The love of new running shoes

Yesterday, I went for my first run in my brand new Suacony ProGrid Omni 6 Moderate shoes.  What a run that was…I felt like I was running on clouds. I had no knee pain, no backpain, no foot pain – it was great! If I go off of how I felt on my run last night, I think these new shoes may even alleviate some of my heal pain. My run last night was 5.5 miles, but it felt more like 3 miles – I was flying and I give all the credit to the shoes. If anyone is looking for a good running shoe, I would highly recommend buying a shoe from Saucony. They make a great shoe – one that will stick with you for many miles.  

Tomorrow will be the true test of the shoes though – I will be putting them through 12 miles, let’s hope they hold up!

Running in the city

For all of you who run in the city, I must warn you not to run on North Ave. between the hours of 5 and 6:30…it is pure madness.  I could barelly run and ended up walking most of the time on that street – people just won’t move out of your way. Other than North Ave., I had an excellent run today.  I went out for 11 miles…the weather was absolutely perfect and my legs and heal felt good.  The run basically took me North to Irving Park Rd. and then back down South.  Then East and then back North again.  My roommate ran with me, which was nice because when my ipod died I had someone to talk to you. 

I won’t be running tomorrow or Wednesday, since I will be taking my little bro down to college..but hopefully on Thursday or Friday I can get in a quick 7 miler and then on Saturday or Sunday, I am planning a long run of 17 miles!

Chicago Distance Classic Half Marathon Report

On August 12, I completed the LaSalle Bank Chicago Distance Classic Half-Marathon for the first time.  The race went well for the most part. I didn’t run it as fast as I ran the Highland Park Half-Marathon but I still came in at 2:00 hours.  The race started at 6:30 in the morning, which meant I had to get up at 4:00 am – just plain craziness!!  I ended up getting downtown later than I had wanted and by the time I met up with all my friends and checked my gear, the race had already started! For the first 5 miles of the race, we ran through downtown which was pretty neat.  We then headed south and went by McCormick Place and Soldier Field.  Once we hit 39th street, we turned around and headed back North.  My legs and heal were doing well until about mile 10- then pain starting setting in.  I took some water and about a 30 second stretch break at mile 10.5 which seemed to help just a bit.  The last mile seemed to take forever – but eventually I finished! I sprinted into the finish – trying to beat 2 hours, but my legs just didn’t seem to want to run any faster. 

Even though I didn’t PR in this race, I still had fun and still feel as though I did a pretty good job.  Now that this half-marathon is behind me, I will definitely be focused on my marathon training – which is only 7 weeks away!!