2013 Chicago Lung Run 10k Race Recap

Where to even start on recapping the Chicago Lung Run?  Well, I guess I'll start with the really good. I think I mentioned about 100 times that I was fundraising for the race in support of my brother's girlfriend, Carrie, who has been fighting Stage 4 lung cancer for the past year and a half.  I ended up raising $1,785 for Uniting Against Lung Cancer, and as a whole, my team raised $2,160 for the cause.  I can't say thank you enough to everyone who donated!  Whether you attended our Inaugural fundraising Sausage Fest last month, bought raffle tickets, contributed as part of Kim's huge giveaway this summer, or donated just because, I really appreciate it.  I know that fundraising and running a race doesn't just magically make everything better for cancer patients like Carrie, but I know it does mean a lot to her that we're showing support.  My great aunt was also diagnosed with lung cancer this summer, so the cause is doubly important to my family.

Which brings up a kind of sad point about races like these.  When I went to packet pick-up on Thursday, I was able to meet and chat with the event manager for Uniting Against Lung Cancer (who mentioned that she's been following along with my fundraising on the blog and Twitter - hi Maureen!).  I asked if the race had grown a lot since last year, since I thought I remembered it being somewhat small.  She confirmed that it had, and we lamented that a race like this growing, although good to support the cause, also means that more families are probably being impacted by lung cancer.  Which just sucks.  But we're raising money to help fund research projects and clinical trials that may actually make a difference, so there's that.  And although fundraising is really hard at times, I'll probably continue helping this cause out until there's a cure.

Team Take My Breath Away

But on to race day!  Actually, let's back up to the night before.  For the second year in a row, the Lung Run fell on the same weekend as The Hideout Block Party. Last year, Bob and I were out until about 1am the night before the Lung Run, had a bunch of beer and fried foods, but still managed to both have really good races.  This year, I limited myself to just a few beers and we were home by about 11pm, but since we had eaten dinner before the show at 4:30, we were both a little hungry.  And usually if I eat something after drinking, I avoid a hangover, so we split a frozen pizza and both promptly passed out on the couch.  When I woke up on Saturday morning, I did feel much more well-rested than before last year's race, but my stomach was off.  I never talk about GI issues here, because I never really get them, but I felt awful.  Almost as bad as I did for this year's Shamrock Shuffle, which you may recall is the race I ran while recovering from food poisoning.  Kim showed up at our apartment at 6:20 so she could overachieve and knock out 10 miles before the race.  So in the 90 minutes between her arrival and our friends Bart & Melanie picking us up, I hydrated like crazy, took some Pepto and hoped for the best.  Even heading down to Montrose Harbor, I didn't have my usual race day excitement, just the hope that I wouldn't puke at any point that morning.

Sigh.  I wish I had gone into what is such an important race with a better outlook, but I guess the run isn't really the important part of this race anyway.  I was happy to be able to run with Kim and Melanie this year, since last year I ran the race solo (I don't actually remember why, but my team kind of split up at last year's race).  I was also happy for two of my close friends to finally meet each other!  I basically spent most of the race like a creeper observing their first date, following closely behind, but letting them do the bulk of the talking.

Bob chasing his friend Tim (turns out slow and steady wins the race - Bob ended up finishing about 29 seconds ahead of Tim)

The course ran from Montrose Harbor along the lakefront trail.  It was somewhat similar to ZOOMA in that we went north first, turned around and headed south before returning to the harbor, but this course went all the way to the northern end of the trail.  The cool thing about this is that we were able to spot the rest of our team as they were headed back south.

The course was full of volunteers and a few spectators here and there.  All of the volunteers that we did encounter were great, but there was one spot before the mile 4 mark where we weren't quite sure which way to go.  Full disclosure, we finished toward the end of the 10k pack, so by the end of the race, we didn't see many other runners from our race.  Which made this feel a lot more like a training run than an actual race, which was a little weird.  I didn't encounter this feeling last year, since I just did the 5k and there's a lot more 5k runners than 10k at this race.

My stomach did start behaving about a mile in to the run, but I couldn't really pick up any speed.  I'm so glad that Melanie and Kim just stuck with me for the entire race, even though they both definitely could have gone faster.  Being able to all finish together was really cool, and the finish line area was packed by the time we ran through it, which was awesome.  Our final time was 1:20:43.  So although it was a little slower than I'd hoped for (I was aiming for 1:15 in better conditions), it was almost 2 minutes faster than my ZOOMA time, so I still got a PR!

Bart at the finish

Melanie and her husband, Bart, both got automatic PRs, since they had never run a 10k before, and Bart even got a PDR, since his longest run going into the race was only 4ish miles.  And Bob and Tim finished 26th and 29th overall, respectively.  So everyone had a great race!

Finished!

All in all, it was a really great morning spent with friends, supporting an important cause.  The race itself is pretty no-frills, which probably helps keeps costs down so that most (if not all - I'm not totally sure) of the proceeds actually go to the charity it's supporting, but it's pretty well-organized.  And there is something really powerful about seeing hundreds of people gathering for the same cause, so I know that I'll be back again next year.

Meko and Kim sporting the race shirt: who wore it better?