Zach Runs Chicago

Last weekend I was in Zihuatanejo, Mexico for a friend's wedding, so it seemed only fitting to be running the Cinco de Miler this weekend as a follow-up. I had a good time last year and have been looking forward to running it again (though not as a double-header with C4Miles and not even as a back-to-back run with the  Run to Remember ). I enjoyed both those races last year but both were yesterday morning and I was volunteering with the Northwest Side Housing Center to clean up a vacant lot (because I'm a really outstanding citizen, okay). Also, my knee has been hurting and I figure I better not push it more than I already am by running multiple races for a while. This is what happens when you turn 30 I guess...

After the Run to Remember yesterday, today was a double-header, starting off with the 4-mile C4 Miles at 8 this morning in front of Peggy Notebaert and wrapping up with the 5-mile Cinco de Miler at 9:30 in Montrose Harbor. I was a little nervous about being able to make it to both, but I ended up with time to spare (thanks to the help of a cab that dropped me off at the packed turn-off to Montrose Harbor). Biking from the first race to the second would have been ideal... but I don't have a bike. And I wasn't about to run the three miles between the races carrying my gear check bag. Turn-off at Montrose Harbor Anyway, my complete reviews of both races are up on Newcity.com: C4 Miles review Cinco de Miler review The races really couldn't have been more different: Starting line at Cinco de Miler C4 Miles was a quiet, relatively casual event, with probably around 350 participants (half running/half walking) and no pace groups. Since runners quickly go...

At the finish line of the St. Paddy's Day 8K on Sunday there was no shortage of people handing out flyers for future races. I've almost always found the Mitch Hedberg joke about flyers to be absolutely true: "When someone tries to hand me out a flyer, it’s kinda like they’re saying, 'Here—you throw this away'" but this old-school form of advertising actually worked on me this weekend... ...possibly because I was high from just finishing an 8K and two of the races (namely C4Miles and Bastille Day 8K ) will be taking place in the exact same place as the race I had just finished (in front of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum). So now I'm registered for the C4Miles and thinking about the Bastille Day 8K as well. Not sure what's up with the Bastille Day 8K site, though: it looks like they might have launched their old-school flyer campaign before getting their new-school website up and running properly. But I guess the thing I realized is that so...