June 2, North Shore HM, Highland Park, Illinois

Operated by RAM Racing

Primary Beneficiary is Misercordia Home of Chicago

Summary:

This was our 2^nd HM.

Start:  6:50am wave start, 60F, light rain.   Finish:  50F misting.

Me:    2:19:39 (10:40), Overall 1849/2390, Gender 897/1054, Age Group 25/37.  5 minute PR

DW:   2:19:39, Overall 1848/2390, Gender 952/1336, Age Group 25/44.  5 minute PR

PR was nice, although we had a low bar to beat, but kind of disappointed with AG rank, since I’m usually in the middle and DW is usually in top quarter.   Oh well…

The Race:

We weren’t really ready for another Half since or first one was in Knoxville 2 months ago, and we have been either sick or slacking since then, but the NSHM was very convenient for us, and we knew the course was really nice, so we decided to go for it and have fun. The course goes through some very exclusive neighborhoods, a beach, some nice Lake views and it heads north to what is left of Fort Sheridan.  The Army still has some facilities there, but most has been developed into moderate and high income housing.  Since the race doesn’t fill up, we waited until the last week to register to make sure the weather was good.  Fortunately, the forecasts all showed the heat and storms ending on Saturday so we registered on Thursday and picked up our packets from Running Away MultiSport in Deerfield on Friday.  It was well organized and fast.

Weather still looked good when we left the house Sunday morning about an hour before the start.  It got kind of dark as we drove up the Edens, and DW was fretting about the possibility of rain as she left her visor at home.  Just as we parked it got rainy and windy and of course, colder.  We changed to our long sleeves and waited almost to gun time, since we were in corral G and it was a wave start.  Got to the corral after the gun went off, and still had time to use the PP with no waiting.   Hard to believe some people don’t know how to lock a PP…ooops.

So there we were at the very back of corral G.   The runners there didn’t look very fast we’re thinking how are we going to get around this group?  Seemed like it took forever to start and we were pretty wet and cold by the time we were waved.  DW can’t see a thing through her wet glasses since she didn’t have her visor.  So, we weren’t happy campers at the start.  First 3 miles going south from downtown Highland Park were slow, but we start slow anyway and it was easy to pass by running around the cones.  The rain was supposed to stop, but it just turned into a mist, so we stayed a little wet.   Felt pretty good with about a 10:30 pace.  Race turned north around the fantastic outdoor Ravinia Music Theater and heads up tony Sheridan Road.  The Mile 1 timer had us at 25 minutes.  That was real encouraging!!!  On Sheridan Road, its starts to get a little hilly with all the ravines that flow into Lake Michigan.  The course even drops down to one of the public beaches.   In this neighborhood, most of the beaches are private.  That slowed us down a bit but it was fun exchanging comments with the other runners about the mansions and all the ”for sale” signs. We were slipping back to 10:45 pace and had an unscheduled PP stop, but luckily it was unoccupied this time.   Due to the rain, there were almost no spectators on the course, but about mile 7, there was a small group cheering 2 girls who were running next to us.  One couple looked really familiar so we asked the girls about them and it turns out they were our travel partners on an Italy tour we took a couple of years ago.  Made our day.  Small World!!  We saw them a few more times on the course and shouted out, but unfortunately we didn’t see them at the finish line.  Mile 8 brought us back almost to downtown Highland Park and we headed up toward Fort Sheridan. The south section of the Base is still an active Army (Reserve) base, but most has been sold off to developers as it is on Lake Michigan.  The south end of Fort Sheridan is more moderate tract housing while miles 9 and 10 took us through the incredible grounds of the former Officer’s housing, most of which are preserved and copied into million dollar mansions and townhouses.  It took 2 miles just to go around this scenic area.  At the south end of the base, the course is 2 way so we could see the many faster runners as we ran north and then the few runners behind us on the way south as we were on the home stretch.  By mile 11 there was a long hill that really killed me and my legs were really getting heavy and I was struggling to keep up the 10:30 pace.   While I was weakening, DW was running strong and started pulling ahead by about 10 yards, then stopping to wait for me.  Kept telling her to run ahead, but she’s just too nice.  At least she didn’t run backwards.  Next race, I’ll just sign her up for a 9:00 minute corral.  Another hill in the last mile, but too close to start walking, so kept going with the last mile at 10:32.  Finally crossed the finish line with DW.  Didn’t hang around much at the finish line as we were freezing.  And apparently not too many other runners stayed either.

Still curious why our AG finish was so bad compared to Knoxville.  At first I thought the northern yuppies were just more fit, but I think the reason might be that Knoxville also had a FM, so a lot of better runners went to the FM, leaving more Penguins to run the Half.  Any other ideas?

Despite the cold and rain, it was a good race and glad we ran it.  RAM seemed to do a good job. And the volunteers were great, standing in the rain and cold for many hours.  Can’t compare this race to the big Chicago HM’s on the lakefront, but we will do one eventually.

Misercordia Home

Normally, I wouldn’t plug a race charity since I wouldn’t know anything about it, but in this case I will.  Misercordia Home is a 31 acre Care Facility for about 600 people with major disabilities.  It is located on the north side of the City. We lived near it when we got married, 30+ years ago and drove past it a million times, not paying any attention to it.  So, last year a woman I work with (niece lives at Misercordia) gave me a pass for the Misercordia family fair, and we since we had nothing better to do.  We were absolutely amazed at this “city within a city” and watching the families visiting their loved ones, who probably spend their entire lives there, was very heart warming to say the least.  So glad we went. And happy they made at least a few thousand dollars from the race, which is probably a tiny fraction of their extensive fund raising efforts.   Their volunteers also manned at least one of the water stations which was great to see.

So, hope some of you can try this HM next year. We will probably run it again (weather permitting of course).

Congrats on a PR on such a yucky day! How crazy is that you ran into people from your tour?! Knoxville having a FM along with the HM could be a factor in the AG thing. North Shore also seems to usually have some fast runners. The winning times for the men and women I've rarely seen times that fast at HMs up here (SE WI) so I think North Shore does attract some fast runners.

Congrats on your second and with such a good PR!  And you ran it together, that is great!

Good job Jerry and DW!  That's a nice improvement over your first, especially considering you didn't really prepare to run a PR.

It's too bad that it rained and you were cold.  It sounds like the scenery would be interesting, but since you were cold you probably didn't enjoy it as much as you would on a nicer day.

Congrats to you and DW. Yea, mansions for sale?

Well, I think you did fabulous with getting the 5 minute PR!  Congratulations to you and your DW!

Thank you for supporting such a good cause.

As much as we think we have control over PR's, sometimes we really don't.  Congrats, five minutes is a ton!