Yeah, there are plenty of lakefront races in Chicago. Yeah, some of them follow pretty much this exact course. Yeah, we've run the route dozens of times. But you know what? A summer evening's race is always fun, and we would die for this opportunity come winter.

RAM Racing always runs solid events, and although the Rock the Night 5k doesn't yet have the personality of the Terrapin 5k that it replaced, there is promise. Race, rock, relax--not a bad proposition. Either they were gearing up for a larger field in this second year, or the lawn outside Soldier Field was off limits for some reason, but the south parking lot seemed to go on forever and swallow up the event. Fine before the race--not crowded, plenty of room for the start corrals, good access; but afterwards, we all probably would have preferred to sit on grass rather than asphalt.

The course is standard for this part of town: start just south of Soldier Field, go through the McCormick Place tunnel (any course that does that gets an automatic star off for scenery from now on), down the service road, then a turnaround onto the lakefront path. That scenery never gets old--the lake, the marina, the skyline, to the finish. Nothing particularly challenging, nothing particularly competitive--just a nice night with a wide variety of runners who are out to enjoy themselves and the summer. Forgot to bring the GoPro headstrap, so no video for this one.

The one water station was well managed, as was the finish chute. Food (burger and corn on the cob) and beer lines were more than manageable. Would have been nice to have more live music before start time, don't know how long the post-race party lasted, maybe it got better as it went on.

Somehow the swag, a long-sleeved shirt, seemed a little off for a RAM race this time. What did everyone else think? The free photos, as always, are awesome--thank you RAM. Every race should do this, even if it means a couple of dollars extra in the registration fee.

On a personal note, I ran this year mid-pack with my two undertrained children, and it was my daughter's first race. We had a wonderful time, a perfect race to run together surrounded by very nice people. I was so glad to have them there with me, and now they're hooked. Not a bad summer evening at all.