Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Shuffling Shamrocks - the prologue

So here's how the Shuffle went down. The weather during the week preceding the Shuffle was gorgeous! Perfect running weather! 50's and sunny. However, the forecast for the weekend was crappy with intermittent shittiness. By that I mean Saturday was supposed to be 40's and raining, and Sunday was going to be 30's and snowing. My motivation to do this race was waning.

To further complicate things, I had to pick up my race packet on Navy Pier either Friday after work or Saturday afternoon. Now, I was planning on going Friday after work, while the weather was nice and while I was already pretty close to Navy Pier. But then Rachel asked if I wanted to go pick up our packets together on Saturday afternoon. So I decided to head there with her instead.

Saturday morning I woke up to about an inch of snow already fallen. So when afternoon rolled around, it was cold, still snowing/sleeting and pretty nasty. When we got out to the Navy Pier area, the wind was blowing straight from the east, which is straight off the lake. It was cold and the ice crystals were stabbing us in the face like tiny needles. Not encouraging. But I was determined to do the race at this point. Fuck the weather, I'm doing this!

The packet pickup was at the runner's expo happening at Navy Pier. There were tons of displays and booths ranging from shoes to other clothing items and gear, medical things, etc. Pretty cool. I got a synthetic fabric skullcap and some good running socks for the race the next day. Oh, and a pair of sunglasses that would keep ice shards out of my eyes, should the conditions be similar to Saturday's weather.

I did make it out to a party Saturday night, but I retired early (at midnight) to get some rest for the big day.

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