Rock and Roll Chicago Half Marathon 2016 Race Report

Half Marathon: 33
State: 7
For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to visit Chicago.  It was always a goal to go for St. Patrick's Day to see the parade and the river dyed green.  Then when I started running, everyone but everyone said the Chicago Marathon is the best out there. I'm not kidding.  I'd be in random corrals and hear conversations between runners and the consensus was Chicago, Chicago, Chicago.   When I set the goal to do a run in each of the 50 states, I still had the marathon in my mind, but the timing is bad for me, plus, let's face it, the lead time for training is hard.  It's a major commitment, and a scary one if you get derailed by something along the way.  I found out Rock and Roll Chicago happens over summer break and I was sold, despite the fact that last year they had record high temps.

The event seemed to be worthy of some kind of special shout-out clothing wise.  I decided to go with a nod to the most famous film I could think of featuring the city.

My mom was my travel buddy, which makes things easier.  We have a pretty good traveling relationship that usually involves us getting irritated with each other at least once per trip, usually if we're tired and worn out, but we roll right past it.  I can't say the same for traveling with friends all the time, although I've had some fantastic racecations with other runners over the years.

So we flew out and got there late afternoon on Friday.  Unlike Los Angeles, Chicago has great public transportation and you can hop on a train at the airport to get you in the city.  We found our hotel and just kind of wandered around.  I am unable to relax in a new place.  I always want to explore.  I can't see sitting in a hotel room, no matter how tired I am if there are new things to see.  My mom had been there before, it was my first time and I was in awe at the beauty of the buildings and the cleanliness of the downtown area.

Saturday morning we got up to go to the expo.  Walking toward the expo meant going through Grant Park, which would be the run's start site the next morning.  It was also a great opportunity for touristing!

The only hiccup in the weekend was getting to the expo.  It seemed to be a straight shot along the park area.  My map ended at the huge landmark of Soldier Field, but indicated that the convention center was 3/4 of a mile further along Lakeshore Drive.  Unfortunately, the sidewalk ended and Lakeshore basically became a highway!  We tried to walk west to Michigan Avenue, but found the same situation.  We ended up backtracking to the edge of the park to get a cab to take us the rest of the way.  The roads were swirly and the driver had to go that way to get this way.  I'm sure there was a way to walk it, but without a decent map or directions posted on the website (which only gave driving directions to parking areas) we just gave it up.

Race morning was beautiful.  It was warm enough to be comfortable in a tank top, but not overly warm or so humid that you're sweating just by being outside.  The route was beautiful!  It was flat and it went past all kinds of landmarks, and over bridges, through tunnels, and under train tracks.

The forecast leading up to the trip was crazy.  It seemed like every time I looked at the weather app on my phone it changed.  One day it called for thunder showers, the next day sun, the next day the thunder shower forecast would be back again.  On the day of the half marathon, the app called for rain at about 8pm.  After a while it got windy. Several miles in, I started to feel drops, but didn't think much of it.  A light mist is always welcome, especially warm one.  By mile nine it was pouring, and by mile ten, the band I was passing was announcing that they were suspending the race and calling for people to take shelter due to lightning!  There didn't seem to be any place to go, so I just followed the crowd and kept going, getting soaked and loving every second of it.  I eventually got back to the convention center and the route took a tunnel underneath. Does that count as taking shelter?  By the time I got through it, the rain had pretty much stopped and I made my way to the finish.  When I got there, I found out that they'd suspended the race for about 20 minutes.  Go figure.  Nobody around me followed directions.  They must have all been from California!  We have no clue about how to deal with weather.  We just trundle through like idiots.  Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

The one decent shot from MarathonFoto is blurry.  I'm not sure if this is a thing now to keep people from doing what I just did here with their sample, but I'm not willing to pay money to find out.  You can tell here that my skirt is soaked.

It was a fantastic race and a beautiful city.  My Garmin clocked over fourteen miles, but that's likely due to all the interference from things above me in terms of tunnels and buildings.  It was slightly disheartening at the time.  The wind had blown down a lot of the mile markers and it was hard to tell where I was.  I knew the signal was off by about a mile for certain parts, then it seemed to be correct, then it was off again.  Regardless, I would absolutely do this race again!  There was so much to do in the city, I could spend weeks there and probably not see everything!

All too soon, it was time to come home again.  As sad as it is to end a trip sometimes, there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed!

San Diego Rock and Roll Half Marathon 2016 Race Recap

This is actually a bit late.  I posted this recap on my other blog, but didn't cross post here.  The race happened back in June.

For the third time in my running career, I ventured down to San Diego to do their Rock and Roll event.  The first time was in 2008.  It still stands as one of my favorite experiences ever.  This was the year I'd quit my corporate job and was in school full time getting my teaching credential.  I had no stress about anything and happily trained to do the full 26.2 miles.  I cut a half hour off of my previous marathon time that day and had a great weekend with fun people.

A couple of years later, they added an option of a half marathon.  I think that was 2010. It was okay, but it had a long portion on a freeway that was very hard on my feet and back, so I didn't go back again until I heard they'd changed the route and gotten rid of the freeway part.

This time in an attempt to save some money, I opted not to do a hotel.   I've done runs in San Diego before and while it's an early morning, it's manageable.  Unfortunately,  Competitor doesn't offer packet mail-out for their Rock and Roll races, so I had to go to the expo which meant driving down there two days in a row.  My "monthly visitor" was also in town this weekend.  In the old days, it would have been a minor inconvenience, but over the last year there have been some physical issues that make "that time of the month" a time where I'd just as soon stay home.  I keep having date conflicts with it lately.  The timing seems to always coincide with things I've got planned. This time it even showed up four days early just to mess with me!  The bottom line is it takes a lot of effort to push through things that would otherwise not be an issue.  My thought was that I didn't want to completely bail because I didn't know how I'd be feeling on Sunday, so I went and picked up my stuff on Saturday just to give myself an option.

The expo was pretty standard.  Rock and Roll expos tend to be relatively large, and San Diego is a huge event for them, so it was crowded and well set with vendors.  Interestingly, runDinsey had a booth there.  I've noticed lately that there don't seem to be other races at runDisney expos anymore.  Whether that's because the vendor charge is too high to be practical or if it's because Disney wants to control the message and limit competition, I don't know.  They were doing something that's been unheard of in recent years.  Offering a discount.  Yes.  I said the "D" word.  They were offering the Avengers Infinity Gauntlet Challenge for $315 instead of $340.   As an aside, I read this morning that the Star Wars Half will be $15 less than it was last year.  Evidently Disney thinks that $185 will sell better than $200.  There may be some sales science that says people will welcome a price in the $100 range before they'll pay $200.  To me, $185 is still two hundred bucks.  But...I do think it's pretty telling that they're realizing it has become an issue.

At 3am when my alarm went off, I felt like I really didn't have any reason not to go do the run.  I knew it wasn't going to be my best ever, but I'd paid for it, so I might as well get down there.

One of the less appealing things about doing this race and not staying locally is the parking logistical snare.  You buy a parking pass for $20 that gets you a spot at Horton Plaza, a big shopping mall downtown.  The ride down to San Diego was fine.  The 5 Freeway at 4am on Sunday is about the best you'll ever see it.  I foolishly got off at the wrong exit and had to right myself.  Ultimately, I think I may have gotten a better deal because people said they were stuck in awful traffic getting into Horton Plaza.  I ended up bypassing it and coming around from a different corner to park.  Then there was a tremendously long line for the shuttle to the start.  It went all the way to the rear of the shopping center.  After a few moments of not moving at all, it moved pretty well.  The directions said the last shuttle was leaving at 6am.  I think I got on just before that, but there's no way that was the last shuttle.  There were still hundreds of people behind me.

The new route was okay, if sometimes a little dull.  The people out on the course more than made up for it.  There were several people out in the residential areas handing out booze.  One guy had a whole bar set up on his front sidewalk.  Another was handing out tequila shots.  San Diego's a happenin' place!

Mile 5 was the blue mile from Run to Remember.  When I did the Seattle Rock and Roll,  they were out lining the course through a park area.  This time it was along a residential street.  It was incredibly impactful. First there is a long line of placards with photos and names of fallen military personnel.  Then there are people holding out American flags lining both sides of the street.   You can't help but wipe away tears when you're going along this memorial.

It would have been nice to be more in the moment throughout this run, but I wasn't feeling well physically and I just wanted to be done. 

When I finally did finish, they directed everyone a few blocks down the street to the finish festival in a park along the waterfront.  It seemed a bit small for the number of people involved.  I wandered around trying to figure out if there were shuttles back to the parking.  Finally I asked at the volunteer check in tent and the woman there told me we had to walk back to Horton Plaza.  She gave me directions and said it was about nine blocks.  I wasn't horribly thrilled, but at least I didn't have to do that trek after 26.2 miles like others were going to have to do!  As I walked back, there was a group of women behind me, one of whom was loudly going on and complaining about the situation and saying they were going in the wrong direction and on and on.

For the record, the directions I was given were correct.  No issues, but it wasn't the most welcome adventure.

So, another half is done.  Despite a $50 special to sign up for next year, this one is not likely to be on my to do list anytime soon.  Other than a lack of clear instructions on what to do after the race to get back to parking, I can't complain about the organization.  Competitor really has this one down.  It just wasn't one that I loved.  The route isn't enough for me to think it's worth the $200+ for a hotel room, and also not really worth the effort of a long drive two days in a row.  There was terrible traffic on the way home on race day, too.  As far as races in San Diego go, the Hot Chocolate Run or the San Diego Half Marathon in March are much nicer courses and preferable to Rock and Roll. 

Learning Targets

Is your school big on learning targets?

The year before last, my principal gave us all a sheet of paper with a learning target.  Since I was looking for a visual way to incorporate it into my class (and fill some BTSA requirements) I created a large sized version of the target to place on a bulletin board. 

Our mascot is a wildcat, so I found these paws at Lakeshore Learning and put each student's name on one so it could be moved around to it's proper place on the target.  As you can see my scale is way off, owing to making the target before I got the paws.  I also had difficulty with finding circles to trace for the target when I was creating it.  I didn't find that it worked out really great.  My students could not get out of the idea that it was related to their behavior instead of their subject matter understanding.  Even as I "guided" them, they wanted their paws to be near their friends.

If at first you don't succeed, try again.  The following year, I wanted to stay with the idea, but change the visual.  I settled on the idea of a traffic light, with only three possible levels of placement.

I apologize for the quality of the photo. I tried to edit it, but the bottom line is the lighting in my classroom can make for difficult photography.  You can see I boiled the learning target down to three levels instead of four, used color coding instead of numbers, and made it much larger.  It was much more simplified for my first graders and they were more comfortable using it than the class the year before. 

At this stage I'm not sure what next year will bring.  I like the idea of students somehow being able to verbalize their level of comfort with the lessons, but I'm not certain I've fond the most effective way to bring this out in them.  I've also tried exit tickets...what have you incorporated into your teaching?

Fingers and Lights and Reading

You know when your principal is observing you and you're torn between doing the scripted phonics program you're supposed to be doing that you and all the kids have had enough of by May or by doing something new and exciting to prove that you're The Best Teacher Ever?

Yeah.

That conundrum.

While this was in the back of my mind, I was in Party City looking for prizes for our treasure box and I came across these nifty little finger lights.  They were a bit pricey for the budget I'd set for prizes, but I thought maybe I could use them in a lesson somehow, so I purchased them.

One of my ongoing challenges is getting my students to finger track.  Many of them are English Learners and struggle with reading for many reasons, so simply losing track would be an easy fix if they'd just follow along.  I've tried using different tools and strategies but they're just not interested.  It's especially unappealing when they have to follow along when someone else is reading. 

At some point it occurred to me to see if the lights would work to help track.  I took them out of the package and played around with them to see what the throw was like.

Then I thought I might as well try it.  Before I showed the kids, we talked about the difference between a tool and a toy and how I was bringing in a new tool to help them read.  Then I showed them one light and went down a list of what not to do, mostly for that one student who may or may not have taken my warnings as a list of new ideas. 

We don't shine them in our eyes.
We don't wave them in our friends' faces.
We take whatever color we're given.
We turn them off when we're finished.

After passing them out, we read our story and I have to admit, every single student was engaged from beginning to end.  Everyone knew where we were when it was their turn to read.  Nobody misused the tool.  Nobody complained about the color.  It was amazing!

The shine can wear off a new penny very quickly with first graders, so I made this a surprise tool that we weren't going to see every day with reading.  I did incorporate it into my observation lesson and my principal mentioned that she liked it and had never seen anyone do that before, so that pleased me.  The students really want them to go in the treasure box so they can take them home, but I'm resisting that right now.

Amazon has them in a larger quantity.  I think you can buy a box of 40 for about six dollars.  These were two dollars for each package of three.  With the observation looming, it was easier just to get a bunch at Party City than to worry about delivery dates.  I will probably buy more for next year.  They're marked on my Amazon wish list right now.

Until then, I think I'll keep stalking Party City for instructional aids!

Tinker Bell Half Marathon 2016 Race Report

The fifth Tinker Bell Half Marathon was its usual brand of fun.

The night before the run I got the chance to have dinner with Jac and Mel.  Good times and lots of laughs!  On the morning of the race, I was early.  I woke before my alarm went off and lollygagged around at home.  Naturally, I hung around too long and ended up getting to Disneyland just in the nick of time.  When I was walking toward the corrals, I could hear the National Anthem.  By the time I got there, Corral A had already gone off and B and C were moving up.  Somewhere in my subconscious, I think I time Disney races this way intentionally so I'm not hanging around outside waiting for the race to start.  Unfortunately, this meant there was no chance of finding my friends in the madness. I just hopped in at the back of C and went for a little run.

I'd been thinking of a Mickey Mouse Club costume for a while.  I was going to wait for a time when I was part of a group to do it, but I really put off creating anything until the last minute for this one.  It seemed the simplest plan would be to just iron some stuff on a shirt and go with that.

When I was looking through hashtags for race weekend, I saw that someone posted a picture of these socks and said they'd found them at Target.  One trip down the street to find them and I was set!

The construction for the new Star Wars land meant that the race was re-routed.  No complaints, but we didn't get to go through the rear backstage area were the parade floats are parked.  That was kind of a bummer.  On the other hand, we entered through a new backstage area in the front of the park and found that the cast members have their own Starbucks.  No real surprise there, is there?

In my last few Disney races, I've noticed a serious reduction in the amount of characters out on the course for photo opportunities.  I thought with Avengers and Star Wars it may have just been because the race themes were relatively limited, but there have always been a lot of characters out at Tink in the past.  I have a series of Princess photos from one year, and there were a lot of Pixar characters out the first year of the race.  I suspect Disney is trying to move the people along.  Fewer photo stops mean more movement through the parks.  It's kind of a bummer considering the price keeps going up while the effort on their part seems to be declining.

This time I didn't stop for any character pictures.  Tinker Bell and some fairies were out.  I saw the Lost Boys running around on the carousel, but not much more.  As I was at the end of the path through California Adventure, I saw a line for characters, but couldn't see who it was until I was too far past to turn back.  It was Chip and Dale.  I briefly thought about fighting the tide to head back, but decided it wasn't necessary.

Once out of the park and into the nearby residential area, there was a log of noise from birds squacking.  At first I thought it was some weird kind of crow, but looking up at the power lines and palm trees, I could see a bunch of green parrots.  Maybe twenty years ago, I used to hear people talk about the flock of wild parrots that roamed around Pasadena.  I had no idea there was a flock in Anaheim.

Another highlight of the race was the Red Hat Ladies downtown.  In the past, they've been on a driveway in between the Disneyland Hotel and Downtown Disney.  The rerouting of the race relocated them to what was a much better place from my personal perspective, although they probably missed the shade from the trees.  The ladies were out in full-force.  Someone reported that there were 700 of them.  It was a pretty emotional few moments seeing all of those women out there cheering. 

Tink Five was a great time.  I achieved an official Legacy status, meaning I've done the race all five years it has existed.  This really is my favorite of the Disneyland races, and I intend to keep doing it as long as I'm able.  I like the route and the time of year is good. 

There was an interesting surprise when I got home.  The ink on my transfer ran.  I've never done iron-on transfers via my computer, so this was an experiment from the beginning.  It turns out, sweat creates some issues.  I haven't washed the shirt yet, so I'm not sure if is permanent.  I'm glad the shirt was inexpensive, since it may turn out to be a disposable costume!

Confessions

The blog is titled "Confessions," right?  So I guess I should confess a few things.

I am finding my little children's book library lacks quite a few things, specifically books for the special days that are not quite so in-your-face.

I confess I don't have any Earth Day books. 

Okay, this is not entirely true, since in cleaning out a closet I did find one book that could be used around Earth Day.  Unfortunately I found it in May and Earth Day was in April.

I confess Cinco de Mayo is another day where I come up short in book selections.  I have Manana Iguana, but I used it earlier in the year to compare to Little Red Hen.  Yes, we read books more than once, but it was a pretty recent read.

This week when my kids were screeching at each other -  over Santa Claus of all things - I realized I don't have any books on friendship,or getting along, or treating others kindly. We're at the time of year when they're all just over each other and every little comment or look or elbow on your neighbor's desk causes bickering that doesn't stop.  I need to address these behaviors, I came up with a plan, and realized I don't have any books to use as a catalyst.

Ugh. 

I confess I may be spending some time on Amazon.com. 

A First Post

Greetings!

I'm sending this post out to the interwebz as a sort of test.  I've been a longtime blogger on Red Hair and Running Shoes and before that Live Journal.  Lately running hasn't been quite the overwhelming focus it once was in my life, and I've been wanting to share some of what goes on in my classroom.  Yes, that could be done on RH&RS, but  I've been reading a lot of teaching blogs and wanting to join in the fun.  As you can tell from the title, this blog is an attempt to merge the two aspects of my life into one.  You may like runner blogs.  You may like teacher blogs.  Maybe you're good with reading a bit about both worlds.  There's even the possibility that there may be some mention of Disneyland here, or books, or movies, or my adventures around Southern California.

Sadly, I'm not crazy-adept at web design or knowing what is visually appealing.  I just use pre-designed templates that are pretty simplistic.  If that's all good with you, welcome!  Never having been a "big" blogger, I'm not expecting a lot of traffic, but please do comment if you drop by.  I'll return the favor and pay you a visit as well!