promised there was much beer at the end of the evening. At first, we had to wait in huge lines to get it but we were smart enough to get as many as we could carry at a time. A bunch of the guys and gals from their company got together to close out the evening with a raceous game of flip cup. It's been years since I've played it and my skills were a little bit on the rusty side. Oops. The firefighters also had a DJ so we got to jam. My personal favorite was this guy who did a kickass MJ tribute. He tore up the dancefloor, er, mudpatch.

Huge FAIL to us for forgetting jackets... all we had was race t-shirts to put over our sweaty clothes. And yeah, there are still nights in Chicago where you kinda need a jacket. And I realize it is mid-July at this point. This is why we put up with crap winters, people.

Awwww yeah- FLIPPY CUP!!!

The Buckingham Fountain 5K

Right before our wedding extravaganza (3 weddings in 7 days!) week started, Adam and I ran a 5K downtown in Grant Park. I had been flying the day before and we got delayed in Washington DC at Reagan National. Reagan has, in my experienced opinion, some of the best airport food out there. There is Auntie Anne's, Dunkin Donuts, Potbelly's, Panda Express, Cosi, a Sbarro-type pizza place, there is rumored to be a Legal Seafoods in another part of the airport but I have never confirmed that, but my personal favorite is Fuddrucker's.

I have been a lover of the Fudd or Fuddy's, as I used to call it, since the days that I would spend my holidays from school working downtown at my mom's store. Her full time employee, Rebecca, and I would spend the entire morning discussing our lunch plans. Fuddy's was definitely in the rotation. My favorite thing would be to get the kid's hot dog meal (mainly because the Fudd Dawg was a half pound, grotesquely too big hot dog) and we'd split an order of Fudd Fries. I'd get about 10 cups for the jalapeno cheese sauce and ketchup and we'd eat about 50 pickles each. Sometimes I'd dip the pickles in the cheese sauce, but I digress. Anyway, I love Fuddy's... a lot. So of course since we were delayed and I would be missing dinner time I decided to eat there. They had this sweet employee meal deal where you could get a burger, fries and a soda for around $7, which I think is a great deal for Fuddrucker's and an especially great deal for any type of airport food. Why am I telling you all of this? Well, it was probably the worst dinner possible for someone who would be running a 5K the next morning.

I slept the night before the race on the most uncomfortable bed in the world (which has since been thrown over the balcony and into the dumpster!) so I wasn't exactly feeling my best come race time. The race itself was very cool though. It was benefitting the restoration project of the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. For those of you non-Chicagoans, it's the fountain at the beginning of Married with Children.

Yeah, that picture did not come from race day, it was definitely a little bit drizzly and not as pretty out. The race wound around the park and through the museum campus, which was really fun. I was huffing and puffing and thinking about ralphing up my Fudd's the whole time, which infuriated me because I wanted to beat Adam. We finished in 30 minutes, 33 seconds, which means that we kept better than 10 minute mile pace! Remember, I am super slow so it's the little victories that count. We got pretty nice shirts from the race that are made by American Apparel, which is a GREAT store for t-shirts (and 80's Fame-type outfits, if you are in to that sort of thing).

This week also officially marks 16 weeks until the marathon!! I have done absolutely nothing since the beginning of June so it's time to get cracking and get the mileage up. I got some awesome new shoes to break in when we were in San Antonio from my brother's gf's store (Run Wild Sports, it's at the Pearl Brewery so check it out when you go down to get your fresh veggies at the farmer's market!).

Soldier Field 10 Miler

I somehow procured part of this weekend off because I was originally planning on going to a Bachelorette Party that ended up being moved to a different date. I was fine with that because there was a cool race yesterday that I had been wanting to run anyway. The store that I get most of my running gear from is called Fleet Feet Sports and they, along with Adidas, were sponsoring a ten mile race that ended inside of Soldier Field (which is where the Bears play). Bazan and his family were also planning to run. We got up at the crack of dawn and headed to the field.

Our entire group before the start...


I started in the 11 minute mile corral because I think it's better, for my race ego, to pass people than the be passed during a race. There were a lot of people running and the race got crowded at times but it wasn't too bad. It was sort of frustrating because I think the 10 mile distance fools a lot of people into thinking that they can do it without any prior training, maybe becuase it's a little less daunting than a half-marathon? But I still think most people would need to either be super athletic or do at least a little training to be able to run that distance and if you are going to start in the 9 minute mile corral, please don't start walking at the one mile marker. (ok... mini-race rant over)

It was a beautiful day and we were running on part of Lakeshore Drive and the south portion of the Lakefront Trail. I wanted to finish in 1:45 and I DID! Woo hoo. My chip time was 1:48:01 but I had a 4 minute bathroom break in the middle of the race. As always, I learned a lot. Namely, not to forget to bring something (gel, race jelly beans, shot blox) for after the 1 hour mark. I think that is kind of my threshold for needing more fuel. I also ran in an Under Armour wicking shirt, which was fabulous for me but not so much for Adam, who couldn't find me at the finish line. I need to have a wicking shirt made from the BCI sponsored transfer so that I can be visible again.
The finish area was pretty cool. It just went by so fast because I was very concerned about finding the banana area and getting something in my system.

Outside the stadium after we finally found each other. Thanks to a random lady who let me use her cell phone!


Coach Amy was in the cheering section for this race.


We got sweet medals! All in all, I'd say it was a success and I'd do it again.

Water Station 101

I think everyone who regularly runs races should have to volunteer at least once at the water station. Last night, Adam ran in the Chase Corporate Challenge downtown and I got an email from one of my running groups looking for volunteers. They promised a free t-shirt, which I knew would be a nice one because these people are serious runners, and you know I am never one to turn down free swag. The original email said they were looking for people to do water station and finish line volunteering but it turned out we were doing the only aid/water station instead. I showed up at my assigned place, met the coordinator and started pouring.

With typical Chicago weather, it was so funny because you couldn't get too many cups lined up or they'd all blow off your table. We would fill the entire first layer of a table with cups of water and then put posterboards on top of that before starting a second layer. A really nice girl was helping me hold down my posterboards until we got enough cups set up to hold it down and I'd help her with her table. We kind of stuck together because neither one of us had ever done a water station before and we're both running the same ten-miler this weekend.

Now, the Corporate Challenge is kind of a big deal in downtown Chicago. The whole time we were filling cups for the 2 hours prior to the race, we kept seeing droves of people headed to the start/finish line. Adam ran it last year and he'd warned me that it's the kind of race where you are in a crowd the entire time and it never thins out. Kind of reminds me of the Trail of Lights 5K in Austin. It was cute though because most of the companies had team shirts made. Adam's company had fancy tech shirts.

After the starting bell rang, which we could hear faintly, is when it got scary. Imagine 25,000 people barreling toward you. It's a completely different way to experience a race. The "elite" runners just sprinted by us. Turns out the girl who won the women's division works at Adam's company. Then once some of the slower (and by slower I mean still sprinting) came by, they were looking for water. Women aren't so bad. They will usually make eye contact with you and slow down just a tad to take the water. Men. Not so much. They would run at me full speed and knock my arm and the water and you'd hear a splat as they spilled probably half of it. I got to the point where I would flinch when someone came to get water from me. Becuase there were so many people, the race spilled over onto the sidewalks so I had people coming at me from both sides. I learned a lot about being a little more courteous to the volunteers manning the water stations at my races.

After the last finishers passed us by, we were supposed to move what water we had left on our tables across the street where the second half of the race would again pass our aid station. At one point, we were trying to move (me and another girl, mind you) a table with three layers of water but the curb was actually about 2 inches higher than the side walk and the corners of the table got caught on it. It took a very timely rescue from one of the guys or we would have spilled the whole bloody table and hundreds of glasses of water. I even heard one of the racers shout, "Oh, I've GOT to stop and see this." Haha. I'm proud that I was comic relief for a small group of runners. Round 2 of handing out water went much better except for the one girl who threw hers and it went right up my legs and all over my crotch. You just have to expect things like that when you are a water station person, I guess.

All in all, it was pretty fun. I have to say that I normally prefer to be on the streets and running, it was great learning experience. There are 5 (woo hoo- 5!?!?) water stations at the 10 miler on Saturday so you better believe I will be thanking them as they cheer us on.