025. Santa Shuffle 5K Weekend and Race Recap

So this weekend I met up with some friends from Sparkpeople to run a 5K. Courtney, Sarah, Tara, and I all ran in the Santa Shuffle in beautiful Lincoln Park. Sarah's fiance Jon also ran with us.

Friday after work, we all met up at Sarah's place to head to Universal Sole and pick up our race packets. We snapped a few photos and browsed the merch. Some of us needed some more cold running gear.

Courtney and Sarah hanging out on the other side of the running shoe display. Pretty perfect if you ask me!

We headed back to Sarah's place where she modeled the sweet Santa hat, bead, and jacket t-shirt we got in our race packets.

The we hit Old Town Pub for dinner. I had the Hawaiian Ham Panini with tater tots which was pretty much amazing. Ham, Swiss cheese, pineapple, and onions. The chipotle mayo on the side was a little too spicy for my liking.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early (which was really only 7am). I made myself a tasty bowl of apple cinnamon breakfast quinoa, but I didn't get a photo because my camera was also packed up in my bag and I didn't want to forget to bring it!

I met Sarah, Jon, and Courtney on the walk to the race course. We met up with Tara and her husband along the way.

A sea of Santas at the starting line.

The course map. We got to run around the Lincoln Park Zoo.

The upside to cold weather running is I can carry my camera in my pocket so I was able to get some action shots during the race.

Courtney managed to look this adorable in pretty much every picture I took!

Hydration station - very important! This race actually had water at miles 2 and 3!

This was Tara's first race and Sarah, Courtney, and I were all on board to support her. We finished in just under 45 minutes shattering Tara's goal of running it in under 50 minutes!

After the race we went back to Sarah and Jon's place to warm up and change into some clothes that weren't drenched in sweat before we headed out to brunch at Adobo Grill.

We got pretty much the yummiest mimosa I have ever had. It was your usual champagne and orange juice, but it also had a splash of passion fruit juice which gave it a nice kick.
To eat I got blue corn plantain pancakes with eggs and chorizo. It was delish!
For the few remaining pics from the race check out my Picasa album.

014. Girls on the Run 5K

I know I've been super lame about posting recently. I've started about 4 blogs that haven't finished. I've had a lot rolling around in my head lately. Add to that the fact that I've been super busy at work (which, let's be honest, is where I type up a lot of my blogs!) There will be a major coming soon. I promise.

In the mean time, I ran the Girls of the Run 5K this morning. It was seriously an amazing event! It was so awesome to see all these girls out there running with their parents and coaches and friends. It makes me want to get involved with the program even more! The race took place at Toyota Park which is home to the Chicago Fire and the Chicago Red Stars. I'm not a soccer fan at all (in fact it's quite possibly my LEAST favorite sport ever), but it was really cool to get to finish inside the stadium. I could only imagine how totally awesome it would be if I were 10 years old!

And now what you all really want...photos!!!

Walking up from my car. I got there about 45 minutes before start time and there were a TON of people there already!

Toyota Park main entrance.

The pink signs where the meeting places for the various program groups. There were over 50 schools represented. It was massive and totally awesome!

They had face-painting and tiara decorating. No, I didn't do either. I figured I'd save that for the girls.

We all know how important it is to warm up before a race. The three photos above are some girls getting their stretch on, the group leading the warm-up (two girls from Bally's Total Fitness, The Chicago Fire mascot Sparky, the Chicago Wolves mascot Skates, some superhero type guy, the Fox weather-woman Amy Freeze (Yes, that's actually her last name), and Ella Masar from the Chicago Red Stars.

The starting line. I made sure I was toward the front because I hate feeling like I'm going to step on someone!The sea of people behind me at the starting line. It was amazing how many people were there. You can't even see all the shorty kiddos that were there!

Here's the finish line inside the stadium. I was a little disappointed we didn't get to finish on the field, but the Fire does have a game tonight so we wouldn't wanna mess up the grass.Some of the runners coming around the final bend to the finish line.

They were broadcasting the finishes on the jumbo-tron which was pretty cool. Sadly my mom didn't come with me so there was no one there to take a picture of me finishing. It's cool though.

Here's my Operation Beautiful-ized race number. It says "You are STRONG! You are POWERFUL! You are BEAUTIFUL!" You are strong and you are powerful are both GOTR mantras.

Seriously, coolest.goodie-bag.ever! Awesome long sleeve t-shirt, some yummy mini-luna bars, ponytail holders, a GOTR/ New Balance water bottle (which is awesome since I can't find my water bottle!), and an issue of American Girl Magazine. I used to love AG Magazine. I subscribed to it forever!

Those are about half my pictures from the event. It was so awesome, and I will definitely be looking for a way to be more involved next year!

Oh, and as for how I did. I finished in 30:10 which is 40 seconds slower than my first 5K. I'm happy with it though. I was running alone, and my pacing was definitely a little off. I thought we were a lot closer to the finish than we actually were so I picked up the pace a little too early. Either way 30:10 is still a really great time so I'm happy about it. Besides, I knew it would be hard to be my first 5K time anyway!