Chicago 4/15/08

I love this city. This city that I call home, have called home for most of my life and probably will call home for the rest of my life. I have lived in Chicago and the surrounding areas for 22 years. The other 6 years were spent only 4 hours away in Bloomington, Indiana which has it’s own special place in my heart.

This city is why I want to get up in the morning and why I can breathe. It's absolutely a part of me. It’s not just a cool place to live, but for us it’s a lifestyle choice. I told Jason once as we walked from our apartment to Millennium Park that I was worried that if we ever moved to a place where we couldn’t walk downtown on a nice spring day, that our marriage would be in trouble. I know that sounds harsh. My parents got a divorce when I was about 3 years old, I tend to think about those kinds of things. I mean yeah yeah, we aren't like them or whatever. But I know how unhappy I would be (and I think Jason would be as well) if we couldn’t just go out walking and end up at the lakefront or wherever. Something as small as where you live? Yeah, but to us, that’s not so small. I can’t predict what will happen in the future and maybe a house farther from the city will be in the cards. But I don’t know, I would rather not think that way and instead work on making small condos or city houses work. Kids can share rooms and the bigger the house you own the more stuff you own. Jason and I grew up in apartments and I think we both turned out pretty great and aren’t any worse for the wear.

We are, admittingly, lucky as the jobs we will have will probably be in the city. Jason already has one and I’m going to start working soon, hopefully in the city. The last four years have been spent commuting out to Batavia where the physics lab where we conducted our research was located. Yeah sometimes the commute sucked. Random traffic jams, home at 2 in the morning just to get up at 6 to get back in time for the meeting. Tears were shed, fights were had and things were probably thrown. But in the end, I would wake up on a random Saturday morning, smile and say to the man next to me, “Let’s go for a walk”. And that made it all worth it 100%.

So that being said. So many things happen in the city that make me love living here. From small things to big things to new apartments and neighborhoods to restaurant reviews to whatever. SO those will from now on have the title of Chicago followed by the date. So for you Chicagoans, enjoy! So let’s get started.

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Good Morning Young Man
Good Morning Young Lady
Good Morning Young Lady
Good Morning Young Man

So says the beggar who stands on the bridge covering the Chicago river on Randolph. He’s there in the morning speaking faster than my ears can listen. He’s there in the evenings on my way home, speaking with the same enthusiasm wishing all a good evening instead. I never give him any money, but there are people that do and talk to him like they’ve known him for awhile. Maybe they have, maybe he’s been standing in that same spot just as long as they have been working downtown. Running into him on their frantic run to and from the Metra station, to and from their office a few blocks away.

The building that is on the east side of the river just south of Randolph is also the ugliest building I have ever seen. I feel like it should be the building that the main character in All the Names works in. Just big, ugly, beige, white and when looking into the windows there are endless rows of messy cubicles. Why did the beggar choose that spot? Why does he stand facing east so he has to look at it?

Another Weekend Roundup

Well given that I haven't posted since Thursday...here we go.

Thursday night we went out for drinks at Monk's with a guy from Jason's work which was super fun. Jason and I both had about 6 beers too many but whatever, it was a good time. Apparently if I'm not a marathoner I just drink too much...I don't know why...pissed cause I can't run is the main reason. Although since I'm not running I *should* be doing the health thing and going to the gym and all that good stuff. I am going to try and do that this week actually because I think my achilles is feeling better enough that I could actually be in a pair of shoes without wanting to cry. Although....I have only been wearing a super cool pair of orange crocs the past few days so I really don't know how my achilles will do with normal shoes....maybe I could run in these....hmm...maybe not.

Friday night we went out with Jake to see Masters of the Universe at the midnight show at the Music Box. Yes yes, that is in fact the Heman (or is it He-man?) movie. The audience consisted of us 3 and a bunch of other nerds which was awesome as the commentary during the movie was Mystery Science Theater-esqe. So that was hilarious and a good find by the JMan.

On Saturday we had lazy plans. We were going to do nothing all day and like it. We stuck to that until about 5pm when unavoidably I got bored and wanted to go do something. So we headed down to our favorite coffee shop, Barista, and thinking they were open walked in an ordered some lattes. While April (the super cool owner who you should totally go say hi to if you are in the neighborhood as she's super friendly) was putting the espresso machine back together I had the suspicion that the store was actually closed. I asked her how late they were open and she laughed and said they were actually closed but that she had bills to pay and thus never turns people away. I love her and her coffee shop. So. Great.

From there we headed down to Division to deposit some checks and we headed to Easy Bar to finish our coffee, catch some of the Cubs game and have a drink. From there we went to Aki Sushi to try and fulfill my new found desire for sushi that I have had since Mike's birthday last week. It was ok, although I think the specialty roll that Jason got was great. However, even though I didn't love the food (I get a little squirmy with the raw stuff if I think about it too hard) we had the best evening. The wait staff was very not pushy at that place and we had a bottle of wine and ended up sitting there for about 2 hours which was fantastic! Just chatting and taking our time with dinner and whatever. Very friendly staff and so I recommend it highly.

On Sunday we decided to go take a look at the Lincoln Square neighborhood just to have something to do. This is the northside neighborhood that is bounded by Foster at the North, Montrose at the South, Damen at the East & The Chicago River at the West. Wells park is central to this neighborhood. We walked around for about an hour although my toes inside my crocs were cold and so we couldn't walk around as much as I would have liked. However, we LOVED what we saw and so we are looking for this to be our next neighborhood. All the Chicago neighborhoods are so different and we have lived in three of them already. It's almost like moving cities because there is the re-finding of coffee shops, book stores, libraries, grocery stores etc. This neighborhood, especially, felt kind of like a small town which was weird. From Montrose/Lincoln you are only 2 miles from the lakefront path which is perfect (we clocked it as we drove out there). So we are looking to move sooner rather than later although we have our lease through August. We love this neighborhood too, but we are getting that moving itch so we'll see what happens with that. It would be nice to be closer to the lake for the summer. Plus the commute downtown wouldn't be too bad since there is a brown line stop very nearby. Although....it would be a longish trip on the brownline to get all the way downtown, but we'll give it a try soon and see what that's like.

The rest of Sunday afternoon was pretty lazy, with a nap thrown in there just for good measure. I am still taking time off from running. I have been icing and soing some exercises and things might be starting to feel better. I'm frustrated that now that the nice weather is here but I'm not out there running. But I would rather rest now and not loose more days than necessary, which I think is the smart move.

Alright, and thus it's Monday!

So True

This is from PhD comics one of the funniest sites for those of you in PhD programs....so many of the comic strips are so true and so funny. I mean they are funny anyways, but you really "get it" if you are in a physics program especially.

Who's this "Jason" fellow

Alright, so I'll admit that it's been awhile since I posted on this site. I'm pretty sure it's been since Leah abandoned me for the Caribbean, but I'd rather not consult the archives to find out. Suffice to say, it's been awhile. But I really want to remedy that, even if only to make sure my name stays on the door.

Things that have changed since my last post...

* We've gone from high fives to fist bumps, thus reflecting our maturity
* The word "Zing!" is now a part of our lexicon
* Baseball season has started
* Leah's gotten even more beautiful (Awwwwwwwwww)

I've also run the Shamrock Shuffle, which I haven't really mentioned. I didn't have a particularly good race, crapping out between miles 2 and 3. Up until that point I was keeping pace with Leah, but when it started to get really hard I just sort of gave up. I just didn't care. What's up with that? I'm a little disappointed in myself, but my speedwork after the race was just fine, so I'm chalking it up to a bad day. In the end, I finished up with a 38:30 which matched my time the first time I ran this race (and I'm in a millions times better shape, so whatever).

So yeah, bad race.

But everything else has been good. The job is going well and the Cubs are getting better and we're all happy in our crappy, old apartment.

And so I conclude my post. Hopefully it won't be so long until my next.

Too Much Stick

And by Stick...I mean....The Stick...you know for rolling out sore muscles. The dude at the Athletico suggested that I get one. And so I did...and I love it and using it on my calf muscle and whatever. I woke up this morning and I was like, perfect, now that hurts too.

No one wants to be around an injured LeahC...poor Jason :-(

This weekend we are looking at :


What do I say to that...uh AWESOME! I am going to lay on the couch, read, watch movies and ice the hell out of my achilles. 15 on 15 off for the whole weekend. Sound like fun? Does to me too! Ah well a wet and crappy spring weekend just calls out for a movie weekend, so that's the plan.

Tonight it's back home on the train...with perhaps a stop at Monk's our new favorite place to grab a beer. Hell if I'm not going to run I might as well drink to pass the time..... ZING! (My new found obsession to the word Zing should be credited to Bryn....who doesn't have a blog as far as I know and who I don't think reads this blog, so I could have just stolen it and run, but that's not the way I roll, credit goes to where credit is due).

I just gave a talk at Fermilab and I talked faster than I have ever talked before. I told everyone that I didn't really talk fast and instead they might want to try and listen faster. ALRIGHT. HAPPY THURSDAY.

Achilles Tendonitis

So because I am insane and I have to know everything RIGHT NOW. I canceled lunch with my friend and got an earlier appointment at Athletico. It's what I thought it was, just a case of achilles tendonitis. He gave me some things to do and of course rest and ice and blah blah blah. He also mentioned that my shoes might be too supportive and to try the Brooks Axioms. I have run in Adrenalines for years now and this is the first time a problem has shown up though. But I'll try them on and see. He looked at the calluses on the bottom of my feet and they looked like I was twisting or something when I was running...too many calluses on the outside of me feet.....I don't know....Whatever.

Ice. Rest. Ice. Rest.

I'm going to try and go to the gym to do some weight lifting and probably do some biking as that probably wouldn't be too much work.

The guy was really nice and it was all free so that was good news. If it's still really bad in a couple of weeks I'll go and see a doctor which he could recommend.

So that's that.

Sushi?....Maybe!

Yesterday to celebrate the birthday of one Mr. OutOfShapeGuy we stayed downtown after my commute from the burbs. I had originally planned on taking the train that got into downtown around 6pm. That plan was still in place, but I had decided to leave my office early and work on my thesis edits at a Caribou Coffee near the Wheaton train station. This way I could get some coffee (which of course was the most important part of the idea) and get out of my office for the last hour that I wanted to work. However, once I was in the Caribou the place was jammed with Wheaton College students and I realized I had left my iPod on my desk so I wouldn’t have any way to silence the masses.

So I decided to just take the train I usually take, then I could work downtown. I knew this plan wouldn’t work as well because I would see Jason and be all, “OH MY GOD HOW WAS WORK? DID YOU MISS ME? I MISSED YOU!” and get all chatty chatty chatty. Days like yesterday are days that I really dislike Metra. The train that was supposed to get in at 3:54 at Wheaton, actually got in around 4:14pm, so about 20 minutes late. Which is annoying, because really....I never take Metra if I ever have to be somewhere on time. This happens a lot with the line I ride because there is interference from freight trains or something. I mean OK, 5 minutes is no big deal, but we are talking 20-25 minutes late, so what’s the point?

After getting downtown Jason had to wrap some stuff at work so I met him at the Au Bon Pain that is next door to his office building. From there we walked in the rain and cold over to the Panera that is on State. Street, with me screaming the whole time, “OH NO, WHY WOULDN’T WE WANT TO MOVE TO CALIFORNIA??? REALLY SUNNY WEATHER AND WARMNESS AND WHATEVER??? NAH, LET’S STAY HERE IN THIS BULLSHIT.” I get cranky in a big way when this time of the year won’t just make the turn to summertime.

So anyways, we went to Panera where I could finally work on editing my thesis and Jason was working on blogging....on this website no less. So he goes to publish it and there is an error message that says something like, you have used the alloted computer time during the rush hours. I was like...a) there is no one here and b) he had been using the computer for maybe 20 minutes. Jason went to ask and they were like, well it’s dinner time it’ll be back on in about a half an hour. We looked at the sign on sheet where it clearly said the rush hours were from 11-2. Whatever, either have stupid free wifi or don’t. Independent coffee shops like Barista would never do that kind of thing. So Panera = super lame.

After having a beer at the South Loop Club on State, just south of Harrison we headed to Tamarind to meet folks for theMan’s birthday. I’m not one for sushi, but Barb mentioned that they had lots of stuff on the menu. Jason, Mike and everyone else ordered sushi, while Barb and I stuck to some regular dishes. I got the red curry with chicken which was a-mazing. However, looking at some of the sushi rolls that Mike had ordered I was intrigued. I tasted one of his philadelphia rolls (dude! they have cream cheese in them! nothing is bad with cream cheese) and I was hooked. Jason got some kind of spicy mahi rolls (I think...?) that had some avocado on the tops of them. I tried that and was also hooked on it. We got our own order of philadelphia rolls since apparently I was going to be eating more sushi than I had originally thought. That’s not to say that the red curry wasn’t delicious though because it was, and I don’t know if I could have a full meal just on sushi alone, but wow those were some tasty morsels.

(Note: I am writing this post on the train....amazing how much longer and more rambley they are when I don’t have so much of a time constraint since this is basically just free time anyways.)

Today I get to have lunch with my Fermilab friend, Prashant so that should be fun, as it’s always good to see him. I have a talk to give tomorrow and so I’ll drive home since I know I can’t count on Metra to get me anywhere on time. Tomorrow afternoon, I am going to Athletico and have them look at my achillies....it seems to be getting worse as pushing on the gas pedal today when driving into the lab was a bit twingy. I just don't want to do something worse to it. They have a free injury screening so we'll see how that goes. Boo. Not. Happy.

Basketball and I'm Not Talking About It

So last night was so super fun. We went over to those crazy Jayhawks place to watch the final game and to cheer on the Jayhawks to the national championship. "But wait," you ask yourself, "you are not a Kansas fan or have any stock in them". To which I reply neither of which is true. I'm way admitting I'm on the Kansas bandwagon this year AND if Kansas won then Jason would win the Charity Bracket pool. We like winning things and so it was on to root for Kansas.

What a fun night! Just a warning to all out there, Barb *might* get a little violet when watching a basketball game :-) I'm kidding. Kind of. The game was one of the best sporting events I have seen in a long time. I can't believe Kansas came back from 9 down with only 2 minutes to go. That final 3 in regulation was *amazing*. So good times where had there. It's so fun when your team wins. Not that I really know anything about that, but I guess I can understand it. We went to watch the Superbowl with our friends this year, one of which was a Giants fan. With Kansas winning last night and the Giants winning the Superbowl, Jason said all of our friends should invite us over when their team is playing as maybe we are good luck charms.

Right then.

So what am I not talking about? My achilles of course. It hurts. Bad. It's way worse when I have shoes on so I don't know what that is about. Mike looked at it last night and said it didn't seem like a muscular thing, but rather probably just some tendinitis and to rest/ice it. So that's what I'm doing this week. I walk about 1-2 miles a day to and from trains and cars and whatnot so I tried to wear some shoes that aren't so tight in the back of my foot. I don't really know how to describe it. It hurts ... so there. It seems like it's a bit swollen. If things are still painful on Sunday I'll make an appointment at Athletico and see what they say. I'm pretty worried and pretty pissed because the running was going really well and it was really fun. With the weather warming up I'm disappointed (dammit me and my spelling...always one 's' two 'p') to be on the sidelines. Maybeing biking would be ok.....

So there's that. I only signed up for the Flying Pig 1/2 to keep in shape in the summer months and have a race goal so I'm not that worried about it. That race was never going to be a PR given the hills and so whatever happens happens.

Tonight is a birthday dinner down in the south loopish area and then tomorrow should be a pretty restful day.

Oh RIGHT, one more thing.

Officially... On July 31st.. I will be defending my PhD thesis in High Energy Physics. I have to turn in the thesis by July 1st, so I'm in full on writing/updating/giving talks mode. Soon I'll be in the job hunting mode. YAY there is a big fucking strobe light flashing at the end of the tunnel!

More Ernie Banks

As my husband is the more talented (read : hilarious) writers in this little family, check out his recap of the wine evening with Ernie Banks at Goatriders.

It Hurts

I have been running consistently for about 4 years now. I tend to know my body and know when I'm just sore from running (all the time) or something is wrong and it hurts.

On Wednesday after our speedworkout when we were were walking back to the car I mentioned to Jason that my achillies on my right foot was really sore. I didn't think much more about it
as it hadn't hurt during the run at all. We didn't run Thursday or Friday but I did notice on Friday when we were waking home from the bus that it was sore.

So yesterday we go out to run 5 miles (in shorts and a t-shirt no less because it was 60 flippin' degrees out...oh yes spring is here) and it was sore the whole time. Of course I didn't turn around at the beginning but rather ran out about 2.5 miles and then realized it wasn't happening. That of course means I have to walk home the remaining distance.

So booty. Do I go out and test it again during out 10 mile run? Or do I just try and rest it for a few days as I think I slightly pulled the muscle? Well, like I said. I know my body and this is not just soreness that I can get through and I feel that if I push it I will be doing more harm than good. We ran into the Lovely Cousin Lisa on the walk home and I was telling her about it. She mentioned that she came down with tendinitis in the same area when she was training for a marathon and had to take 4-5 weeks off. I don't want it to get to that point and I don't even think that this is that because it more hurts all the time whereas she said hers hurt more the more she ran. ...but if it is....4-5 weeks off sounds like a nightmare. I read online that if it's just a pulled muscle or strain then things could heal in 7-14 days...although I don't know if I'll even take a full 7 days off.

So we aren't going to run today and I'm upset because the Sunday Long run is one of my favorite things about the week. We'll try again on Tuesday maybe and see how things are feeling.

Alright, Sunday is big breakfast day and I'm on cooking duty.

Oh yeah. AND YAY FOR KANSAS! (I'm a fan by default since our good friends are from there :-) )

Mr. Cub & A Crazy Night of Random Fun

So....that's right. That's a picture of Ernie Banks. If you don't know who that is, well he's Mr. Cub, one of the greatest Cub players of all time. Last night Jason and I attended a charity wine tasting event in honor of Mr. Ernie Banks.

So as I have mentioned Jason is a writer on a baseball fan blog called, Goatriders. The writers of the site were contacted last week about if they would be interested in covering the event this charity wine event. Jason immediately jumped at the opportunity and said that I, as the official Goatriders photographer, would need to attend as well.

I met Jason downtown after work and we stopped at Monks on Lake St. (Awesome place to hit after work for beers and snacks) and had the aforementioned beers and snack while we were waiting to head over to the Kinzie Chophouse for the event which started at 6:30pm. So a few beers & chicken tenders heavier we made our way north.

I am always early for everything (except when we are supposed to meet Jake and LaurA! out somewhere and so I feel that they think I'm lying about my need to be early...well they haven't ever flown with me so they don't really know the true crazy...ANYWARS) and so we got there at about 6:10. The people at the door recognized Jason's name (we were on the list! That's right, we're awesome) and we made our way in. At this point no one was there except for a few reporters and Ernie Banks. Jason and I of course are way star stuck and were caught on more than one occasion staring at him with our mouths agape. The room was also *really* small. We thought this was going to be a big deal and we were just going to take some pictures and whatever. It was a really nice deal and very personal feeling.

So apparently VinLozano Imports, opted to start a philanthropic wine project called Charity Wines. About 75% of all import proceeds go directly to the charity of the 500 Home Run Club member's charity of choice. (It should be noted that the previous two sentences are literally copied word for word from CharityHop's website). We got some glasses of the new 512 Chardonnay and made our way to the back of the room. I'm a red wine girl and so I'm usually just ok with white. Well this wine was *delicious*!

I was really nervous about taking pictures but had to as that is why I was able to come to the event. I'm sure the dude from WBBM radio who got a flash right in his eye was less than thrilled with me, but he called the wine a "Chard" and so I was all like, whatever.

So when we were there and no one else was around Ernie Banks came up and just started talking to us. We were trying to not sound like big nerds who didn't know what they were doing here . He asked us what we did and we told him that we were physicists and from that point on we were like his best friend. He would walk around the room and talk to other people and then he would end up back by us or just walking by and he would say, "These are my friends, the physicists." Can you believe that! How awesome is that.

Then after the crowd had rethinned out a bit, Jason got a 10 minute one on one interview with Mr. Banks. After they had talked for awhile and I was done taking pictures, I joined them and talked to him about our neighborhood and the media in general and new camera technology. It was great. I'll leave all the details though to Jason who will be writing his full recap on the goatriders site on Monday.

But it was just a wonderful opportunity and I have to say, in good days in my life it's something like, Birth, Meeting Ernie Banks, Getting Married. So yeah, it was pretty awesome. For all the pictures from the Ernie Banks evening check out this smugmug gallery.

So after we left I had to call someone and so the someone ended up being the RunningJayhawk herself. She answered and I started screaming, "OH MY GOD WE JUST GOT TO TALK TO ERNIE BANKS AND WE TOOK PICTURES AND HE'S LIKE OUR BEST FRIEND NOW DO YOU WANT TO SEE PICTURES!!!!!" So she said yes, and we headed over there to show them the pictures I had taken.

Well it just turned into one of those nights. Jason and I were already a little bit tipsy from the 512 Chard (oh please) and then I was all like I'm going to be best friend ever and get these kids drunk and so they won't be getting up early to go get their swim in. Yes I'm just that awesome of a person. So we laughed and drank more and laughed some more and drank some more. I do believe that Mike was drinking some Rum and Cokes and so I think that Barb and Jason and I finished off 2 bottles of wine...could that be right. My headache this morning was saying that it was. And obviously the 3 mile run didn't happen but whatever, I'll take a great evening with Ernie Banks and some of our bestest friends over a workout any day.

It was just a really really fun night. Those Kansas kids are so great and we might have planned a NIGHT! OF! FUN! coming up next month which should be a *riot*. For more pictures of our night of crazy head to this other smugmug gallery.

Tempoing the Night Away

Last night we had another 40 minute tempo run. After sitting in an hour and a half of traffic...WHERE IS EVERYONE GOING. ok ok. breathe, I'm back on the train this afternoon, I picked up Jason at work and we headed to the lake to do our tempoing. We have been parking right on Clark St. by Lincoln Park Zoo because the meters there are only until 6pm so we can park and get over to the path without having to pay for parking, or driving all the way north.

We did this run 2 weeks ago and I was worried that we would still be feeling the effects of the shuffle and would have a hard time keeping the paces we would need to keep. Turns out that wasn't the case and we did a good job. If anything our first couple of intervals were too fast

Just a reminder, we run about 1.3 mile warm up and then 5 - 1/2 mile segments increasing our pace on each one so that the 4th one is the fastest and then bring it down a touch for the 5th one, finishing with about a mile cool down...this is a great way to get through tough runs on the lake front path, especially if you are very familiar with the mile marker positions because it becomes monkey work and you don't really have to think about anything, just getting to the next marker.

This workout is very comparable to a few weeks ago and it felt great to get through it, although admittedly we didn't feel as good as we did a few weeks ago. It was just one of those days when I didn't feel like being out there, I had a tough day of work, I had a headache. You all know what I'm talking about. However, you know in sports when a team that wins a game that they absolutely should have lost and people say, "You know that's a good team". I kind of felt like that yesterday. Maybe we are really getting into that zone and granted it has taken about 4 years of working on this, but maybe we are getting there. I can tell you one thing, getting faster and stronger and making it through workouts like that, more importantly on a consistent basis, is a very very SLOW process, but one that I have very much enjoyed.

Alright, that being said. We are skipping the 3 mile run today because we have an event tonight downtown, stay tuned tomorrow as all Cubs fans should be very jealous. So we are going to do that tomorrow morning. We could have done it this morning but we didn't think there would be enough turn around time between runs. We also have an action packed weekend with our weekly date with Jake and LaurA! on Friday and then out to dinner on Saturday night with a fellow Goatrider, then Sunday we are going to head back out to Waterfall Glenn for our 10 mile long run. That's right bitches...double digits!

AM Running & A Jazz Band

Yesterday we had evening plans so we had to get our run done in the morning. We were so wiped out from our opening day festivities that falling into bed early was not an issue and more like an necessity.

(Opening Day was awesome by the way. It was like a playoff game, the crowd was screaming on almost every pitch. We had a great time even in our crappy cheap seats)

But with opening day comes drinking starting at 10am and so yeah....we were tired by 8. So we got home and had a quick left over dinner and then went to bed. We got up at about 5:15 or so and we were out running at 6. Just a 4.5 mile loop around the west town neighborhood. I really like running in the morning when I do it. It's so amazingly quiet out and there isn't traffic so getting across the busy streets is much easier. However, I don't think I'll ever like getting up early in the morning so I still need to work on that. So we did the 4.5 miles at just under a 9 min/mile pace. I think we were still feeling the effects of the Shamrock Shuffle.

Jason went to work and I stayed in the city yesterday. I hate working at home now since it's really dull and time doesn't seem to move. But I broke the day up with a facial and then I went down to the local coffee shop for a few hours before going to get Jason from work.

After that we headed out to Forest Park to see some jazz. My dad's friends' son, Sam, is a drummer and he and two of his friends have a jazz trio deal. They are high school kids but Jason and I were so impressed! I have known Sam my whole life and I almost started crying when they started. I don't know why, they were just playing in this little ice cream shop, but he was out there doing it and they sounded really good. About halfway through their show a much younger kid (maybe 9 or 10) joined and played the saxaphone. He seemed really talented also (I know *nothing* about music) and also super excited to be playing with them (we think his older brother was playing the bass). The kid playing the piano never had sheet music in front of him...yeah. We said that's a lot of talent and not a lot of years.

On the way home we had to go drop our rent check off which requires driving all the way to the north side. We decided to take lower wacker drive....which is so super awesome if you haven't driven on there, it's pretty wacky.

I had big BIG plans to get up at 5am this morning so I could get to work early, but that didn't happen. So instead I got to sit in traffic for 1+ hours (boo!) since I was coming out to the Lab. Oh well.

Tonight we have another 40 minute tempo and we are going to try and follow the same structure that we did when we did this two weeks ago...namely sans the Garmin and just use the lakefront mile markers for our timing as it seemed easier to break it down that way.

For those Cub fans out there, Jason does some writing on goatriders.org and they are doing great things this year, so something to keep an eye on.

Alright, and it's Wednesday.

New Kanye Video

From the Drex page I found this sweet new Kanye West video, he basically has a mini tour of the city. Good stuff.

Shamrock Shuffle Report

So yesterday was Cubs opening day and so I didn't end up having time to post the Shamrock Shuffle race report, so here we go...kind of long. Plus a lot of other stuff on my mind so probably not so high in the quality department.

On Friday night we had a very enjoyable time with Jake and LaurA! as they came over to our place and we chatted and watched some basketball and heard about their recent trip to Memphis. On Saturday since we kept bumping our run back a day we had 3 miles on the table. We ended up doing this really really slow which was fine since we had the race the next day.

After the run we headed to the expo to get our stuff as well as stuff for a few other Chicago Shufflers that weren't going to be able to make it to the expo. I signed up at the Girls on the Run booth to perhaps volunteer or coach which I think would be great. I fully agree with what their doing and so it might be fun to help out with it.

Pretty low key Saturday night and it was up at 6:30 for the race. We had breakfast, got ready and then headed downtown. We had picked up packets for those crazy jayhawk kids and so stopped first at their condo. At this point I was like, screw this. It's cold, I'm still kind of tired. It's cold. On the walk to find a cab I suggested that we just go back to their condo and watch movies about running but as I still had one more race packet to give to someone I couldn't actually do that.

I went back and forth on what to wear. We did this race in somewhat similar weather 2 years ago and just wore shorts and a light long sleeve shirt and we were freezing. So I said screw that feeling, I'm going to wear long pants and two tops, which in retrospect was way over dressed. We dropped our stuff off at gear check, dropped of the packet with Ryan and then we all headed our separate ways to our different starting corrals. We were in the corrals about 15 minutes before the start and so as usual there was a lot of jumping and running in place trying to keep warm.

8K is such a strange race. You run hard and fast for a long time. You get mile 2 and it's like, oh shit there are still 3 miles to go. So we had a general idea of where we wanted to be. Our PR for this race was 37:39 and so we though if we could do 37:30 we would be really happy....so an average of about 7:30 min/mile.

We hit mile one comfortably 7:26 and so thought if we could just keep that going we would be in perfectly. Mile 2 came by in 7:24. However, my shins were starting to scream at me which happens when I run faster than I'm prepared for. Jason was behind me at this point and I looked back and he just waved me to go on. I don't know what's going on there as I think for some reason the mental game that he's usually really strong with is hanging back on him a little. He mentioned after the race that he just could get to the next mile and was worried instead about how much farther there was to go. That's usually my problem, so anyways, I know he can keep up with me just mentally not happening I guess....he won't have time to write on here so I guess we'll never know.

Mile 3 was a bit slower at 7:31. I realized soon after this that the course was a bit different than the last few years. I started to push it as hard as I could, mainly because I wanted to be done with the race. Mile 4 came by in 7:16.

I was thinking that the finish line was at the same place as the marathon, and while I was climbing up the "mountain" on Roosevelt I thought I would have to turn and still have about 0.2 miles to go. However after the turn I saw that the finish line was just about a block away and so I went as fast as I could which wasn't too fast but the final mile ended up being 7:18. So a final time of 36:57.

I tried taking my time after getting through the chute so I could see Jason finish. I stretched and lollygagged and just when I was just going to head to the gear check I saw Jason finish. He finished in about 38:30 or so, so still a great race day for him.

I really like the runningahead.com website. Good layout for updating race stats (which I love). I know it totally doesn't matter, and yet I love it. I was in about the top 3% for both my gender(2.7%) and my female age group (3.3%) which is awesome. Also hit ~8% for my total finish position. Top 10% gotta love that. I know it's lame, but still fun.

So a great race day. I still don't know if I am going to sign up for a marathon this year. I am going to be defending my thesis (I KNOW I KNOW IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING!!!!) the first week of August and so my thesis will have to be turned in the first week of July. I am going to be so busy with that and a nervous wreck, that I might just need running to be my escape and not my entire life. That being said, I love training for a marathon and I know I'm going to miss it so we'll see. I really want to qualify for Boston and I'm still in pretty good shape, I just don't know if I can devote the time this summer. I could always try and run a race in November I guess.

I'm super busy with work stuff as I have to get done with my paper by today or tomorrow morning. I decided to stay at home today because of some other things happening that I have to attend to. I'm hoping that I can still get stuff done as I find it hard to work at home...although I guess not when I'm really busy.

Alright, so off to work!

It's opening day

Who's ready for...A RAIN OUT! Yep, Leah and I have tickets to today's game and it looks like it's going to take a few butterflies flapping their wings to swing the weather our way. Boo to that, I say. And what's really annoying is that I took one of my few personal days for this event and so, if there is a makeup day, I won't be able to take the time off to attend the makeup game. Grr.

But still, it's opening day! To get everyone in the mood, here's a little something for all the Cub fans out there.

Another PR

Well a longer report in the future, but I finished the Shamrock Shuffle in 36:57 according to my watch (Jason was just a little bit behind me). Two years ago we finished in 37:39 and so about a 40 second PR which was nice to see. I keep thinking that the time we took off the past few months must have taken some of my conditioning away, but maybe it's not so bad.

ALSO....when you plug that time into the McMillian calculator....you get a marathon equivalent time of 3:38.

So there's that.

Never Going to Happen

Uh. Yeah.

Nope. Not sitting in a car for 90+ minutes, sleet and snow coming down and then not have a nice glass of wine. I didn't feel great when I got home late last night anyways and so either I am going to try and hit the gym this afternoon, or we'll run when Jason gets home...OR we'll just scratch the whole thing. I would rather not cause if we do it and then of course the race we'll have not missed a workout in a full 4 weeks. But if we do miss it, 3 miles missed isn't going to kill anything.

So we have one of these twitter accounts now. I was kind of like, yeah, what's the point of that and then I realized it's for when you have those little tiny comments that probably don't warrant a full post or if you are out and about (since you can update via text messages...which granted will take Jason and I an hour since we are the suckiest at texting..but that's not the point) and having some beers and slowly come to realize that the largish guy on the bar stool next to you is sneaking peanut M&Ms out of his pocket...one at a time. Like he's embarrassed to be eating them? I don't know, but it was hilarious and I so would have twittered about him and his secret M&Ms had that been up and running a week ago. So anyways, the top 5 will always be on the right hand side of this blog although with this template it looks really stupid (maybe time to upgrade the template.....which might happen this weekend) or you can head to http://twitter.com/JasonLeahRun. So alright, anyways, that's the new scoop with that.

Alright, well an early morning today as we got up at 4:30 because I wanted to get to the lab early so I could get prepared for a meeting with my adviser at 8am. Yes....Preparing means blogging...right?!?!

I JUST WANT TO SWEAT

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON. IT'S MARCH 27TH...NOT JANUARY 27TH.

This is the view out of my office window....although the photobooth is not giving the BIG FUCKING FLAKES ANY JUSTICE. So much so that I don't even know why I'm putting it in here. I MEAN IT'S LIKE WINTER STORM WATCH ALL OVER AGAIN.


This is when I loathe this city. I just want springtime!

Speedy McSpeedy

Yesterday was a speed workout day with 8x400m on the table. The plan as it usually is on Wednesday is to drive home from the lab, pick Jason up downtown and drive over to the lakefront to get the workouts in. We both like doing speedwork on the lakefront path because for the obvious reasons that there is no traffic lights and traffic when just crossing regular side streets.

But then someone with short hair who is attempting to grow it out, forgot all barrettes/bandannas at home and so I had to leave work earlier, drive home (there was an accident on Rt. 59 and it took me over 30 minutes to go what usually takes about 5. I LOVE the suburbs and they're "We moved here for the traffic." Right. But let's not get into that shall we.) So right. Drove home and then picked up the JMan at the Division Blue line stop since I was so late and couldn't downtown to pick him up.

So to the lakefront path we went. We did this 2 weeks ago but had forgotten to charge the Garmin and so we had guesstimated what a 1/4 mile was. Yesterday we did a one mile warm up and then decided to do the repeats at the same place we had done them before to check ourselves. So we ended up being too long last time, but only by a couple of yards. Gotta love being able to pace out 8 min/miles. (We ran for 2 minutes at what we thought was an 8 min/mile).

So Yesterday with Garmin fully charged I set it up for Auto Lapping every 0.25 miles. The routine was do the interval for 0.25 miles, turn around, walk for 0.1, jog for 0.15 and repeat. I love the auto lap feature as it really made this so much easier. So they say to do these at your 5K pace. So I have now idea what that would be and I think I ended up thinking 7 min/mile and then each repeat should be about 1:45, but actually I think that is way too fast. Oh well. I get a number in my head and I stick with it. So here is how the 400s went :

1 - 1:36 ; 6:24 min/mile
2 - 1:43 ; 6:52 min/mile
3 - 1:43 ; 6:52 min/mile
4 - 1:40 ; 6:40 min/mile
5 - 1:42 ; 6:48 min/mile
6 - 1:43 ; 6:52 min/mile
7 - 1:42 ; 6:48 min/mile
8 - 1:40 ; 6:40 min/mile

So maybe (absolutely) too fast, but at least consistent and we were able to stick with it for the duration of the workout. We finished up with a mile cooldown (pretty slow) clocking a nice 6 miles for the night.

On the way home we stopped at Small Bar for Fat Tires and dinner....and since we have done this for the past two weeks we are saying that it's tradition now so we'll always have to treat ourselves after a good speed workout. We love Small Bar and our favorite waitress was there and so as always a good time was had there.

We got home and watched some American Idol voting off. I love dreadlocks, he's so flippin' goofy. Poor Chickeze, but I mean with that guy he was either super awesome, or super sucky. Gotta be more consistent than that.

In to the lab early today to work on some corrections for my analysis, and then same deal tomorrow but I have to make sure to get here on time because I'm meeting with my adviser earlyish. Tonight it's just 3 miles with strength. Maybe we'll really do the strength today. MAYBE. It takes like an extra 20 minutes, I don't know why I feel that it's such a hassle, I mean I'm already at the stupid gym.