New years day 5k

First, my thoughts go out to the man that was critically injured By 2 pitbulls on the lakefront today.

My dad and I ran the new years day 5k on Sunday. Luckily it started at 11am which gave us enough time to digest all of the yummy food and brew from Revolution Brewery's new years eve dinner.


My wonderful wonderful was smart and stayed in our warm apartment.


So to cut to the chase, I got a 23:37 which surprisingly was good enough for 2nd place in my age group and 19th woman. Far from my PR during thanksgiving. My dad beat me by 50 seconds to get 3rd in his age group! It was a good start to 2012!


The race was small by Chicagoland standards. About 750+ people were timed and maybe about 300 more participated without chips for the fun run/walk. Sunday was the opposite of the awesome run weather I had the day before with Britt. It was mid 20's with wind gusting to 45mph!



Mile 1- 7:24 "crap I'm going too fast. Felt good at first then definitely a bad idea." **

Mile 2- 7:50 "holy head winds! Why the hell am I doing this? I should just walk or slow down."

Mile 3- 7:30 "ok. No more head winds. Feeling better but my legs are begging for me to stop."

Mile 3.1- 54 seconds "just run to finish. C'mon just finish strong and don't let the guy with the dog beat you. Ok. Good job dog on beating me- at least it was a big dog."


**running a 5k in winter was never a priority (due to marathon training) and mainly I just did it because my Daad thought it would be interesting. Note to self, running 6 fast hilly miles on Friday, followed by 18+ miles on Saturday followed by a fast 5k will cause your muscles to cry and beg for mercy!!!


My Daad and I post race. We were cold. Overall, I'd say the race was well organized. We started up near the front and while it was run on the narrow inner path of the Lincoln park, it never felt crowded. The course was well marked and the volunteers were awesome. We even shared the path with the oncoming runners and there were no problems. Water and bananas were plentiful at the finish and the race directors also had devices to punch in your bib # and it would print a ticket out with your time and place in the race. That's how we found out we placed in our age groups.


The after party at sedgwicks was cool. We got our free beer and waited around for the awards. While waiting, there were numerous items being raffled off- like gift certificates to restaurants but sadly we didn't win anything. We eventually just went up to the announcer to get our medals because it was announced they would just be mailed out. That is my only complaint. We wouldn't have waited around so long had we known that.


(my dad didn't realize CB was doing business when he took this photo of us in the snow. Haha)

So I would do this race again, but it would have to be a last minute decision because I surely never want to run in ice or snow or rain.

How was your new years? Did you run on new years day?

26 days until marathon #5! -xaar