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Hot, wet, sticky, sweaty…

Hot, wet, sticky, sweaty…

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The potentially-pornographic title about sums up last weekend’s 14th marathon/9th state for me, and Mark’s 50th state celebration, in South Bend, IN: Sunburst.

Though the race began at 6am, by 5:15, when John, Nikki, Tom, and I were leaving our hotel, it was already warm enough to hang around outside in my running singlet and shorts.  Yikes.

I changed my game plan early and just tried to run close to a sub-4 race, and for most of the race, I walked the entire lengths of the fluid stops, something I don’t usually do.  The course itself was interesting–lots of out-and-backs and turn-arounds, so a bit disorienting, to say the least… before considering the intense humidity of the morning.  In fact, the race director emailed today to say that Saturday’s race was the most humid in the history of the race.  Glad I was part of history, I guess??…

Would I recommend the race?  Well… it’s a gamble.  Being close to Chicago, economically it’s a great deal–inexpensive registration, not much travel time–but seasonally, being the first weekend in June, the weather can be a huge gamble.  It was neat to finish on Notre Dame’s field, though, and the volunteers on the course were just fantastic.  The race has some serious potential.

This week is all about the recovery.  I may try to do an EZ run tomorrow morning for the first time post-race.  We’ll see what my lower portions of my bod have to say about that.

Next up, race-wise: a 13.1 Pikermi along the southern part of the lakefront path on Sunday… a great way to begin my MASTERS GRADUATION DAY!!   And no more races (that I can recall) until the San Francisco Marathon in late July.

I’ll post some pictures once I can find the adapter for my laptop…

I thought this was spring – and am I really seeing blue, orange, or yellow trees?

I thought this was spring – and am I really seeing blue, orange, or yellow trees?

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Well, according to the calendar anyway, it’s spring.

Last Saturday was a pleasant, comfortable 18.5 miles (bad math on my part- can you tell?).  I’m getting back into the swing of distance running now since we’re approaching a month out from last month’s Boston — and especially since South Bend will be coming right around the corner here.  I left the new place around 6:15, and Mother Nature greeted me with the very finest May –ahem, “springtime”–weather: a cold, mist-like rain, fierce northbound winds, and temps that felt like they were in the high 30s, though the thermometer read closer to mid-40s.  I was comfortable enough to sport shorts, a long sleeve, and a short sleeve, but I saw loads of people along the path donning cold weather gear – long tights, hats, gloves/mittens, and the like.

Did I mention that Saturday was May 8???  Unbelievable.

And to answer the latter, yes, I am seeing blue, orange, or yellow trees these days.

I had noticed these trees, that are apparently painted either orange or blue or yellow, or some combination therein, for some time in Lincoln Park, around miles 5.0-6.0 (near North Ave or the Lincoln Park Zoo), but never really did any research into it.  In fact, some of these trees have moved recently and are now located on LaSalle Ave, relatively close to the North Ave. boathouse and Lake Shore Drive.  I thought these strangely, brightly-painted trees were some sort of travelling art exhibit, if anything.  Turns out, it’s that, along with the Park District’s creative way of coding which trees will be getting axed later this year (apparently because the trees are really invasive and are probably damaging the surrounding ecosystem).

Local media covered these wildly-colored trees late last month here and here, if you’d like to read more.  And here’s a video that takes about Chicago’s “painted forest” — kinda sounds Alice in Wonderland-esque, if you ask me…

I suppose we all see or hear things that we can’t believe are real when we’re out on a run, especially the long ones.  Rest assured though that I, too, saw the trees last weekend 🙂