What I Have

Britt + Joy + Weekend at Home + Train Ride + Bonfires + Coldplay Concert + Detroit + Road Trip with New Friends + Autumn + Winter + Life + One Point and Shoot Sony Camera

The only thing I need now is my camera's battery charger.

Race Recap: Men's Health Urbanathlon, Chicago

I finished the second, and potentially final, fall race of my schedule this past Saturday. It was the Men's Health Urbanathlon, a roughly 10.5 mile race through the heart of Chicago. The twist with this race is that I entered as the first leg of a three person relay team (my two teammates were some friends from Pritzker) and that the course contains a series of obstacles.

It was a good race - I don't have any official times, but my 3.4 mile leg of the race was finished in, at most, 22:00 flat (and most likely less, as I stopped my watch...only to find my hand must have slipped a few minutes later when the watch was still running). That translates to a 6:29/mile pace and a roughly 20:09 5K. That's about where I wanted to be three weeks out of my half marathon training, and I'm ready to put down some good miles over the winter time.

The race itself was slightly bizarre for someone used to more traditional road races - there were no mile markers to speak of, so I wasn't able to pick up any mile splits. Similarly, I had no idea where the end of my leg was, and never really started a kick of any sort. Instead, I turned a corner to find my teammate and a multitude of our fellow racers waiting for the handoffs. So who knows how things could have turned out, especially if this was a traditional 5K that lacked the construction hurdles and tubes (my obstacles).

Overall result: our team finished 16th out of 186 or so male teams, running the 10.5 mile race in 1:22:42. I had the intermediate leg of sorts, as our second runner had a roughly 5.4 mile run and our third runner had a roughly 2.7 mile run (including a run up the side of Soldier Field and climbing an 8 foot wall before the finish line). My leg was the easy way out compared to those guys!

Break It Down

The Gospel (Lk 10:25-37) for today is one of my favorites:

"There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test Jesus and said,
"Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"
Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law?
How do you read it?"
He said in reply,
"You shall love the Lord, your God,
with all your heart,
with all your being,
with all your strength,
and with all your mind,
and your neighbor as yourself."
He replied to him, "You have answered correctly;
do this and you will live."