Nike Women's 10K on a Sunday

Today was the Nike Women's 5K, 10K, and Festival up by Montrose Harbour. I raced this one last year, and had a lot of fun, although it was dreadfully crowded and hot. It was cool to do a women's only race, just because you see how actively women are involved in the running community here in Chicago. Plus, you get to see how freaking fast some people are! Seriously, freak shows...all of them. There's also an interesting mix of experience levels, too. Granted, I consider myself a beginner runner, having only been actively running for two years now. But even when I started, I tried to learn as much as I could about race etiquette. Unfortunately, these events bring out the people who either don't know or care to know anything about the subject. Alas. You have the people who, even though they intend to walk the entire course, insist on standing in the front. Right next to the ladies who run faster than a 7 minute mile. There's no shame in walking, or run-walking, or whatever, but get a clue! Stand farther back and let the speed demons do their thing!

Anyway, this year I was going to be running with Kristen and Amy, who are in my pace group in CES. Leslie and Gina would be joining us too, but they're much MUCH faster than we are. The weather was perfectly overcast, maybe with a little bit of drizzle. The humidity wasn't bad for July in Chicago. Kristen and I ran a pretty smart race, if I do say so myself! We basically turned it into a progression run, starting out at an 11 minute-per-mile pace for the first two miles, then bumping it up to a 10:30/10 minute-per-mile pace, and finally finishing at a sub-10 minute pace to come in at 64 minutes (unofficially).

It felt pretty good to have a decent race. Although, I really want to be faster. It appears that when I try, only then do I realize how amazingly difficult it is! Yeah, we were able to pound out faster than a 10 minute mile for the last 1.5 miles, but there's NO WAY I could maintain that for a half or full marathon. Yet :)

The best part about the race was our breakfast afterwards! We went to m. henry's in Andersonville, where I had black bean cakes with eggs and potatoes. Yummy! And now for the rest of the day, I think I'll do absolutely nothing! Well, I'll read my lines and review my blocking notes for the show (You'll get a blog about that one tomorrow, I think) and possibly walk to the Jewel for some bread substances. Yes...excellent idea!