Becoming a "Blade Runner": My Journey: The Shortest 5k EVER! :)

I signed up for this race as a way to motivate myself to keep up with my running. After I signed up I got an email from a friend I had met a few times running at the track downtown, asking how my running was going. He mentioned briefly at the end of his email that he would love to do a 5k sometime. Not sure if he was just saying it to be nice, but I took that as a confirmation that he would be signing up for the Polar Dash with me :) He signed up the next day and we both began training on our own to prepare.

I met Erick at Gear Check, switched legs, and we lined up right before the race started. (I learned my lesson at the Turkey Trot... there IS such a thing as being TOO early. It was kinda nice starting right away. Less anxiety. And cold air :P) The weather was absolutely perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, a little wind, and a beautiful clear sky over Lake Michigan. It was a rough start, with a lot of walkers who CLEARLY did not understand the lineup system. We ran around Grant Park, and onto the path above the lake, heading north and crossing the 1 mile marker.

When we got to the turn around on the lake path, I felt a little confused. The Monster Dash (same racing company) used an almost identical route on paper, but it seemed like we turned around a lot sooner today. I didn't think much of it, and we kept going. We ran under the bridge, bringing us back into Grant Park. I assumed we would take another loop around the park again, when it became clear that we were finishing. I looked at Erick and said... "Um. There's no WAY that was a 5k!? We didn't even pass a Mile 2 marker." Erick kept saying, "I think we're done! This is it?! This is the finish line!" We crossed at 29 minutes, and got our medals, when they made an announcement: "We would like to apologize for the confusion. If you were in the 5k group you either did a 3k or a 7k." We looked at each other and started cracking up. So the Polar Dash 2013 marks my first 3K race :)

We ate pizza afterwards (another tradition of mine) and laughed a lot about the "shortest 5k" we've ever done. Erick and I have a similar pace, as we are both more concerned about taking care of our body than making perfect time. We decided to keep each other motivated through email updates on our training progress, and talked about doing another 5k together. He's convinced I should do the 7k Shamrock Shuffle, with 30,000 other crazy Chicago runners. Ha. We'll see about that :)

Some awesome pictures of me and my new running buddy Erick :)