Your Mileage May Vary
This weekend, I learned one of two things:
(1) The City of Chicago is in on a conspiracy to sabotage my confidence as I prepare for my first footrace, OR
(2) I stink at simple math.
The City of Chicago is on a grid, with 8 blocks to the mile. Has been since State and Madison became the (0,0) point during the engineering layout, continues to be so for all inhabitant and tourist ever since. Streets go north-south or east-west, except for Lincoln, Grand, and Clark, which run on a diagonal. If you want to know how to get somewhere, just look at the address where you’re standing, and start walking. Or, if you’re in a higher-priced neighborhood, hail a cab. Chicago doesn’t do the ‘streets go north-south and avenues go east-west’ like Manhattan, but hey, we’re Midwesterners, and frankly, we’re just not that detail-oriented. From the air, the city streets mimic the largest waffle you’ve ever seen, and, from the ground, no matter where you’re standing, it’s 8 blocks to the mile.
On July 27, I will be running in the Fleet Feet Women’s race, a 10k run that winds around Chicago’s lakefront. I’ll be on a cinders path with up to 3,700 other runners, racing past Belmont Harbor, the Foster Street beach house, and the famous totem pole at Addison Street. In preparation for this, since I am an anal-retentive competition-insane crazy broad, I took Sunday morning off from my Mommy errands, loaded Howard and his Daddy-cycle into the minivan and rode up to Hollywood beach, where Lake Shore Drive begins. I wanted to see the path before I ran it the first time. I wanted to feel how different it would be to run on the breezy lakefront vs. in the more stifled suburban winds (all puns intended). We landed near the Edgewater Beach hotel, found a parking space with alarming ease, and took one last potty break (very important!) before I started shuffling down the path toward the Belmont Harbor.
The actual race course doubles back on itself and the starting point appears to be a random place along Wilson Avenue, so I decided instead that I would mark off 3.1 miles on a southbound course, turn around when I hit the mark and run back. Total mileage: 6.2, with a decent view of the slope, angles, and terrain of the path between the starting spot and the finish line. Bryn Mawr is at 5600 North and Belmont is at 3200. That’s 24 blocks, so according to the Chicago Grid, that’s 3.0 miles. I started at Hollywood beach, which is 2 blocks north of Bryn Mawr, allowing for the extra two-tenths of a mile that I would need to go my full 10k. So off I went, secure in the knowledge that I’d run three 10ks in the last week, and so this run should be textbook. Routine.
Actually, no.
First, thanks to my darling fiancé, I was now the proud owner of a new bicycle—a sleek and snazzy hybrid bike that woos me to ride faster, faster, faster! After we got the bike on Saturday, we cycled out to West Chicago and back, logging about 90 minutes on the bike, and averaging at least 15 mph. Poor Howard. I didn’t tell him ahead of time that for me, bike ride and bike race are interchangeable terms. I’d crank up on my pedals and whoosh ahead, then look back and find this tiny speck of a man, pedaling like a normal person and (likely) wondering why he’d chosen this “bike-o-path” as a mate. To his credit, he never complained, and I did slow down (on occasion) so we could actually ride together. I wasn’t tired when we finished, but 90 minutes on the bike is a full workout, even if it didn’t injure my knees the way that running does/did/will. So my legs were a little less rested on Sunday when I hit the path. I wasn’t hurt or sore, but clearly, something at the cellular level needed a little more break than I’d given them.
Second, it was hot on Sunday. The thermostat in the car read 89 as we were driving in, but I reasoned that it’s always cooler at the lake, and anyway, there’s a delightful breeze that accompanies the water, so even if it stayed near 90, I figured that it wouldn’t feel so hot. As it turns out, I edged off the cinders-based running track almost immediately and wound up on the blacktop cycling path. Blacktop is much, much hotter than dirt, especially when it’s crowded with city folk who are used to the cramped quarters and edge & elbow each other all along the route. I was in the sun most of my run, and the blacktop seeped up through my shoes until my socks threatened to start smoking. And, the temperature was not cooler in the city. In fact, by the time we finished, the odometer on Howard’s bike read 95. Ugh.
Finally, while it may be that there’s 8 blocks to the mile and the trip in a straight line from Hollywood to Belmont is 3.1 miles, that rule does not apply to a winding, double-back style bike & running path that sometimes hugs the lake and other times dances on the lip of the Drive. I now know also that I got caught up in agitation with all the cyclists streaming past me and tried to keep up with them, so I was running much faster than any pace I could sustain for 6 miles in 95-degree heat. I made it about two-thirds of the way down to my turnaround point and had to stop, my breath gulping and my legs yelling at me from above the fire pit in my shoes. Anger, of course, does wonders to fuel the spirit, but very little to motivate a PMS-beleaguered suburban dweller baking in the city sun.
I made it as far as the halfway point before I peeled off, tired and defeated, and angry enough to cause stares as I shouted my self-indignation. Howard attempted soothing words-this is new terrain, it’s full of people, it’s morning, it’s hot, you biked an hour and a half yesterday. Who cares, I told him. I’m here to race. I need to run the full 10k without stopping. This workout is a waste.
I pulled off my pedometer to check my time, certain that this would be the thing that would send me over the edge. Since I hadn’t run the whole of the distance, I was sure that my time was slow. It was. 33:11, or about 11 minutes a mile. When I ran 10k at Herrick Lake on Thursday, I’d run it at a 7:15/mile pace. Good god; even at faster-than-I-can-manage pace, I was dog slow.
Then I looked at the mileage. It should have read 3.1 miles, but instead it read 4.5. What? I looked around me: we were at the Belmont Harbor, and the familiar high-rise apartments of that corner stood over us to the west. I did the math again. Yes, 5800 minus 3200 is 26 blocks. Eight blocks to a mile. 3+ miles. But there was the pedometer, insisting that I’d run 4.5.
Well then.
It still stunk that I couldn’t run the whole thing without stopping, but 4.5 miles of rage was better than 3 miles. And, recalculating the math, I’d run at about a 7:30 pace, including all my walking breaks. Okay, that’s better. Not good, but better. The only thing I had to do now was slow down enough to find a pace where I could run the whole thing back, and then run the whole thing back. If I did the whole trip, that would be 9 miles. Well, nothing to do now but take a drink, find an opening in the trail traffic and get going.
I did the second half in 34:30, so a little bit slower. I really lost my legs in the last mile and had to do it in intervals. It was the strangest thing-I had the aerobics and wasn’t tired that way, but my legs got heavy and demanded I stop. Since I was so far beyond my regular workout, I didn’t mind (as much!), and just ran what I could and rested when I had to. I stopped 3 times on the way back, but I made it at least 2.5 miles before I stopped, which was longer than I made it on the way down. I finished up with a total time just over 1:07, and averaged about an 8-minute mile for the whole thing. I don’t think I can really count that, since I stopped for a full 5 minutes at the halfway point, but two 4.5 mile workouts is better than one, and in the final analysis of it, I ran 9 miles yesterday. Plus, Howard pointed out that I passed a lot of other runners on the way, even at my slower pace, and that I was only passed once (by a runner), and he was sprinting.
Now, 24 hours removed from it, I know that it’s not necessary to run the full 10k; only to finish it. I also know that when I do intervals, I run faster, since I can rest between spurts. My pride-based ego (which is huge) insists that I run the whole thing, and I probably will. My ego will also not allow me to stop during the actual race, and so while I may collapse at (over!) the finish line, I can’t see that I’ll be stopping. I’ll do what the experts say for the first race-start near the back, don’t fret when obvious-marathoners sprint by, stay focused, and leave my headphone at home. Good advice, all. But they also advocate running my regular workout pace, and I don’t think I can do that. I’ll try, but something tells me that I’ll be working hard to keep up with the veterans, and to run the whole thing, so that I can say I did it. Running a 10k is a completely different experience from finishing a 10k. I can do it-I have.
I’m so glad that I went down there on Sunday. I didn’t run the actual race course, but I’ve seen the lakefront, I’ve run on both paths, and now I have 5 weeks to prepare, including at least one more weekend when I can go down and race on the actual trail. I’m through with my anger now, and the only thing that remains is my anger at myself for getting angry in the first place. Who cares if I couldn’t run the whole thing? This is something fun for me, something I love. I should treat it as such. And now that I’ve done this once, I have a goal to beat for the next time.
So that’s the long, and the longer, of it. Thank goodness for the pedometer, otherwise I might have hung up my shoes for good. Well, okay, for the rest of the day. But still, even though I would have gotten back on the path by Tuesday, it would have haunted me to think I couldn’t run the full 10k in the city. Now though, that I know that 10k in Chicago is really more like 15, I’m feeling better about the whole ordeal. I looked at the race map last night after I got back, and I smiled. Yeah, I can do that. I ran 150% of that today alone.
I have a new goal now: to be running 10 miles per workout by the time race day comes. That way, when the “k” gets stretched to “mile and then some”, I’ll be ready. Then too, when I start off way too fast, I’ll be finished before my body gives me the finger and hurls me to the ground in protest. I should get that weight bench soon: Howard is going to need it, so he can carry me all the way back to the van after the race ends.
A the W(aiting for Pedestrian GPS)
(1) The City of Chicago is in on a conspiracy to sabotage my confidence as I prepare for my first footrace, OR
(2) I stink at simple math.
The City of Chicago is on a grid, with 8 blocks to the mile. Has been since State and Madison became the (0,0) point during the engineering layout, continues to be so for all inhabitant and tourist ever since. Streets go north-south or east-west, except for Lincoln, Grand, and Clark, which run on a diagonal. If you want to know how to get somewhere, just look at the address where you’re standing, and start walking. Or, if you’re in a higher-priced neighborhood, hail a cab. Chicago doesn’t do the ‘streets go north-south and avenues go east-west’ like Manhattan, but hey, we’re Midwesterners, and frankly, we’re just not that detail-oriented. From the air, the city streets mimic the largest waffle you’ve ever seen, and, from the ground, no matter where you’re standing, it’s 8 blocks to the mile.
On July 27, I will be running in the Fleet Feet Women’s race, a 10k run that winds around Chicago’s lakefront. I’ll be on a cinders path with up to 3,700 other runners, racing past Belmont Harbor, the Foster Street beach house, and the famous totem pole at Addison Street. In preparation for this, since I am an anal-retentive competition-insane crazy broad, I took Sunday morning off from my Mommy errands, loaded Howard and his Daddy-cycle into the minivan and rode up to Hollywood beach, where Lake Shore Drive begins. I wanted to see the path before I ran it the first time. I wanted to feel how different it would be to run on the breezy lakefront vs. in the more stifled suburban winds (all puns intended). We landed near the Edgewater Beach hotel, found a parking space with alarming ease, and took one last potty break (very important!) before I started shuffling down the path toward the Belmont Harbor.
The actual race course doubles back on itself and the starting point appears to be a random place along Wilson Avenue, so I decided instead that I would mark off 3.1 miles on a southbound course, turn around when I hit the mark and run back. Total mileage: 6.2, with a decent view of the slope, angles, and terrain of the path between the starting spot and the finish line. Bryn Mawr is at 5600 North and Belmont is at 3200. That’s 24 blocks, so according to the Chicago Grid, that’s 3.0 miles. I started at Hollywood beach, which is 2 blocks north of Bryn Mawr, allowing for the extra two-tenths of a mile that I would need to go my full 10k. So off I went, secure in the knowledge that I’d run three 10ks in the last week, and so this run should be textbook. Routine.
Actually, no.
First, thanks to my darling fiancé, I was now the proud owner of a new bicycle—a sleek and snazzy hybrid bike that woos me to ride faster, faster, faster! After we got the bike on Saturday, we cycled out to West Chicago and back, logging about 90 minutes on the bike, and averaging at least 15 mph. Poor Howard. I didn’t tell him ahead of time that for me, bike ride and bike race are interchangeable terms. I’d crank up on my pedals and whoosh ahead, then look back and find this tiny speck of a man, pedaling like a normal person and (likely) wondering why he’d chosen this “bike-o-path” as a mate. To his credit, he never complained, and I did slow down (on occasion) so we could actually ride together. I wasn’t tired when we finished, but 90 minutes on the bike is a full workout, even if it didn’t injure my knees the way that running does/did/will. So my legs were a little less rested on Sunday when I hit the path. I wasn’t hurt or sore, but clearly, something at the cellular level needed a little more break than I’d given them.
Second, it was hot on Sunday. The thermostat in the car read 89 as we were driving in, but I reasoned that it’s always cooler at the lake, and anyway, there’s a delightful breeze that accompanies the water, so even if it stayed near 90, I figured that it wouldn’t feel so hot. As it turns out, I edged off the cinders-based running track almost immediately and wound up on the blacktop cycling path. Blacktop is much, much hotter than dirt, especially when it’s crowded with city folk who are used to the cramped quarters and edge & elbow each other all along the route. I was in the sun most of my run, and the blacktop seeped up through my shoes until my socks threatened to start smoking. And, the temperature was not cooler in the city. In fact, by the time we finished, the odometer on Howard’s bike read 95. Ugh.
Finally, while it may be that there’s 8 blocks to the mile and the trip in a straight line from Hollywood to Belmont is 3.1 miles, that rule does not apply to a winding, double-back style bike & running path that sometimes hugs the lake and other times dances on the lip of the Drive. I now know also that I got caught up in agitation with all the cyclists streaming past me and tried to keep up with them, so I was running much faster than any pace I could sustain for 6 miles in 95-degree heat. I made it about two-thirds of the way down to my turnaround point and had to stop, my breath gulping and my legs yelling at me from above the fire pit in my shoes. Anger, of course, does wonders to fuel the spirit, but very little to motivate a PMS-beleaguered suburban dweller baking in the city sun.
I made it as far as the halfway point before I peeled off, tired and defeated, and angry enough to cause stares as I shouted my self-indignation. Howard attempted soothing words-this is new terrain, it’s full of people, it’s morning, it’s hot, you biked an hour and a half yesterday. Who cares, I told him. I’m here to race. I need to run the full 10k without stopping. This workout is a waste.
I pulled off my pedometer to check my time, certain that this would be the thing that would send me over the edge. Since I hadn’t run the whole of the distance, I was sure that my time was slow. It was. 33:11, or about 11 minutes a mile. When I ran 10k at Herrick Lake on Thursday, I’d run it at a 7:15/mile pace. Good god; even at faster-than-I-can-manage pace, I was dog slow.
Then I looked at the mileage. It should have read 3.1 miles, but instead it read 4.5. What? I looked around me: we were at the Belmont Harbor, and the familiar high-rise apartments of that corner stood over us to the west. I did the math again. Yes, 5800 minus 3200 is 26 blocks. Eight blocks to a mile. 3+ miles. But there was the pedometer, insisting that I’d run 4.5.
Well then.
It still stunk that I couldn’t run the whole thing without stopping, but 4.5 miles of rage was better than 3 miles. And, recalculating the math, I’d run at about a 7:30 pace, including all my walking breaks. Okay, that’s better. Not good, but better. The only thing I had to do now was slow down enough to find a pace where I could run the whole thing back, and then run the whole thing back. If I did the whole trip, that would be 9 miles. Well, nothing to do now but take a drink, find an opening in the trail traffic and get going.
I did the second half in 34:30, so a little bit slower. I really lost my legs in the last mile and had to do it in intervals. It was the strangest thing-I had the aerobics and wasn’t tired that way, but my legs got heavy and demanded I stop. Since I was so far beyond my regular workout, I didn’t mind (as much!), and just ran what I could and rested when I had to. I stopped 3 times on the way back, but I made it at least 2.5 miles before I stopped, which was longer than I made it on the way down. I finished up with a total time just over 1:07, and averaged about an 8-minute mile for the whole thing. I don’t think I can really count that, since I stopped for a full 5 minutes at the halfway point, but two 4.5 mile workouts is better than one, and in the final analysis of it, I ran 9 miles yesterday. Plus, Howard pointed out that I passed a lot of other runners on the way, even at my slower pace, and that I was only passed once (by a runner), and he was sprinting.
Now, 24 hours removed from it, I know that it’s not necessary to run the full 10k; only to finish it. I also know that when I do intervals, I run faster, since I can rest between spurts. My pride-based ego (which is huge) insists that I run the whole thing, and I probably will. My ego will also not allow me to stop during the actual race, and so while I may collapse at (over!) the finish line, I can’t see that I’ll be stopping. I’ll do what the experts say for the first race-start near the back, don’t fret when obvious-marathoners sprint by, stay focused, and leave my headphone at home. Good advice, all. But they also advocate running my regular workout pace, and I don’t think I can do that. I’ll try, but something tells me that I’ll be working hard to keep up with the veterans, and to run the whole thing, so that I can say I did it. Running a 10k is a completely different experience from finishing a 10k. I can do it-I have.
I’m so glad that I went down there on Sunday. I didn’t run the actual race course, but I’ve seen the lakefront, I’ve run on both paths, and now I have 5 weeks to prepare, including at least one more weekend when I can go down and race on the actual trail. I’m through with my anger now, and the only thing that remains is my anger at myself for getting angry in the first place. Who cares if I couldn’t run the whole thing? This is something fun for me, something I love. I should treat it as such. And now that I’ve done this once, I have a goal to beat for the next time.
So that’s the long, and the longer, of it. Thank goodness for the pedometer, otherwise I might have hung up my shoes for good. Well, okay, for the rest of the day. But still, even though I would have gotten back on the path by Tuesday, it would have haunted me to think I couldn’t run the full 10k in the city. Now though, that I know that 10k in Chicago is really more like 15, I’m feeling better about the whole ordeal. I looked at the race map last night after I got back, and I smiled. Yeah, I can do that. I ran 150% of that today alone.
I have a new goal now: to be running 10 miles per workout by the time race day comes. That way, when the “k” gets stretched to “mile and then some”, I’ll be ready. Then too, when I start off way too fast, I’ll be finished before my body gives me the finger and hurls me to the ground in protest. I should get that weight bench soon: Howard is going to need it, so he can carry me all the way back to the van after the race ends.
A the W(aiting for Pedestrian GPS)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 1:59 PM
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