Zach Runs Chicago

Every year Newcity releases its annual Top 5 of Everything issue . There are lists for film, theater, design, music, nonsense and pretty much anything else we feel like throwing in there. And every year I include a few running lists. This year I threw in three (listed below). The issue hit newsstands last week but it's still available if you want a physical copy. Otherwise, check out the full list at the link above and here are my running lists: Top 5 Chicago Running Stores Fleet Feet Sports - Lincoln Square Fleet Feet Sports - Old Town New Balance - Lincoln Park Nike Running - Bucktown Universal Sole - Lakeview Top 5 Chicago 5K Races of 2014 Chi-Town Big Game 5K (February 2) Ravenswood Run (April 27) Run to Remember (May 3) Energizer Night Race (June 7) Oktoberfest 5K (September 18) Top 5 Chicago Races Longer Than a 5K of 2014 Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle (March 30) Chi Town Half Marathon & 10K (April 6) Soldier Field 10 Mi...

Back in April, after the Ravenswood Run , I got a post-race massage that was especially memorable to me (if you've gotten enough post-race massages, you probably know that they're helpful, but they also kind of start to blend together). This one was different and I wrote about it at the time (from April ): Before I left though I got a free 10-minute sports massage from Molly Coeling . She and another massage therapist were there for the Fleet Feet No Boundaries group but they were nice enough to let me slip in and get a massage as long as I promised to hop up if anyone from the No Boundaries group came over while I was there. I told her about my IT-band injury from last year and she worked over my left side pretty well. Definitely something I needed done before I headed to the second race (and just in general). Luckily no one from No Boundaries came over while I was there so I got the full massage.  This week, with my IT-band acting up and the Chicago Ma...

My running hair could use a little work The Tough Mudder is only a few weeks away and in terms of half marathon training (the Tough Mudder is only "10-12 miles" but I figure I should be able to at least do a half to compensate for the obstacles and the mud) I was supposed to run 11 miles today. I didn't do that. But I did do a little bit of what could be considered interval training (with a little imaginative considering). Making use of Chicago's crowded spring running calendar I scheduled two 5Ks back-to-back, leaving enough time to run from one to the other: Ravenswood Run (Hermitage and Wilson): 8:00am Phi Delta Chi 5K (Montrose Harbor): 9:30am Luckily, the first race started only about a mile from my house so I met my friend John at his place down the street at 7:30 and we jogged over to the starting line to get a little warm up in. As with most races put on by Fleet Feet, the gear check was easy, the corral system was clear and the takeoff was s...

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...

So, as you may remember, in November Newcity released its Best of Chicago 20th anniversary edition and I had a number of running-themed items in there. Last month (last year at this point), Newcity released its 2012 Top 5 of Everything issue . To view Newcity's entire Top 5 list for 2012 (there's some good stuff over there), follow the link above, but below are the two running-themed lists that I submitted. While I didn't run every race in Chicago last year, I ended up finishing out the year with a total of 45 races under my belt (only the Athens Classic Marathon was outside Chicagoland) and I feel pretty good about these choices. Top 5 Chicago 5K Races of 2012 Ravenswood Run (April 29) Chinatown 5K (July 14) Terrapin 5K (August 2) Burgers & Beer 5K (August 20) Carrera de los Muertos (November 3) Top 5 Chicago Races Longer Than a 5K of 2012 Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle 8K (March 25) Cinco de Miler (May 6) Soldier Field 10 Mile (May 26) P...

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 ...