Ugly Toes

No, I didn't run it - just volunteered. (I got a t-shirt + cookies!) Wow - what a great day for a marathon - under 50 at the start, and I don't think it got above 60 until past 5 hours in. Low wind, no humidity - I'm sad I didn't run at least the half because it was such great weather.

I helped at the track club's water stop (around 13.something and 15.4 miles). Again, I had a really good time. I got to meet a lot more of the track club members, who were all really nice. (I kind of dumbly showed up in shorts and a t-shirt, expecting better weather, and one of the ladies found an extra jacket for me to wear and offered gloves). It got to be a little bit of a zoo at parts since we only had tables for one side and runners were coming from both directions, but I think we managed okay.

This was the first year that they had a separate 1/2 marathon instead of a 2-person relay. I was thinking everyone seemed really spread out and that there didn't seem to be as many people as I remember from running the full 3 years ago and from watching the second half after running the first 1/2 of the relay 2 years ago. Then I realized, duh - all the people that would've been out doing the second 1/2 of the relay were now just running the separate race and therefore stopped before we ever saw them.

I'm not racing this year, since I'm so out of shape and in general I don't find it fun to "run" races. I am still going to enter the Women's Race and the JMM 5K because I love those races and want to keep my streak going (they are the only race streaks I have left), but in general I'm just too competitive and it's too hard to not race. (I'm already sad at having just looked at the race results for today and having seen that if I were in Chicago-shape, I could've been top 10 for the marathon and top 5 for the 1/2). But, I think I'm going to try and volunteer at some races this summer. It's been fun so far, I've gotten to meet some new people, and I'm past due to give back to the running community.