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?