Another day, another race

Sunday, October 22nd, I traveled to Chicago to run the Frank Lloyd Wright 10k. I was supposed to be at Marine Corps Marathon cheering on friends, but several of them deferred, and with all of the drama in my life I chose to stay local. We got there early and picked up our packets - they had already run out of the specialized bags (old t-shirts made into totes), but we got our long-sleeved shirt and our bib. We had about 2 hours before the race started, so lots of napping was involved. The race is on quiet streets in a beautiful residential area. I spent some time warming up and checking out the rest of the back of the pack. Finally it was time to go, so they said go and I was over the start timer just a minute after - much different than 2 weeks ago when it was over an hour after the official start of the race.  The race course is well marked, and there were aid stations nearly every mile it seemed. The weather was beautiful, sunny and a breeze (which was welcome due to the humidity). I wasn't sure what was going to happen due to the knee pain i was experiencing at the Marathon, but I took off at my usual pace and gave myself some time to warm up. I felt pretty good the entire race, and ran most of the time. I didn't use intervals specifically, just stopped and walked a couple of times to get some rest time. The homes were beautiful! It was a gorgeous race. The miles passed by without too much effort, and to my surprise, there were plenty of people around me. I got to high five lots of kids and thank many volunteers and law enforcement officers who were guarding the course from cars. I got to past mile 5 and knew I could make my goal time. I turned the final corner and saw the finish, so i picked it up and finished at 1:28:59. To my great disappointment, there was no finishers medal unless you placed in your age group. It was a fun little race though, so we headed to brunch and relaxed afterwards. If i lived local, I would probably run it again.