Skip to main content

Start Early 10K

I met the Berenstain Bears before the race
I ran the Start Early 10K yesterday morning. My review is up at Newcity with more of a description of the race. Overall it was an okay race, mostly on the Lakefront Trail.

As I said in my review, I was pretty disappointed by the attitudes of several of the volunteers in the race day registration booth. I've only volunteered for a few races, and I know it can be mentally and physically exhausting, but if you're out there representing the group that you're volunteering for you should at least make an effort to smile at the people participating in the event. You might as well not volunteer if you're going to make the organization look bad.

Seriously though, the rest of the volunteers were great.



Anyway, here's what it looked like when I got there around 9:45. The clouds seemed to be dissipating and the sun was coming out to dry the rain:

But darker clouds started moving in:


And by the time the 10K started at 10:20 it was pretty overcast. I was glad I didn't check my jacket and just go with a long-sleeve shirt. Unlike the Shamrock Shuffle last weekend I needed a jacket this time:


And then I made this Vine at the finish line.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Top 7 Chicago Race Shirts (and a Hat) of 2012

Remember when race shirts were pretty much guaranteed to be over-sized white cotton, seemingly designed so that you could wear them once (if you really wanted to show that you ran the race) and then probably never again? One side had the race logo and the other had about 20 sponsors. And the long-sleeve ones had little cuffs at the wrists to make sure you got that nice puffed sleeve look that no one has ever asked for. These days it seems like almost every race is giving out running shirts rather than old-school cotton, and mostly I'm thankful for this change because it seems like they spend more time picking an appropriate color and working on a legitimate design rather than just slapping their logo onto some cotton for you (although I did get a few race shirts this year that went with that style... surprisingly enough, those shirts aren't in my closet anymore). Anyway, pretty much every race includes a shirt. Some are awesome, some are terrible and some are just... shirt...

Follow-up to Shamrock-ing Chicago

Here's the official press photo taken just before the race yesterday morning: I'm usually one of the taller people in a group picture, but when the guy right next to you is Israel Idonije you tend to look pretty small. Also, I'll be totally honest: since the only sport I really know anything about is running, I had no idea who he was until someone told me! But he's a super-friendly guy and seemed genuinely happy to be there - and it was interesting to see the contrast between professional athletes: he definitely has a totally different body type than the elite runners! Also, as I mentioned on Friday, the run we did at the expo did end up on ABC7's 6 o'clock news . You can see me around the one minute mark getting ready to pass Abdi... he managed to fend me off somehow. Oh, and apropos of nothing, I meant to mention this yesterday, but during the race I noticed some great signs when turning the corner at Grand and State. Today, I saw them posted on luluemon'...

Winning a 5K and Being "That Guy" - P.A.A.W.R. to Empower 5K in pictures

Some organizations are not quite ready to organize 5Ks. And Pan-African Association (a group that provides "services and programs that benefit refugee and immigrant individuals and families") is one of those organizations. They have a great group of volunteers, an ideal location for a race and plenty of other well-organized family activities around the race (including dance lessons, kid's races, etc.). And though this was the second annual P.A.A.W.R. to Empower 5K (Pan-African Association Walk & Run to Empower Refugees and Immigrants), there was very little in the sense of "organization" around the 5K, which was scheduled to start at 10:30 (see schedule below) but didn't get going until 11:10. (seriously? 40 minute delay? yes, seriously). The "official" race schedule But before I start describing the bad parts of this event and sound like the Type-A runner that I am, I'd like to talk about all the good stuff. And there's plenty...