NYCM!

It happened.

WHAT’S UP

I’m signed up to run  the 2013 NYCM!  This is my fourth year in the lottery, so I knew I’d have guaranteed entry, but I was still worried NYRR would mess it up somehow.  I signed into my account last  week and laid my eyes on the sweetest words I’ve ever read…

YEAH BUDDY

$266 later…. I’m signed up to run the 2013 New York City Marathon!!!

Hotel and flight are already booked for marathon weekend and I’ve put vacation days on the calendar at work.  Needless to say, I am super pumped for November 3.   My running partner in crime, Molly, is planning on running too… via charity. Can’t wait.

So… who is is running?! Who else is in the lotto?  Reveal yourselves because I need to know my competition.  Because like many of the races I run, I plan on winning.

Illinois Half Marathon

After over a year of waiting, I finally ran the Illinois Half Marathon! I was signed up to run last year, but then I got pneumonia.  So lame.

The race was down in Champaign-Urbana and the start/finish was on the University of Illinois campus, which for me, was the big selling point of this race.  I welcome any excuse to visit my Alma Mater.

View of the Illini Union from the steps of Foellinger. It’s even prettier in the sunlight.

I thought MAYBE I could PR at this race.  After last week’s 10 mile race, I was feeling really confident that I could finish under two hours.   I haven’t been this excited/nervous for a race in a really long time.  Usually I’m running with the goal to “finish without dying,” so it was weird to toe the start line thinking I might actually 1) not die and 2) PR.

The race was on Saturday morning, so we (Molly and I) drove down on Friday afternoon to pick up our bibs and carb load. The expo was actually pretty big and really well organized. Molly and I were both pleasantly surprised. The expo was at the campus rec center, where I used to work in college.  It’s been remodeled and looks awesome! It was fun to be back there to see all the changes since I used to be the boss of that place in 2004.  And if you follow me on Instagram, then you already know that there was a sweet photo booth at the expo…

I never take pics at expos, but I couldn’t pass this one up.

And the race shirt is pretty legit, even though it’s too short for my torso (someone really needs to start making race shirts for us talls).  Here is the graphic on the back of the shirt.  Illinois is the Land of Lincoln, after all.

HONEST ABE

We carbed up at Monical’s Pizza (a central Illinois tradition) with a beer, garlic bread and pizza and went to bed early, like good little runners.  I couldn’t fall asleep and then started FREAKING OUT that I’d left my heated mattress pad turned on back at my apartment in Chicago.  It was a ridiculous thing to be worried about because I couldn’t really remember if I even actually used it/turned it on the night before AND it has an automatic shut off feature.  To make things worse, I could hear music coming from some where (and some how Molly did not hear the music and fell asleep in like 2 seconds. Whatever.). I called the front desk because I wasn’t sure if it was a wedding reception or another hotel room.  It was neither.  Per the front desk, it was a “dance party” in the banquet hall hosted by some U of I student group.  What a bunch of losers.  Music was off a little after 11, but I was so worked up about the matress pad, the race and music that I didn’t fall asleep until after midnight.  And then I woke up at 4:15 (we had a 5:10 alarm set) and never fell back asleep.  Miserable.

Hotel had a nice breakfast starting at 5, so we ate  around 6:15 with all the other runners before heading to the race. Start was a 7am and the weather was perfect.  Our hotel was 3 blocks from the start, so we had a short walk to the gear check, which was also well organized.  Sidenote: this is only the fifth year this race has been held, so it’s still “new,” which is why I think I was so impressed with the whole thing. Oh and the Illini marching band played the National Anthem AND the Illinois fight song before the race.  Best ever!

View from the start. Assembly hall the right and a little sliver of Memorial Stadium to the left.

We were in corral E (E for “elite,” obviously) and crossed the start line approximately 12 minutes after the gun.  We started at the front of the corral, which was key because there was a one minute break between each corral.  No crowding during the first mile.  Or any mile for that matter.

The first six miles I felt great.  The first mile or so ran down Green Street, through the heart of campus town, which was awesome. I had tossed my windbreaker at mile 2 and was just rocked a tank and capris for the rest of the race.  And when I say “tossed my windbreaker,” I really mean “I saw my friend’s dad and shoved my jacket in his face and told him I’d get it from him later.”  Tossing the jacket was a great idea.  It was just a thin little guy, but I was too sweaty (I’m so cute when I run) to keep it on so it was  awkwardly tied around my waist and I didn’t want to throw it on the road because it’s one of my fave Chicago marathon jackets. Thanks,  Kenny, for taking my jacket!

After mile six I just fell apart.  I felt like my legs were 100 pounds and every step was a mental and physical battle.  I should have been feeling happy, since we were running on the outskirts of town.  Refreshing to have a change of scenery.

For the record: that old broad there on the left smoked me. What a boss.

Mile 8-10 ran around Meadowbrook Park, which I really would have enjoyed, should I have not wanted to walk… or die.

The sweet prairies of central Illinois.

I stopped and walked (for the first time) at the water stop at mile 10ish and took my last Clif Shot.  I also took a minute or two to stretch out my hips, which were feeling unusually tight. After that, I felt a lot better.  Not sure if it was the Clif shot, the stretching or the fact that I was only a 5K away from my finisher’s medal.

The last 2 miles we returned to campus, which I enjoyed.  Plus, I ran into my friends and the world’s best sign (and Anna, the super 3 yr old spectator)!

Isn’t she the cutest?! Matthew doesn’t look half bad either.

After I saw those three (Mary is blocked by that sweet sign), I rounded the corner to turn into Memorial Stadium. The race ended on  the field, which is pretty cool… even if our football team is terrible.

Action shot while blazing to the finish

The post race area was really great.  Spectators in the stands and runners and volunteers on the field.  The gear check was up in the stadium (like inside the stadium/not on the field), which was also really well organized. Only runners were allowed inside, which I think helped keep things organized.  There was a lot of food available to runners… the usual: bagels, pretzels and bananas… but  also pasta and pizza which I thought was weird and really unappetizing, but A LOT of people were chowing down on the pasta and pizza.  Barf.

And here is the medal – not bad if you ask me.

Who doesn’t want a medal with Memorial Stadium engraved on it?

And my official time: 2:06:30.

Official time. It was painful.

I was hoping to break two hours  (my PR is 1:58:30), but sadly it didn’t happen. It’s still my second fastest half time ever… and 3 minutes faster from the NYC Half last month, so I can’t complain.  Plus I am running the Brooklyn Half in three weeks, so hopefully I can shave some more minutes off my finish time.

I don’t usually download my race splits, but I had to today to confirm that I actually crashed and burned after mile six.  They pretty much illustrates how I died starting at mile seven.  And as you can see, I took my sweet time stretching at mile 10. I didn’t walk at another other points in the race (not sure what happened at mile 7?!).  I don’t know if I didn’t eat enough for dinner or breakfast? Or if my crap night of sleep caught up with me?  Who knows. But I felt like I was running on empty.

I mean… what the hell happened?

With my finish time aside, I was really pleased with the whole race.  There was also a full marathon and a 10K happening that morning (and a 5K on Friday night), so the town was crawling with runners. I heard that almost 20,000 runners ran this weekend – so again, so impressed with the organization of this this relatively new race. The area news was reporting that every hotel room in the greater Champaign-Urbana area was booked.  Oh and 46 states and 9 countries were represented.  Pretty legit for a race in east central Illinois. I already booked my hotel reservation for next year’s race (they offered this option when I checked out)! There are only 4 hotels within walking distance of the race, so having a room that close is key.  Hotels in C-U sold out really early… I was on the wait list for my hotel and I booked it in September!  I’ll be back for you next year, Champaign!

And I also made Molly walk and drive around campus with me. I hadn’t been on the Quad in YEARS. It was a gloomy day, but campus still looked beautiful.  I may or may not have gotten a little misty-eyed when I stepped onto the quad. I have a lot of love of the University of Illinois.

Illini Union

Morrow Plots

Undergrad library in the ground and the ACES campus to the south

The Eternal Flame

And finally, my sorority house, Alpha Gamma Delta.

All in all it was a great weekend.  I ran the streets of my favorite place and saw some old friends.  I can’t wait to come back next year for a repeat experience.  And if you live in Illinois, you should really consider running this race. It is cheap, close and fun! Good ole central Illinois hospitality.

Next up: Brooklyn Half.  May 18th.  Bring it.

PS: My mattress pad was not on when I got home today.

Lakefront 10 Miler

On Friday, I made a last minute decision  to sign up for the First Merit Bank LakeFront 10 Miler.  I mostly signed up because my training group wasn’t holding an official training run on Saturday and I didn’t feel like running 10 miles alone. Yeah, I’m not a very good solo runner.

The weather has been so sick here this past week, but yesterday was finally nice.  Cold, but nice.  So cold that there was snow on the ground at the start of the race.

Skyline view through the trees… with a side of snow.

And one more… this time with a lake view.

And let it be known: I love the Montrose Beach area. I especially love running up there.

Love

I’ve run this race before… I think in 2009.  And I’m pretty sure it took me like 2 hours. I’ve also run the Soldier Field 10 Miler a few times, so I looked up my PR Friday night. 1:29:53 from the 2011 SF 10 Miler… which is approx 9 min miles.  I was planning on just treating the race as a long run, but once I saw my PR, I decided that perhaps I would try to beat it. You know, since I’ve been running like a cheetah these days.

The course ran along the lakefront (shocking!) and obviously was flat… with the exception of running up the monster hill around mile 3. It sucked. So bad.

Here I am blazing down said hill. Which I realize looks nothing like a hill. Silly Midwesterner.

With the exception of  the hill, I felt fast and strong. Plus, it is easy to run fast when the weather is awesome and the scenery is awesomer.

Unrelated thought regarding this pic of  Diversey Harbor: I NEED TO BEFRIEND A BOAT OWNER

My pace fluctuated between 8:42 and 9:06 and I knew to get a PR I needed to stay below 9.  I also haven’t downloaded my splits off my Garmin, so I’m not sure how my miles actually looked. The last 2 miles were hard.  I was starting to feel tired, but I knew if I could just hold on for 18 more minutes I could get a lil PR.

Unofficial time. Satellite didn’t pick up for a little bit, thus the sub 10 mile distance.

Official time: 1:29:53.  Like…. I matched my old PR to the SECOND.  I couldn’t do that if I tried. So I guess I ran a PR yesterday?  I also got a medal, which was a nice like bonus because I didn’t realize this race gave medals.  It’s one of the better looking ones  in my collection.  I hoard race medals.

Lakefront 10 Miler medal at the lakefront.

It was such a gorgeous day and I wasn’t planning on talking about Boston here on the blog, but I thought a lot about Boston yesterday. About how unfair (for a lack of better word) it is that the feeling of safety we, as runners and spectators, have lost while participating in races.  I thought about Boston in the start corral. I thought it every time I saw an MD on the course.  Every time I saw a spectator cheering for us.  Every time I took water from a volunteer at an aid station.  I also thought a lot about little 8 year old Martin Richard while I was running.  That poor little buddy lost his life while cheering on runners.  It breaks my heart.  And makes me so mad at the same time.   And I will close out with that.

Next up: Illinois Half Marathon on 4/27/13.

That Time I (Gracefully) Fell

And also it’s only 5 weeks until the Illinois Half Marathon!  After last weekend’s half marathon in NYC, all I can think about is training to PR down Champaign on April 27!

I didn’t get to work out much this week.  Monday I flew back to Chicago, Tuesday I went to the Shedd Aquarium with little man Elliot, my brother and sister in law, Wednesday I went to spin class, Thursday I went to a going away happy hour for a co-worker and Friday I rested.  Saturday I  ran 9 miles (and also fell)!

I don’t know if I’d consider Tuesday day a real rest day, because we sure walked all over the Shedd with Elliot. He LOVED the fish!

We caught him kissing the glass a few times. That’s how much he loved the fish.

SO EXCITED!

It was also a  pretty pretty day in Chicago. I was already missing my beloved NYC, but I was quickly reminded why I love this city.

What you cannot see in this pic is the sub arctic windchill and 30MPH winds.

So I only worked out one time during the week, but my old lady body was still recovering from the half on Sunday.  I know I didn’t run that “fast” compared to most people, but it was the hardest I’d worked in a long, long time.  Wednesday night spin was pretty hard  for me too – I could feel that the ole legs were still kinda beat up.

Fast forward to Saturday.  Molly and I head out around noon to tackle a 9 miler.  We waited that long for two reasons.  1) I wanted to sleep in and then drink ALL THE COFFEE before we ran and 2) it was cold. We wanted to wait until it “warmed up” to a balmy 35 degrees.  The run, for the most part, was a success.   We hovered around 10 min/mi pace (speed demons!) and were running on the south side, which provided a welcome change in scenery to the north side lake running path.

Seriously. So pretty. The lake. The beach. The skyline?!

All was going well… until my dumbass fell around mile 6.5.  There is a little stretch of the path that is crumbling around the edges and I somehow misstepped (is that even a word?) and I swear to you, I flew INTO THE AIR and then rolled on the ground.  I rolled the shit out of my ankle.   This is the first time I’ve ever fallen during a run, so perhaps I’m being a bit dramatic, but it scared the crap out of me.  I stood up and was happy to find I could walk and didn’t break anything.   I was able to walk, so we walked for about a half mile, but it got SO COLD (it was a wee bit windy), so we slowly shuffled the rest of way to the end of 9 miles.  I didn’t think I hurt my ankle that badly since I was able to run.  Molly said it was adrenaline, I say it was stupidity, because today it hurts  so bad to point/flex, rotate or walk on the thing.  It’s not swollen or bruised, which I find weird, but the foot hurts to the touch.  I’ve never busted or rolled an ankle, so I know nothing about what happens when something like this happens. Well I know to ice.  Which I did… with a sweet package of veggies.

Those are sexy socks, I KNOW.

And I woke up to a super swollen knee (it did not look like this yesterday and I couldn’t really get a good pic of it – single girl problems.).

Someone needs a tan.

I’m really, really glad I had on my hard shell running pants, otherwise, I’m pretty sure my knee would have been torn to shreds.  I basically fell onto broken up asphalt, not pretty.  I knocked up my elbow and hand too. Yay!

So anyway, I’ve pretty much been on the couch for the past 36 hours (which explains my rapid fire march madness tweets) because I’m sore everywhere. The cat must be annoyed that I’m taking up his space, because today he attacked my hair.  And because I always on my phone, I was able to capture him, mid-attack.

Why Matthew?! I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS?!

His response: “we’re not.”

Anywaysss, I will go to a pilates mat class tomorrow because I need/want to workout, but don’t want to hurt the stupid foot/ankle any further.   I don’t want to push it, but I also don’t want to rest too much and lose the little training momentum that  I have going!

So that is that.  Here’s to hoping my old lady body heals and I’m back to the treadmill soon!

PS: It’s one hour until the Illini tip off against Miami!  LET’S GO ILLINI!

Where is week 9?

You may have noticed that I have not posted an “Illinois Marathon training week 9, 10, 11 post”.  It’s not because I haven’t been running ( I have!), but because I’ve been watching Homeland like an obsessive freak and couldn’t tear myself away from the show to blog. (Aside: if you haven’t already, YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS SHOW.)

He’s hooked too.

In the time since I last blogged, a couple few things have happened.  I’ve decided to drop down to the half marathon from the full for the Illinois Marathon in April.  This is due to the fact that NYRR announced that they will be honoring those of us who have been denied for the last 3 years to the NYC Marathon this November.   This is super exciting because I’ve dreamed of running New York City for years now.  Because this is my dream race, I want to go into training and the race at 100%.  I worried that training for a marathon this spring might cause me to burn out on training by the time summer rolls around.  Also, the weather has been the pits this winter and I am not hard core, so I haven’t been able to run as much as I want/need to run in order to race a strong marathon in April. So… I will be running the Illinois Half Marathon on April 27th! The last 3 big races I’ve ran (Chicago Half in September, Chicago Marathon in October and RnR Arizona Half in January) have all sucked because I’ve gone into the race under-trained.  I ran the NYC Half this past weekend (more on this in a minute) and pretty much killed it (probably because I actually had a solid training base, who knew this would be so helpful), so I finally feel like I’ve tapped into my motivation to train again. Yay!

So back to the NYC Half.  I finished the race in 2:09:30, which is the fastest I’ve run a half marathon in approx two years (and 1:58 is my PR). My time actually came as a complete shock to me because I’d been training for a marathon, not a half – which for me means more miles at a slower pace… not a lot of work on speed.  I was planning on treating this race a fun run, but once I got out there something clicked and I just wanted to crush it.

Here’s a mini recap:
Start coral.  Cold. Very cold.  Good thing we had these sweet robes to keep us warm while waiting to start. Molly gets all the credit for the robe idea.  We found them at a KMart down on like 8th Street for $5 while we were looking for cheap throw away clothes after dinner on Saturday night.

Creepy self pic.

Central Park/Miles 1-6. One word: hills.  My midwestern legs WERE NOT ready for these hills.  Good thing we were so excited to just be running in CP, otherwise, I think we may have died. These were our slowest miles – we ran conservatively, to say the least.

Central Park.  I mean, there are worse places to run….

Times Square/Miles 6-8ish. While I’ve come to loath Times Square in my short time of being a wanna be NYC-er, I loved this part of the course. It was a good change of scenery.  As beautiful as Central Park is, I was sorta getting bored of it.  There were not a lot of spectators in CP and the hills were getting old (I think I told Molly at one point that “these hills are bullshit.” Ha.).  Time Square was loud and bright, which is just what I needed halfway through the race.  Plus, let’s be honest, it was pretty sweet to be running down the streets of one of the busiest places in the city.

Bright lights. Big cityyyyyy!

Matching outfits. We are cool.

West Side Highway/Mile 8-finish. This was a lil boring and sorta felt like a race that has a course down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. A river was on our right (Hudson River? I don’t know, there are too many waterways in NYC) and city to the left, which is what reminded me of Chicago – the lake on one side, city on the other and not a whole lot of spectators.  Also, this part of the course was nice and flat, just like LSD.  The one thing that was different/more awesome than running down LSD?  Running toward this….

One World Trade Center

I swelled with American pride while focusing on that guy while running.

We ran by this flag in Times Square. And it seems appropriate to insert it here. USA!

When we got to the West Side Highway was when I knew I was feeling good enough to really just push as hard as I could for the rest of the race.  My game plan for the race was to just go out and run a pace that felt good that I could maintain. I knew I didn’t want to have a shitty time (I didn’t pay all this money to come to NYC and suck), but also wasn’t expecting to feel that good either.  I really wish my Garmin didn’t lose service in the tunnel at the end of the race because I’d love to have seen my splits.  I was running under 9:30 minute miles for the last 5.  Speedy, I know. Kidding, but I haven’t run that “fast” in a long, long time.   I have no pics from the last few miles of the race because at this point I was just trying to run as FAST AS I COULD.  I also took no pics after the race because I was SO COLD and exhausted. I haven’t been that happy after a race in a long, long time!

Back to NYC. The rest of the trip we spent being super tourists!

Central Park

Skating at Rockefeller Plaza

Creeping on Savannah at the Today Show

Top of the Rock

St. Patty’s Parade on 5th Ave (aka biggest shit show I’ve ever seen… so. many. drunks.)

Double decker bus tour (and I totally creeped out that guy when I took this pic. Sorry ’bout it, man.)

Also, the weather was really crappy every day we were in NYC….

I’m not sure that that this pic does the weather justice. It was SICK on Saturday.

But the weather on Sunday was was spectacular.  Cold, but sunny. Perfect day to kill a race.

So I’m now really excited to just crush the next 6 weeks of training before the Illinois Half… I really think I can PR in Champaign.  There are no hills and I have weeks to work on my speed! LET’S DO THIS.

IL Marathon Training Week 7 and 8: Winter Returns

Sup.

For some reason I couldn’t find the motivation to blog last week.  I am a slacker. I will try to recall my workouts, because I know you all want to know what I ran.

Week 7:
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: Speed/treadmill class at lunch, 4 miles
Wednesday: Spin
Thursday: 6 miles, outside!
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 60 Min Definitions class (1 degree windchill = no running)
Sunday: Forced rest day – baby shower in Mahomet

So week 7 was a good week.  I some how managed to get in my midweek  middle distance run and cross training.

Valentine’s Day Run

It was a lil chilly.

I felt like a champion… excecpt I skipped my long run on Saturday.  12 Miles was on the agenda and I just could not fathom running it in 1 degree windchill.  Not to mention, I really do not have that kind hard core winter running gear. And I knew  I did not have it in me to do it on the treadmill, so I took a class at the gym instead.

On to Week 8.  It was kind of a bust. I ran 2 times.  That’s it.

Monday: 10 miles (week 7′s long run… ran out of gas, didn’t enough gels)
Tuesday: 1 hour PT session
Wednesday: Nothing
Thursday: Still nothing
Friday: You guessed it: nothing.
Saturday: 13.35 miles!

So I moved week 7′s run to last Monday because I had the day off work and it was about 50 degrees and beautiful in Chicago!  SUCH A BETTER OPTION THAN RUNNING ON THE TREADMILL! I was supposed to run 12, but I literally ran out of gas.  It was pretty dang windy, I didn’t eat a big enough breakfast and I only packed 2 gels.  I needed more. Excuses.  On a positive note, it was a gorgeous day.

Super sweet collage of all the ice that I made on Instaframe.

And, for the record, this is my favorite part of the lake path.

It’s even prettier when there are leaves on the trees.

This weekend’s long run, while a lot colder, was more successful.

Perfect pacing. 10:30 on the DOT.

Overall we hit the  right pace, but some miles were faster and slower than 10:30.

This mile, for example, was a slow mile.

For you Chicago runners, you know the spot on the path that I’m talking about… the stretch between Oak Street Beach and Ohio Beach is always messy in the winter.  We ran up at the top of the path, next to LSD.

I’m getting cold just looking at this.

We ran on inner Lake Shore Drive on the way back, as to avoid this idiot part of the path.  It was a super pretty morning along Lake Michigan and lucky for us, the sun stayed out until about the last 2 miles.  IT WAS SO MUCH COLDER AFTER THE CLOUDS TOOK OVER.

Last lake pic. No boats in the harbor.  Sorry, I’m obsessed with this great lake.

And unlike last weekend, I did something else besides running and sitting on the couch like a hermit.   A couple of friends and I took a painting “class” (for lack of a better word) at Bottles and Bottega in Lakeview.

Per usual, I was busy taking sneaky pics

That guy up front was guiding us how to paint a pic of  some birch trees.

Before

After. (and I know, I am wearing a really sweet vest. MAN MAGNET.)

Oh and the instructor man told us we all had to sign our painting… and a symbol, if we wanted.  Naturally this was mine…

Oh and we were there on the 23rd. I’m really smart and good with dates and small details.

It was a lot of fun and it’s BYOB, so they encourage you to drink a few glasses of wine while there to help with creativity.  I had a hard time drinking since I was sooo tired from my run.  I bet if I guzzled more wine I would have really created a masterpiece.

Today I was super tired and sore from my run yesterday.  I slept in SO LATE and woke up to this creeper just staring me down.

“Wake up, meow!”

Later, he facetimed with Elliot. And Elliot meowed for him.  It was funny.

Elliot is the best!

So that’s the super exciting time I’ve been having the past 2 weeks.  I am looking forward to week 9 of training.  Miles are getting longer and luckily the temps look to be getting warmer, which is excellent because I think this week’s mid week longish run is  7 miles.  I just don’t have the kind of will power to run that on a ‘mill after work! Here is to week 9er!

And I will leave you with this sweet pic that I snapped yesterday.  See you after week 9!

Caturday!

Week 6: Illinois Marathon Training

Week 6 was a rough week for marathon training and I. I had a little cold or something early in the week and it knocked me outtttt.  Like going to bed at 8:30 and sleeping until 7AM knocked out.  Oh and I pretty much lost my voice all week, which was super fun. Needless to say, I stayed away from the gym – it was hard enough to get through a day at work without passing out.

This is what my week looked like: the cat sleeping on my head and no working out.

Here is the ole recap:

Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: Nada – I canceled PT
Wednesday: Yeah still nothing
Thursday: 1 hr physical therapy sesh
Friday: Nope
Saturday: 7 Miles… OUTSIDE!
Sunday: 1 hour conditioning class at Equinox ( Class was titled “The Skinny Jeans Workout”. Ha!)

Soooo yeah. Silver lining of not working out all week? Feeling super fresh and motivated for Saturday’s long run!  This is the first time all training cycle I’ve run with the CARA winter marathon training group. The weather was the “best” it has been in week.  And I use quotes because it was only 30 degrees, but felt like heaven compared to the temperatures we’ve been seeing.  I was hesitant to run with the group because I’m new to legitimate winter running and didn’t know how the lake path would look. We had a serious rain/slush/snow/ice situation on Thursday and  on Friday night the sidewalks around Lincoln Park had 2 inches of solid ice, so I was skeptical that the path would be ice-free.

Straight nastiness – and this was only be beginning!

Because I am an internet creep, I tweeted CARA to ask about da path.  The assured me that we’d be safe.  And they were right!

Snow on the beach, but path was clear!!

The path, for the most part, was clear.  There were only a couple of slick spots, but the park district did a really nice job of shoveling and salting the path (well I’m assuming it’s the park district who does this?). I’m so glad I didn’t chicken out and hit the treadmill again.  I think I’ve maxed out on long runs on the treadmill. Plus, the regardless of how cold it is, the ‘mill can’t compete with this:

Sweet Home Chicago

I also am still pretty bad at dressing myself for long winter runs.  Temps were hovering around 30 at 7:30am (when we start) with a little wind, but no sun.  From head to toe this was my getup: smartwool socks, fleece lined lulu pants (with hardshell on the front of the leg), thin long sleeved base layer, merino wool pull over, puffy TNF vest, wicking mittens, ear/head band.  My bum was so cold and my upper half was on fire.  I believe I need to lose the vest or wear a less heavy one and get some type of under armor  boyshorts or something to keep my butt warm?!  I also ran with a hand warmer for the first 3 miles… my digits were sooooo cold!  This genius idea is courtesy of Molly.  So great!  After my hands warmed up,  put the lil guy in my pocket next to my Cliff shots to keep them from getting too cold. Genius!  Next week looks like it’s going to be a lot colder – only a high of 24! And I think we’re running 13? Eeks!

Lastly, major props to the people who come out to feed us Gatorade and water. It’s so awesome to not have to carry a water bottle or wear a fuel belt. And seeing the gato table at the end of a long run is also so sweet.

Orange cooler = end of the run

In non-running related news… JK! There isn’t any because I was pretty much a hermit all weekend.   Well, I was a hermit besides getting brunch with Ashley after my run.  Yummo.

Obligatory mimosa pic for Instagram (bc if it isn’t on Instagram, then it didn’t happen).

While being a hermit/trophy cat lady last night,  I started watching HBO’s Girls. I seem to be the last person to see this show. It’s awkwardly excellent and I’m hooked.  And I have old school DVD Netflix (yeah yeah, I need to get the streaming) and my “vintage” DVD/VHS player from college finally bit it, so I had to watch the show on my Mac.  Nothing like watching a DVD in bed at 9pm on a Saturday night… with your cat and iPhone. Here is a recap of my night, in pictures.  You’re welcome in advance.

Episode one begins. MCH want to play fetch (note the 2 pompoms). I ignore him.

Still watching. The cat now has dropped of another pompom for fetch. I’m still ignoring him.

He is staring me down because I won’t play with him.

Straight pissed that I won’t play fetch with him. Bad cat mom.

Yes, I know that I am huge loser.

OH. SPEAKING OF LOSERS… HOW SWEET WAS THE ILLNI GAME ON THURSDAY?  I about lost my MIND at the end of that game.  I thought my twitter feed was going to explode (I follow way too many Illini people).

PEOPLE WERE LOSING THEIR MINDZ

I think this post on The Champaign Room pretty much sums up how every Illini felt on Thursday night.

Hahahahhahahahaha

And if you are an Illini fan and like sarcastic game commentary, you need to follow this blog on twitter.  He has THE BEST live game threads.  I’m laughing to myself just thinking about the crap he writes.

Haha, and on that note….

Grumpy Cat gets me.

And I’ve maxed out on cat pics.  Until next time, internet friendz.