[This article was first published on
Thinking inside the box , and kindly contributed to
R-bloggers]. (You can report issue about the content on this page
here)
Want to share your content on R-bloggers?
click here if you have a blog, or
here if you don't.
Second Sunday in September — time for the annual
Chicago Half Marathon now in
its fourteenth edition
(and I have been running it in
2003,
2004,
2005,
2006,
2007,
2008
and
2009
making this and the
JPM
Chase Corporate Challenge the races I’ve run most often).
And the course was altered this year, alongside with an earlier start as the Bears
have their season home opener today. So we started north towards 57th, then
running down to 67th, turning east towards the lake at around three miles —
and having the remaining ten miles along the lakefront running up to 31st
(the usual turn) and back down to 63rd. I like this course better; let’s
hope it sticks.
Race conditions were fantastic. We had a rainy and gray day yesterday but
today is pure bliss. Temperatures around 60 degrees at the 7:00am start, no wind,
sunshine and not a cloud in the sky.
The race itself went well. I had a pretty brutal running year suffering most
of the time from some archilles tendon inflammation. It has gotten better in
the last few weeks possibly thanks to some heel cups I now put in the
shoes. But I had exactly one run longer than ten miles since the
Boston Marathon.
So I lost a lot of speed, as well as endurance and was a little nervous as to
how I’d do. And considering all this, it went pretty well. I fininished in 1;41:50
or a 7:47 pace. While is easily the slowest half in a number of years, at
least I got to run it evenly, pain free and with a negative split (== faster
second half) and some gas left for a fast last half mile or so. So maybe I
don’t have to retire from running just yet. We’ll see if I get some speed back in 2011.
Related
Today it was once again time for the Chicago Half Marathon (which I have now been running in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008). Conditions were much much better than last year's very heavy rainfall---we were once again treated to a sunny and clear Chicago sky. It was however…
September 13, 2009
In "R bloggers"
The 28th annual JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge race took place a couple of days ago May 21. Participation was down from the record of 23,000 runners set last year at around 17,125. With splendid weather, it is always a nice way to start the Memorial day weekend. We fielded…
May 30, 2009
In "R bloggers"
The annual March Madness Half Marathon in Cary took place this morning. This is both one of Chicagoland's 'early races' to start the season as well as the classic Boston preparation due to the hilly course. I have now run this consecutively for six y...
March 21, 2010
In "R bloggers"