RnR Chicago Half

Well I finished another Half today.  It was my worst one so far but hey I finished.  It was nice to run though downtown Chicago.  I have always loved Chicago but have never really looked at the city.  Usually we go down town for Chicago Bears Football games.

My dad and I ran together again( well we ran the same race he finished about a half hour ahead of me). If I had trained properly I would have been right there with him but I didn't... OH WELLS.

Over all I really liked the race.  There bands about every mile or so and they were playing up beat music.  The Volunteers and people cheering us were awesome.  I was enjoying my self and right on pace to do a little bit better than my NorthShore time and 

THEN IT HAPPENED

It was little after mile 8 and I was getting ready to pass a guy.  I told him 3 time that I was coming up on his left.  you know following proper running rules   and didn't hear me and BAM I took an elbow to the face.   Luckily it happened right in front of a race medic to they took a look at me.  They didn't know it but I was eight miles in and I wasn't going to stop even if they told me to, maybe if I was only at mile 3  but when I was that far into the race I wasn't stopping.  I didn't have to quit but I did have a nice little headache and was pissed cause there was no way I was going to make my time now.  The sad part is the guy didn't even say sorry.

All in all I had a good time and finished up right and with a smile on my face.  The only down side is that I didn't get to see any of the WISHers.  There will be plenty of other races to run into them at.

This was about a half mile until I took the elbow to the face.

And The Thunder Rolled

Well the past five days have been very interesting for my town.  We had Down Burst which is bigger than a Micro Burst and smaller than a Tornado.  the area where I live did not have power for five days and it was a long five days.  I don't think that the temps ever dropped below 96 and the high were at least 103 and that wasn't the "Real Feel" either, so add a few more degrees.  I Think the power outage was worse for my two dogs.  one night we went and sat in my car with the air on just to cool them off.

The storm only lasted about 10 minutes but those 10 minutes seemed like forever.

All of these pictures are from my street.  Luckily no ones house was damaged all the trees just missed the houses by a few feet.

 The Picture to the right is a tree that fell on the power line that runs through my back yard.  That tree sat there for 4 days before the crew came to get it off.  We were so happy to see that tree crew cause we knew that meant the power trucks would be getting closer to getting the power back on.  It ended up taking an entire day until it was fixed but it was still fixed.

This picture is mild compared to the rest of the streets.  There were down trees and wires everywhere so even if I wanted to go for a run it  would have been hard to find a route that wasn't dangerous.

There is still a part of town that doesn't have power and won't be getting it back until maybe Monday.