Zach Runs Chicago

At the end of last month I ran the Big Sur International Marathon . And I'm not going to lie. It was hard. It was so hard that it didn't just hurt my legs. It hurt my feelings. And as I was sitting at home thinking about my hurt feelings I saw another upcoming marathon that looks picturesque and unique: the Starved Rock Country Marathon . So, I did the appropriate thing and signed up for another marathon - why let all that hill training from last month go to waste!? The race starts Saturday morning (May 16th) at 7am in Ottawa, Illinois. Previous to Big Sur I had only done large marathons (Chicago, New York, Athens ) and after getting a taste for what a smaller marathon can be like, I'm excited to go even smaller (right now there are around 230 people registered for Saturday's marathon). This is only the second year for the Starved Rock Country Marathon, but judging from the course (part of the course goes through Starved Rock State Park !) and the feedback to las...

Sometimes those of us who live in the city can forget what a big deal the Bank of America Chicago Marathon is. Well, not really, that would be pretty hard to do considering just what a big deal it actually is. But, when you’re used to living in the city (and maybe you have a few Chicago Marathons under your belt) you can forget that this is a World Marathon Major (an elite group of marathons that only includes Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York City and Tokyo). And while we may just be taking the train downtown to run on October 12th, people will be coming from all over the world to run this marathon. Joe O’Reilly is one of those people. Coming in from Dublin next month, Chicago will mark O’Reilly’s 7th marathon (he’s previously completed four in Ireland as well as Paris and Berlin). Four years ago he wouldn’t have guessed he’d be making this trip. “I got into running as part of a weight-loss journey I took four or so years ago where I lost about 90-95 pounds,” says O’R...

For the third time in a month, Brynn and I were out of town again this past weekend. This time, while everyone was running the Chicago marathon, we were in New York City where Brynn was presenting at the Performing the World conference . Since we have a lot of friends in NYC (and it's just a cool place to visit) I tagged along with her. For the last three years we've gone to NYC for the New York City Marathon (for me in 2009, Brynn in 2010 and me again last year) so it was a nice change of pace to be going to New York in the fall without running the marathon. ( Brynn actually did get in this year but deferred to next year because of Athens). We spent most of the weekend hanging out with friends (and skipping our Saturday run), but yesterday morning we mapped out and ran a fairly epic 20-mile run that covered the Queensboro Bridge, Roosevelt Island , Times Square, the Hudson River Greenway , Central Park, the Columbus Day Parade... and a stop at Pier 54 to see the David Bl...

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 ...