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as i get ready to take on my second half-marathon (that i'm totally not prepared for) on sunday, i figure it's about time to write about my last long run, which just so happened to coincide with my last race.
i signed up for the race to wrigley because of the fun benefits it included: a cute long sleeve shirt, discounted bleacher seat tickets to a game, a big loop course, and, best of all, running through the wrigley concourse. unfortunately, the execution of this race failed miserably and it is, to date, my least favorite race. but i'm getting ahead of myself...
not my style, but alex loves it to sleep it, so there's that.
packet pick-up was super easy the day before the race. the race shirt was not the design that was showcased on the website when i signed up, and i'm honestly not a fan of the new one. it's just not something i would wear, and i instantly handed it over to my boyfriend when i got home. i also noticed that the tickets were not bleacher seat tickets to a cubs game, but tickets to a baseball game by high school prospects. i think this will be a fun event since i'm a big baseball fan, but it's still not what i was expecting.
april 25th, race morning, was rainy and awful. i took a look at the website to see if there were any updates, and found that they had changed the course map from the original big loop to two loops of the 5k course. how boring. i also noticed a one hour and 15 minute course time limit added that wasn't there before. i was not happy with all these last minute changes. but the biggest change? because construction at wrigley was delayed, we would not be running through the concourse. um, what? there was no email notification of this or anything; i literally found out the morning of when i checked for weather updates. needless to say, i headed to the race start with a sour taste in my mouth.
image via instagram
i took the race nice and easy, since my training was already kind of shoddy by this point. i ran non-stop through the first 2 miles, walked a bit in miles 3 and 4 at water stops, and then did intervals through miles 5 and 6. i was slightly worried that my walking would cause me to go over the course limit, but i was pleasantly surprised to see the clock just over 1:11. (of course, when i went to check my official time at home, it was messed up and said i placed 2nd in my age group with a time of 49:07 hahahahhaha yeah right!). i was disappointed to not see any official photographers out. the culmination of everything going wrong and it not being a very fun race made me just want to go home right away, so i decided to run the two miles home to my house, which honestly was the best part of my run that day; those two miles flew by.
so what did i think of the race to wrigley? obviously, i'm disappointed. i'm not a fan of the shirt, the course, or the mess-ups. i will say that the volunteers were awesome, but it wasn't enough to save this race for me. i won't be back.
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