Zach Runs Chicago

Dwayne Kennedy and Zach Freeman at Zanies in Chicago Dwayne Kennedy is a Chicago comedy legend and, according to Hari Kondabolu, "the godfather of the current Chicago comedy scene." I sat down to talk with him on Sunday night for the Chicago Tribune before the first of seven shows he's performing at Zanies this week ( he has two shows tomorrow - Friday, 8/4 ). Check out the article for a little history and a few clips from his set Sunday night.

Runners shaking servicemembers' hands before the Soldier Field 10 Mile As you are well aware, this past weekend was Memorial Day, which is all about celebrating freedom and remembering the men and women who have died serving the country. Like every other holiday, there are plenty of races in Chicago to help those who are so inclined celebrate appropriately: by going running. Because of the long weekend I was able to make a double-header race weekend out of it (perhaps it can be classified as a triple-header, but more about that later) while still getting a rest day in between the races; I ran the Soldier Field 10 Mile on Saturday morning and the Ridge Run Challenge on Monday morning. Both races celebrate Memorial Day and both are races that I've done in the past (past Soldier Field and Ridge Run reviews) and knew I would enjoy. And I did: the weather was nearly ideal (it got a little warm on Monday morning), the races were well-organized, the themes were solid and in...

On Saturday morning as I was heading to the BTN Big 10K I passed a sign with two arrows. One pointed right to Soldier Field and the BTN 10K race area, the other pointed straight ahead, to Northerly Island and the Mud Wars event.  At the time I was a little torn, but after the reports that are coming out from the Tribune , Chicago Journal and WGN (and now picked up by Huffington Post ) I'm very happy I wasn't involved in Mud Wars, since it's starting to sound a little bit like a scam. While I want to give the race organizer (Joe Bizzieri) the benefit of the doubt, reading (and watching) the above news stories, it does sound like this may have been a scam artist capitalizing on the growing popularity of obstacle/mud runs , which I had a feeling would happen eventually. Estimates put the total generated income from this race at around $300,000, but even if all 6000 people who registered for this race had used the Groupon/YouSwoop/LivingSocial deal and only paid $35, the ...

One of my friends picked me up first thing this morning (by that I mean 5:20) to head over to Soldier Field for the race. For some reason I figured we had to get there around 5:30 to make sure we found parking... It ended up not being a problem at all - we went right in and parked without an issue, which was pleasantly surprising. Although I did notice that all the signs directing cars to the parking lots said "Soldier Field 10K" - sign fail. Anyway, we ended up with tons of time to spare (my estimating skills are off for parking since I'm used to just taking public transportation). There was a lot to see, including the tiling of the finish area and the set-up of the finish (below). My full review of the race is at Newcity.com but the shortened version is: it was really sweet.   The only downside was that I had registered a while ago when I was running at a much slower pace than I am now so I was in corral 10, a bit farther back than I should have been. I prob...

Obviously I couldn't cover every bit of amazingness that is the Lakefront Trail, but I wrote a little guide to running on the lakefront during the summer for this week's issue of Newcity - the Summer Guide issue (appropriate right?). Grab a copy at any of the newsstands - there are also a bunch of other really great summer-related articles! My write-up covers Montrose Harbor, North Avenue Beach, Oak Street Beach, Northerly Island, the hill at 47th Street and Promontory Point Park. My favorite is still Northerly Island. I've had some great runs there, though I guess they weren't really isolated runs, they were more like mini-runs within a longer run - after all, you have to get to Northerly Island somehow. Anyway here are two of my favorites: In 2008 I was training for my first marathon (Chicago) and one of my long runs happened to coincide with the Air & Water Show. Since it was my first summer in Chicago I didn't know what a big deal the show ...

This weekend was the first weekend I didn't participate in an organized race since mid-March. It felt kind of weird not to be waking up early to head out to a starting line somewhere. Luckily my wife got me motivated to get out for a long run anyway, since we're both running the 13.1 Chicago Half Marathon next month. So on Sunday we ran 10 miles on the lakefront, making our turnaround at Montrose Harbor, after cutting through the quiet nature trail just south of Addison:  State park? No, just south of the Waveland Park tennis courts! And then finding out that the trail on the east side of the golf course (the one that takes you right into Montrose Harbor) has been mostly washed away... and transformed into a pretty sweet obstacle course: Luckily, she survived this perilous trail crossing After traversing the sinking trail of doom we passed a few other runners heading south from Montrose Harbor that probably made it across this challenge, but there were...

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...

After waking up and checking out the weather report Saturday morning, I wasn't exactly running out the door for ten windy, rainy miles along the lakeshore for the Lakefront 10 Miler. But as Krissy Moehl says (and as I quoted her last week ): "There's no bad weather, only bad gear." With that in mind I put on waterproof socks and plenty of layers. I probably could have still used an umbrella... Luckily the rain was more like a steady drizzle than a real downpour. Most of the runners waiting in Montrose Harbor for the race to start were either hiding under the sponsor booths or had the foresight to bring umbrellas. When the rain stopped around 7:30 I headed to gear check (and so did pretty much everyone else). The line went from about five people when I got in line to this a few minutes later:           Gear checkers who showed up a minute too late The weather ended up cooperating and I felt a lot better than I expected, despite some strong winds c...

Did anyone else watch the ING New York City Marathon Opening Day live stream yesterday at 11 (noon EDT)? I watched about ten minutes of it and got appropriately psyched for the race but then when they closed the login site so that you couldn't check your own status I decided to stop watching.  Originally they updated it to say that the site would reopen this morning at 10am, but yesterday afternoon I tried again and was able to login to my account. That's when I found out that... I didn't get in. But then my wife logged in and she saw this little badge:   So she is in for 2012!  Here's the funny thing: over the last four years both my wife and I have entered the marathon lottery. And somehow, one of us has gotten in each year:  2009:  Me 2010: Her 2011:  Me 2012: Her This back and forth has worked perfectly because it means one of us gets to run while the other one gets to enlist all of our New York friends in assisting us in ...

Nissan Leaf pace car Had a great time at the 5K for Earth Day this morning - first race I've done in Humboldt Park and I really liked spending some time walking around the park before and after (I haven't spent much - or any - time there before today). The race had a really "green" theme (appropriately) and all the runners seemed really into it. For such a small race they had a ton of partners too - including a Nissan Leaf pace car, water from Green Planet Water (I'm not clear on why all companies don't start using their bottles!), GOBI Energy (who supplied the electricity via a solar-powered DJ truck called SolarBeatz ), the Illinois Lottery (scratch tickets in the goodie bag and each mile marker was a person dressed as a Powerball). Solarbeatz truck. The sign says "DANGER BLASTING SOLAR BEATS" QR Code on the top right Anyway it was a really great (small) race and everyone there was having a great time. It felt like a mix between a t...

A little over a week ago I hooked up with City Running Tours of Chicago and ran all three of their 5K Social Runs over the course of a few days: Grant Park 5K Run Chicago River/Navy Pier 5K Run Chicago Tragic Events 5K Run All three were enlightening (both historically and in a discovering-cool-places-to-run-in-the-morning kind of way) and gave me plenty of time to talk to the Chicago manager (Marlin Keesler) and two of the assistant tour guides as well. The story I wrote about the tours for Newcity should be published in tomorrow's issue (so go grab a paper if you're in Chicago!) but it's also online now . For anyone that's thought about signing up for one of these tours but hasn't done it yet, I would definitely recommend checking at least one of them out. Each 5K is only $25 and you get to see the city from a new perspective by running through historical areas early in the morning (before most people are even heading into work). Since taking the tours...

Despite the (slight) prediction of rain this morning, the weather turned out to be perfect for the 7th Annual Race to Wrigley 5K . Lots of people came out for this one (supposedly more than 8000). Even though the temperature was in the mid-50s I wore a jacket... which meant that I had to tie it around my waist when the run started... which meant that I probably looked as dorky as I did in the picture that Chicago Runner Girl posted on her blog . Oh well. The course was nice and wide - they had full streets blocked off for this which was really nice and the mile markers were really visible. Especially cool to run through the ground level of Wrigley Field. But you can read my full review at Newcity.com ! Here are some things that stuck out for me during the race: * At the starting line one woman tells another about the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco and how at the finish line "guys from Texas give you Tiffany necklaces." Since I am a guy from Texas and si...

I've been using the Nike Plus FuelBand for almost a week now and I think I'm ready to give a breakdown of my experience with it (if not a full-on review). Just to give a basic overview to those who may not know what this device is or does, it's basically a wristband that measures your activity throughout the day and gives you a constant read out of how much NikeFuel you've earned. NikeFuel is a made up calculation that also translates into Calories Burned, Steps Taken, or Distance Covered. It's not an exact science; it's pretty much just a measurement of how much energy you've expended. You're able to set goals for each day, deciding in advance how much NikeFuel you think you'll earn each day and setting your goal for that amount. Your NikeFuel levels are stored and tracked in your Nike Plus account where you can compare your statistics with other FuelBand users. So, on to more specifics.  First of all, it's clear that Nike followed th...

To start the day off right I managed to get to the starting line of the Bunny Rock 5K about 75 minutes before race time... on accident. Apparently me from a month ago didn't trust me from today to make it on time and so put this race on my calendar with an 8 o'clock starting time. Once I got over the disappointment in losing an hour of sleep unnecessarily I was able to take the time to appreciate the Montrose Beach view. I also got to watch everyone else slowly trickle in until it was full-blown Easter madness, with a swarm of bunny ear-wearing runners gathering around the starting line. It was a really great race and I had a great time. My race review is up at Newcity.com But here I want to tell two brief stories of things I saw during the race. One is hilarious and one is frustrating... and they both involve kids running in the race (between the ages of 8 and 10). I'm going to start with hilarious: As we reached the first mile marker this little boy next to me that had ...

First day with the Nike Plus FuelBand: One of the first steps, after setting up your Nike Plus account online and downloading the app, is to set a daily goal (from the following options): Normal Day--2,000 NikeFuel, Active Day--3,000 NikeFuel High-Energy Day--5,000 NikeFuel Not really knowing how much fuel any given activity earns you I set mine to 3000 this morning before running down the street to meet the guide for the first City Running Tours run in Grant Park. Right off the bat, seeing The Bean (apologies to Anish Kapoor , but that's just a better name than Cloud Gate) without a ton of people around it was already worth waking up early on my day off: But I'll share more about the City Running Tours once I finish the third one ("Tragic Events") this Wednesday. Regarding the FuelBand... after running two 5K tours (and walking around for about an hour in between) I had more than exceeded my set goal of 3000 NikeFuel (more than doubling it). Syncing the FuelBand wi...

I haven't gone running since the Fast Ca t on Saturday, which is making me a little anxious to get back out on the trail (or at least on the treadmill). But outside of me-being-lazy news, today I got the notification email from this weekend's Bunny Rock 5K regarding the packet pick-up and all that good stuff. Looks like it's going to be a pretty fun race (even if I don't have any kids to take on the egg hunt... though at my age I'm sure I could OWN on that egg hunt against these little kids). Anyway, planning to pick my packet up on Thursday. Also started really looking into these Chicago City Running Tours . I've read about them for a while and been interested in checking them out, but just hadn't gotten around to it. With my office being closed for Good Friday it seemed like the perfect opportunity to see what they were all about, so now I'm set up to run both the Chicago River/Navy Pier 5K Run and the Grant Park 5K Run on Friday morning. Not sure wh...

So with a few hitches in our travel plans (attempting a pick up at the corner of Chicago and Michigan at 6:45 in the morning was a little more difficult than I anticipated) my professional running team (I don't use the term loosely at all ) hit the road to Plainfield for the inaugural Fast Cat . And we managed to expertly miss the Plainfield exit the first time around, make a few turnarounds (again, we're professionals), and get to the Plainfield North High School race grounds with about half an hour to spare for the 8:30 starting time. Parking was no problem (as Chicagoans that's an important thing to note) and picking up our packets was also easy (luckily). The starting line was a spray-painted mark in the school parking lot that we stumbled upon by accident when we noticed a lot of people were congregating around a certain area. Logan and I got into the starting pack while Bill waited on the sideline (he ran the 2nd leg of the 10K relay). ...And they totally ended up des...

Several weeks ago I got signed up for the Fast Cat 10K in Plainfield this weekend. And since then I've been hounding two friends of mine to register as well (partly because it's sporting a super-cool race name, partly because of the promise of a nice, flat course in the suburbs... but mainly because I don't have a car and need a ride there on race day). Anyway, they agreed to do the 10K as a 2X5K relay (which is a great race option that I can't remember seeing in any other races - good call Fast Cat organizers!). It seems to me that not being runners, these guys earned themselves some promotion by signing up for this... they deserve all the cheers and encouragement they can get! And to help make that possible, I wanted to make sure people will be able to recognize them when they're running. So, here's the fearless relay team: And yes, Logan always runs without a shirt on and Bill always wears a stupid glasses/mustache mask So as part of the registration the...

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'...