Ugly Toes

Busy day here. The Engineer and I headed into Chicago today, which involved me driving downtown. We were going to take Metra, but there was some confusion as to where the stupid Waukegan station was and we missed our train. Driving downtown wasn't so bad, except that it started getting congested right near our exit. We did get to pass by the LaSalle building billboard:

We walked by the Oprah studio:

We met up with DHB and a couple of the other LCAR runners for lunch before a trip to the expo. It's always nice when you meet people you "know" online and they turn out to be as nice in person. It was also great to chat with other runners! Driving into the city made the Engineer and I kind of cranky (because neither of knew where we were or what was going on) and being with the group got me excited again.

We were at the expo for maybe 2-2.5 hours, I don't even know. I wasn't that impressed by the merchandise, especially the official New Balance stuff. The first year I ran Chicago ('01) the t-shirt selection was awesome and I had a hard time deciding what to get. The short sleeve shirt that I did buy is probably one of my favorite shirts - I'm actually wearing it right now. But the shirts this year were all dry-release, which is cool on the one hand, but since it's the thinner material version they don't work as well as t-shirts. I had thought about getting a jacket, but didn't like any of the ones they had. Probably better to not spend the money.

I thought about getting some new shorts, but after buying the shorts with the giant ass liner at Austin I'm wary of buying shorts without trying them on. So we mainly just wandered around to see what all was there. I did pick up some additional cotton gloves; I love cotton gloves for early spring/late fall when my hands get easily chilled plus they come in handy when I need to do the vaseline/gloves treatment over the winter. I also got a different number belt/gel pack combo. (I'm going to wear that when I run tomorrow to make sure it'll work out).

I did end up with a couple of shirts because the Engineer encouraged me to spend money.

I stopped by the pace group booth, even though I'm not going to run with one. I just wanted the chance to win a Garmin 305, but while I was there I picked up some pace bands. I also went to the Nike booth to get a customized pace band - they are pretty slick! They have a special holder that the splits fit into, and they printed out a customized spectator guide with my target arrival time for each mile mark.

I also found a booth that was giving out stickers so for your clothes so you wouldn't have to write/paint on your shirt. Since the shirt(s) I plan on wearing are some of my favorite training shirts, I don't particularly want my name on them in permanent fashion. Not that I've made a decision on that front yet ...

I'm still not sure what I'm wearing. The weather from May's 15K was "39-41 degrees | FL 32-34 | 13 MPH NNW | light rain" according to my notes, and I was okay in shorts with a long sleeve over short sleeve shirt. I suppose I will probably end up going that route again. Tights are enough of an unknown for me to not want to wear them. I'll have to see what the weather is that morning before I decide about the long sleeve. Because I do have a coolmax long sleeve I can toss (it's from a race I didn't run) ... but if I wear my Nike long sleeve, I'm not going to toss it because it's my favorite.

So the pace groups and goals ... Here's what my race times from the summer project (based on McMillan)
5K: 20:42 -> 3:21:48 (7:43/mi)
10K: 43:27 -> 3:23:54 (7:47/mi)
1/2 mar: 1:36:12 -> 3:22:53 (7:45/mi)

Since I had that little hiccup a few weeks ago, I'm not 100% confident in my fitness. But you know, "go big or go home." I'm more likely to regret not going for something than to regret going for it. With that said, here's the goals:

Tier 1: 3:40:59 (BQ)
Tier 2: 3:30
Tier 3: 3:25

I've decided I'm going to try to run the 7:45s that my half marathon predicts. McMillan says that would get me across the finish line in 3:22:53, whereas my custom Nike band says 3:23:03. I do also have bands for 3:30 and 3:40 which I might carry in my pack so I can adjust if necessary. I hope not to do that, though!

Big props to Jeff, who's offered to post my race-day update! If anyone can't wait for me to retrieve my phone from gear check and send the results along, my bib # is visible in the picture above and the Chicago site has race day tracking available.

Good luck to everyone else running Chicago this weekend! I haven't been as good of a community member as I'd like to have been, but I'm rooting for all the RBF members!

And lastly, thank you to my readers for being so supportive! I've been bad about reciprocating comments and responding to e-mail, but I really do appreciate all of the comments/feedback/good wishes that have been left for me.

Out for now ... back Sunday, with a big, BIG PR!