Zach Runs Chicago

Last week we had three days over 100 degrees (the Texan part of me thinks "And? That's it?" while the Chicagoan part of me is thinking "Jesus Christ, why was it so hot?"), but this week the hottest it's predicted to be is 88, starting on Thursday. A few weeks ago we all might have thought "88? That's going to be hot." but now I think we're all pretty excited about this "cool" weather. And as race organizers across the city look at this weather report for the week, they must be breathing numerous sighs of relief. Because there's a surprising number of evening races this week, while as far as I know there weren't any last week. Lucky coincidence for runners and organizers alike.  Anyway, there are three evening races this that I know of (two of which I'm running): Tuesday @ 6:30: The Strike Out ALS 5K - this one takes place at U.S. Cellular Field and, similar to how the Race to Wrigley lets runners run through th...

As I mentioned a few weeks ago , I ran the inaugural Lifetime Torchlight Chicago 5K Run . Yesterday they sent out an email to everyone that ran it this year with a code for 50% off next year's race (June 20, 2013). I'm not planning that far ahead, but I thought I'd pass it on in case anyone else is, because it's a pretty good deal, considering they gave out two free beers per registrant (I realize I keep going back to that, but that's just such a great selling point for me). Basically just go to the registration page and then enter the code 2012TORCHRUN. The code is good for the first 500 people to register or until July 15th (whichever comes first). On a totally unrelated note, after running Sunday morning (luckily, before the unexpectedly crazy storm blew through for 5 minutes) we went to a little place in River North called BadHappy Poutine Shop . It was a happy coincidence that we showed up on Sunday because in case you didn't know, Sund...

I don't really have much to say here, except that as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I wrote an article for Newcity about the growing popularity of mud runs and how the "running" part of these things is downplayed, which means that they manage to pull in a lot of people who would otherwise never have considered running in a "normal" race. It's actually a pretty great thing for the running community because I would assume that at least SOME of those people who think they dislike running end up getting into it after doing one of these obstacle course runs... what do you think? Sound plausible? Also, in a totally unrelated closing note, did you see this article ? Seriously Men's Health? Exercising is directly correlated with making more money? As much as I want this to be true, I'm going to need to see some data on this. Just saying "Researchers asked thousands of Americans about their exercise habits as well as their weekly incomes. " ...

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30 and headed to Montrose Harbor for the Proud to Run 10K . Sunday I woke up at 4:30 and headed to Grant Park to volunteer for the Chicago Women's Half Marathon (which Brynn ran). So the weekend was pretty dominated by running and not so much by sleeping (that's for next weekend when I actually have no races scheduled for once!). This was the first year I've done Proud to Run, even though the race has been around forever (31 years) and I had a great time. It's a relatively small run (about 750 in the 10K) and has a real feeling of community. My full review is up at Newcity . Starting line at Proud to Run I felt really good the whole race (despite only getting around 3 hours of sleep). I finished with a 47:15 and would have liked to hang out for a while at the post-race party but I was tired and just kept running to the Wilson red line stop to head home. Then Sunday morning I woke up at 4:30 to volunteer for the Chicago Women...

Last night's inaugural Torchlight 5K was my first "official" evening run. Luckily, Maggie's write-up from last week's Jim Gibbons 5K had gotten me thinking about what/when to eat to get ready for an evening run like this so I ate a Clif bar around 4 o'clock in anticipation of being hungry and needing fuel before the race. As I was leaving my apartment building I randomly ran into a girl who was also heading to this race and was about to get picked up by a friend who was also running, so I ended up catching a ride there with them. This was helpful in that I didn't have to run to the starting line as I had planned, but it also meant I had to ride around as we tried to find parking - not having a car I'm unaccustomed to this annoying challenge. But after passing the course, we found parking relatively easily at Adams and Wabash and then ran the mile to the starting line (fun fact - my apartment is only 1.7 miles from the starting line, so the driv...

My parents were in town this weekend from Texas. We rented an I-GO (actually, even better than that, I won the WEGO 10 monthly competition for 10 free hours with an I-GO, which was very sweet) and drove out to Channahon, Illinois for the Warrior Dash . This was my first "mud run" and I was pretty excited about it, because I've been creating an image of the mud run in my mind as a pseudo-hardcore fun run. I would say that I still feel that after running it, but I think now I see it as intentionally not hardcore. They're asking people to have fun, not to kill themselves. My full review is up at Newcity - I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected, but most of that was just based on seeing it in a different way. This isn't really a run for runners. It's a run that tricks non-runners into thinking running is fun. More on that later (like several weeks from now later, not like later in this blog post). Anyway, I ran with Brynn, and we made sur...

So, after the punishing (at least to Chicagoans) heat from Saturday's half marathon , I did the only logical thing on Sunday morning: I woke up at 6:45 and took a cab to Soldier Field so I could do day-of registration for the Run Home Chicago 10K . Brynn was definitely not feeling that idea so she went back to sleep. I'd been getting interested in this race since it was an inaugural run that had been garnering a lot of attention leading up to the event. After registering (and running into Kate from Fit-Ink ) I was pretty impressed to see Andrea Metcalf as the announcer and a big selection of presenters supporting the race (but it is a race to end homelessness so I can see why they were there. Jesse White tumblers Secretary of State Jesse White was there, with the Jesse White Tumblers - Kate said he was  participating in part of it (first as part of the base of a human pyramid that the tumblers jumped over and then he did a head-stand and split his legs a...