#racereport Rock n Roll Chicago 10k

Photo-heavy post because that's how I feel like rolling on this one.  You're welcome.

After last year's very tough RnR Chicago Half Marathon (in which I ran 18 miles training for Detroit), I said I would never do another RnR event.  I wasn't impressed with the bands at all and I didn't feel like it was worth the cash.  However, the opportunity to see my friend, Renee (who now lives in the Netherlands), was a very good reason to never say never and sign up for the 10k

Renee and I met up at the expo. Decent expo and I drove a Toyota for a $10 gift card, which I used to buy a pint glass.

Love the shirt.

 After walking around the expo for a bit, Renee and I headed to our hotel and I set out Flat Bari.

 We stayed the the Congress Hotel, which I would highly recommend for any races starting or finishing at the north end of Grant Park.  Literally only a few blocks from the start/finish for the Half.  I had a mile walk to the 10k start line down Michigan Avenue.

Took the stairs because the elevator was "busy".

 Renee's friend, Becky, also came into town to run the half marathon and hang out with Renee.  She was a riot and we may have been a little slap-happy by the time we finally got ready for bed. (Note-I recommend packing your own breakfast for races like this.  The girls really wanted bagels and we had to hit about 4 or 5 places before we found any at 9pm at night.)

As usual, I slept very little before the race and was up extremely early.  The temps were already AWFUL with a dew point of 72*.

 We got up and got ready, then took an obligatory, pre-race blurry picture.  Renee and Becky needed to get to their start and I headed south to mine.

 The sunrise over Grant Park could not have been any more beautiful.  It almost made getting up at 4am worth it.

I'll be honest, seeing how tiny the starting corral was really shook me up.  I was very concerned that hardly any people were running and I was going to end up DFL.  Turns out it was really small but I did pretty well considering how hot it was.

 I was in a port-a-potty line 3 minutes before the start, so I jumped back out and self-seeded myself in the 2nd wave.  There were 3 waves and they went off about a minute apart.  Easy peasy.  Luckily, there was no line at the potties about 1/2 a mile in so I stopped to pee.

This was the only picture I took and it was around the 2.5 mile mark.  I was completely drenched in sweat and was stopping at every water station to drink and dump water on myself.  I couldn't even operate my phone so I kept it tucked away.

 I finished in 1:10:05.  I was hoping for 1:15 with how hot and humid it was, so I'm happy with this time.  The best part was finishing 46/167 in my age group.  I'm not sure I've ever finished that high, so clearly the heat really affected the runners.

One of the best parts of the day was the afterparty.  Last year, the band sucked and I didn't stick around.  This year they brought in Andy Grammar and he put on a great, hour-long show.  I was there early enough (thanks to running the 10k instead of the half) to get about 15-20 feet from the stage.  

Super fun weekend with lots of awesome girl time and a great concert.  Not too shabby.

Did you race this past weekend?