Fall races along the lakefront in chicago
Can be hot or miss with the weather, luckily in October we got a decent break in the weather for this flat 13.1 mile course. I had a lot of fun running this one, I’ve started from Montrose Harbor several times so I knew parking would be very manageable. I arrived over an hour early had no issues picking up my bib morning of race—still plenty of time to walk back to my car to drop off my race shirt & hit the portA potties on way back. I also picked up my pacing sign, I’ve been pacing a lot of All-Community Evebts this year. I found my pacing partner & about 10 mins before start time, the band played a guitar version of the national anthem. After lining up at start, we were thrilled that race started off on time (all community has a hit/miss record of starting on time). First few miles were crowded then thinned out (we were pacing 2;25 finishers) what’s great about the lakefront is there’s several bathroom stops and it was an out and back loop going north then south. On our first loop around south though we almost missed the turn for half marathon runners, the volunteer was shouting miles not distances. This race also had 5k & 10k races. We had plenty of Water stops & smiling volunteers! Came across finish right at 2:24 strong! We were awarded belt buckles on a ribbon! Immediately following finish, we enjoyed biscuits & gravy, grapes and I used my coupon to get a cold beer. Later I found out they ran out of medals. Post-race more: 2 weeks after I got a second medal I’m the Mail I guess they ran out shortly after we finished so at least you know they hold up their integity to get medals to all the finishers. I’ll definurkt do this race again, reasonably priced and fell into my trainkng cycle distance for Indy Marathon.