Chicago Lakefront 50K Race Report

31 miles, 4:52

I arrived in Chicago early Saturday morning and caught a few z's in my car waiting for everyone to show up. About 30 minutes before the race was scheduled to start I went up to the tent to pick up my bib. It turns out I was at the starting line for a local 5k that was going on at the same time, uh oh! I had less than half an hour to find out where the 50k was starting an pick up my packet. Luckily the start was only about a half mile away so I made it in plenty of time. I have been battling some nagging injuries this week and up until the start I was undecided as to whether I would run the race. About 5 minutes before the start I took a jog around the parking lot, foot pain was gone, pain on the outside of my lower leg was gone, pain on the inside of my lower leg was still there but not to bad, so I decided to go for it. The race consisted of a 10.3 mile out and back repeated three times along lake Michigan. the course was mostly crushed gravel on the bike path in Lincoln Park. It was very flat. I had never run a paved 50k before so I was anticipating a PR, which is what I got. Beating my old pr by more than an hour. The first out and back was pretty uneventful and smooth. I finished in a time of 1:35. The second time around the course my legs began to tighten. I haven't done much road work lately and I was pushing the pace so the tightness was to be expected. I finished the second lap in 3:08 for a lap time of 1:33. The third lap the legs began to tighten a little more but I could smell the finish and continued to push on. I had to stop at a port-a-potty at the final turn around which really hurt my third lap time (about 5 minutes.) I was able to cross the finish line in 4:52 for a third lap time of 1:44. I was happy with my splits as they were pretty consistent. Going into the race I thought I could hold a 10 minute mile pace and wasn't really sure how much faster than that I could go. my pace ended up being 9:25 per mile which I am happy with considering that is faster than the pace in my marathon PR. I hope to be under 9:00 pace for the marathon in the near future.

Kim is running through the night right now at Umstead!! I am sure she is doing awsome! Go Kim!