if drinking organic valley eggnog for breakfast is wrong, then i don’t wanna be right!
after tasting this morning, odin definitely and enthusiastically agrees that it’s as delicious as he remembers! so, go ahead and pick up a few quarts and make some eggnog cupcakes, or eggnog pots de creme, or the always delicious eggnog and orange juice 🙂
after three weeks of tapering down running and getting my personalized running shirt, the start of the chicago marathon had finally arrived.
it was chilly in grant park, with temps hovering around 37°F. it was cold enough that the day before i went to a thrift store in wicker park and picked up some stylish “disposable” cold weather sweats that i could ditch after warming up. i can’t believe i didn’t get a picture of me in what looked like a 1985 “sports illustrated” branded warming jacket.
and, wow, was there a lot of people. i think the official count was something like 45,000 runners which is a. lot. of. people. i forgot what it was like to run with that many people and, to be honest, it started messing with head about 20 miles into the race!
here’s the view after the start. there are so many people that it took about 10 or 15 minutes of slowly ambling along before you even get to the starting line. this was also the first year officials created two separate starting times. the first group started at 7 am. i was in the second group that started at 8 am. i’m not sure but this might have been done, in part, to cut down on the time it takes to just get started. if i recall correctly, when i ran 9 years ago it took 45 minutes just to cross the starting line, which is a long time to be standing around on a chilly morning!
people were tossing their “disposable” clothes while slowly making their way to the start so it can be a little tricky to not trip over piles of clothes before you even get going.
i had the best intentions of taking a bunch of photos along the way but my droid phone completely drained its battery after just 7 miles while running runkeeper after switching to 4G.
so it was extra nice that kris remembered to bring her camera and was able to catch some nice shots, like this one just moments after i spotted them at about 7.5 miles mark.
odin was happy to see me, but i think he was also happy to have me get moving so he can jump on the “L” with kris in their own race to meet me at the next stop.
they also met up with me at about the 17 mile marker. none of us had mobile phones, so it was no small miracle that we were able to catch each other along the route. i knew the general marker that we were going to try and meet up, but the entire route was packed with spectators so it was really tough to pick them out even though they were waving signs and ringing cow bells.
i think you can hardly tell i got up at 5 am and have been running for 17 miles 🙂
at this point, i’m still feeling pretty good. i maintained about a 4:20 actual running pace through the first 16 miles and was running slower than i could have run because of a nagging, knotty feeling i had in my right hamstring. it wasn’t anything painful but it had been noticeable through my entire three weeks of tapering and was the kind of thing that might turn out to be nothing or might send me hobbling at the 20 mile mark.
you’ll also note that it’s still cold enough after 3 hours of running that i still have my thrift store running pants on. i think it might have been 43F which can usually be shorts weather but the breeze was mighty brisk.
my personalized ov shirt worked out great. spectators could clearly see my name and i had a great time being a goofball and high-fiving long lines of folks along the entire marathon who took to cheering my name 🙂
no joke, it’s a great motivator and totally not as narcissistic as it might sound.
it was also fun to hear people yell my name and then shout “i love organic valley!” after i ran by. there was even a guy who wanted to talk about how much he loved ov as we were running along.
incidentally, the shirt was made by atayne and is made from 100% recycled polyester produced from post-consumer plastic bottles.
one of the many great things about running in the chicago marathon is going through all the awesome areas that make up chicago like chinatown which is on the route around miles 19-21. tons of people in all the neighborhoods line the streets and highlight the diversity in chicago. i wish i could have taken more pictures of the bands playing and the characters along the way, but alas my phone was dead.
and here i am at about mile 21. not sure what’s going on here. getting a little loopy. it was awesome running into kris and odin again because i was fighting The Bad Thoughts from mile 16 to 21. i think everyone gets them and fighting through them is all part of The Marathon Experience. after 20 miles your body is really doing all it can to tell you that it really doesn’t want to keep going. but you just have to fight through it and keep putting one foot in front of the other.
stretching it out before heading off for the last 6 miles. AND SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE, THAT’S NOT A BALD SPOT! I GOT A SHORT HAIR CUT AND MY RUNNING CAP SMOOSHED MY HAIR ALL WEIRD!
ah, all the hard work and, at last, a photo of me running triumphantly towards the finish line while my wife and son cheer me on from the stands!
except! kris! missed! the! shot!
and instead she got a nice shot of the old guy who almost beat me 🙂
( seriously, i hope i’m still able to run marathons when i’m his age )
frantically, kris tried to get another shot of me running towards the finish and instead got a shot of a guy who sort-of looks like me.
even though action sports photography might not be her forte, she’s a keeper.
i made it! 26.2 miles! whooohooooooooooooooo!
all things considered it was a great run. my “chip time” was almost exactly 5 hours from start to finish, but my actual running time after factoring in stops to see kris and odin and two veeeerrrryyyy long waits in bathroom lines was probably somewhere between 4:30-4:40 which is just about what i wanted to run and even a little bit better considering i was running slower than i could for most of the marathon to make sure i didn’t gimp across the finish line with a knotty hamstring ( which ended up clearing up magically at about 20 miles.
had i known my hamstring wasn’t going to give me any trouble i probably could have ran 4:20, but i’m totally happy with my finishing time given the fact that i was able to sprint ( or as close as i can come to sprinting after running a marathon ) the last 1.5 miles and had plenty of gas left in the tank.
hi, ho! next time!
and i think there will be a next time. or at least another marathon, even if it’s not the chicago marathon. to be honest, although i had a great time overall, running with 45,000 other people can be a draining mentally. i remember it being invigorating 9 years ago, but this time around i was surprised at just how much mental energy it takes to run with that many people in feels like “shoulder to shoulder” conditions the entire time. there were plenty of times when i could have potentially ran faster but it felt like it was going to take too much energy to try and negotiate a path between all the runners. maybe my next marathon will be a little smaller. then again, 45,000 runners really brings out the crowds which is energizing and fun. so who knows. but that’s a minor point.
the important point is that i set a goal of losing 70 pounds and getting in shape for a marathon and i did it.
and now odin now knows his poppi really can run 26.2 miles and not just talk about the time he did it before he was born 🙂
wanting to make progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) i asked about drilling a hole through a tree and got some fantastic advice which led me to ordering a big bit, baby. but how to get that bit through the tree? well, for that, you need a big drill. something like the milwaukee 3/4 inch “super hole shooter” which our local true value “agri-center” has in stock for rent.
the agri-center folks loooove when i start a big project and are always very helpful with advice and tips. when i picked up the super shooter the rental guy told me to keep a good grip on it and to be mighty careful because it’d really want to twist me around the tree.
turns out it went smooth as a hot knife through butter.
after i drilled the hole, i banged a 3 foot threaded rod through the hole which will hold the tree house supports. i thought it would be a pain to get the rod all the way through but it went in without too much of a fight.
next up, hanging the supports without falling from the ladder!
progress on The World’s Most Awesome Treehouse(s) is going a little slower than i’d like ( pesky marathon training! ) but it’s still happening.
thanks to suggestions after asking about drilling a hole through a tree i done did ordered a 3/4″ x 24″ auger bit which is plenty long enough to make it through the tree 12 feet up.
i’m hoping to drill a hole straight through two trees, run threaded rod through the holes and bolt the tree house supports to the threaded rod. so now i just need to figure out how to drill the holes through two trees that are about 15 feet apart so everything will be level after i start building the deck on top of the supports.
finally running weather befitting a snowdeal! after running in brutal heat and humidity all. summer. long. i am absolutely, positively ready for running in colder weather and much, much prefer 32F-60F running over 70F-90F. and, hey, what’s not to love about running around in veeeeery fashionable cold weather stretch pants?
i’ve had these hind running pants forever and really like them. they do a fantastic job keeping me warm even in the 10-30F range. but this comment leads me to believe the well-known reputation for quality has disappeared in recent years.
anyone have any recommendations for reasonably priced cold weather pants?
tapering down for the chicago marathon which, unbelievably is only two weeks away! a mere 9 mile run in coold weather today after weeks of long run in the heat felt great even with 20mph wind gusts. i can only hope it’s this cool on race day.
right before we left for vacation we were walking by odin’s school playground and noticed a bunch of kids on unicycles. as it turns out, they’ve been having classes there every wednesday night over the summer and odin definitely thought it was something he’d really, really, really like to learn. and you know what? i’ve always wanted to learn how to unicycle too, so we made a plan to start going to lessons after we got back from vacation.
unfortunately in the few weeks that passed, the instructor of the class left town but some of the kids have decided to keep teaching the classes themselves which is some excellent initiative for kids that aren’t much older than odin.
the first step to learning how to ride a unicycle involves getting used to balancing and pedaling by slowly moving along while holding on to a fence. according to the kids, you’ve graduated from the first level of unicycle training when you can move along two panels of the fence without holding on at all. usually it take about a month of once-a-week practice to gain mastery over the fence.
watching the other kids do bunny hops and ride backwards and forwards is just the right motivation for odin to quickly graduate from holding onto the fence.
what luck! holding hands with poppi is totally within the rules of beginner unicycling 🙂
one day odin will find something that is difficult to learn, but unicycling will apparently not be that thing. after one day of practice he was already close to being able to move along two panels of the fence without holding on. it’s highly doubtful that he’ll need the whole month to graduate from the first level.
his poppi on the other hand, well that’s another story…
maybe one day we can bring the darth vader bagpipe unicycling tradition to viroqua.
i’m not sure which is weirder – seeing a giant picture of me next to the coffee station at organic valley drinking coffee from my “the dude” cup, or the fact that it’s part of the McKayla is Not Impressed meme ( the speech bubble next to her says, “i can’t believe i came in second place to “the dude” ). or the fact that it’s not the only giant photo of me around work.
i think this is all a grand conspiracy to get me to deal with why i hate seeing pictures of myself.