Sitting at O'Hare

Ah, the joys of travel. I was able to fly standby out of Syracuse on an earlier flight, which got me in to Chicago O'Hare in time to fly standby on a earlier flight to Denver...but I wasn't able to get on. So here I sit at the Chili's at O'Hare waiting for my flight to board. I'll get in to Denver at 12:15 a.m. (that's 2:15 eastern time) and get home around 1:30. Ugh. It's been a long day. Up early to run 15K, the post-race party, the post-post-race party for Team ZIP, the drive back to Syracuse in a downpour (at least it held off until after the run!) and I still have one more flight to get back to Denver. Fingers crossed. No delays!

Today's run was tough. I don't think my three weeks of training was enough! Around mile three I was not feeling strong and about to give up on reaching my goal (1:25). But then the crowd of spectators along the route and seeing lots of other Team ZIP runners on the course pumped me up and I ran strong until around mile 8. Then I started to fade. But I finished the last half mile strong, beat my goal by nearly two minutes, and felt good about the effort. After all, my number one goal is always just to finish the race. Not much chance I was going to run a sub-50 minute 15K and be in contention for the prize money!

Gotta run...or rather limp...to my gate to board. Wish me luck.

Daren

Boilermaker Finish!

Well, the big race is done. I finished in 1:22:16 - an average of 8:43/mile. I am very happy with my time, especially given that I have only been training for three weeks (following Ride the Rockies)!

The Boilermaker is a special event - the largest 15K in the country (about 12,000 runners). There were USA Olympic runners here and, of course, the ridiculously fast Kenyon runners. The atmosphere is crazy. I think the whole town was lining the course and cheering. We got tons of of "go BEEF" and "go Team ZIP" comments.

And, of course, we did several media interviews at the finish. Everybody loves beef and Team ZIP (we were BY FAR the biggest team in the race with over 100 runners).

My media interview tagline..."Beef. It's what's for dinner at the Boilermaker." So original :)

Daren

Its Raining, It's Pouring but Team ZIP is Soaring

We're at the starting line of the Boilermaker 15K in Utica, NY. The race starts in about 45 mins. After dancing at Bucky's last night, me, Bucky, Barb, Stephanie and Carrie (the Kansas tornadoes - aka the Swirling Vortex of Poor Judgement) got back to the hotel around midnight to get some sleep. We left the hotel at 6:00 am to drive to the starting line for our Team ZIP team photo at 7:00. Now we're standing around in the rain waiting for the pain to begin. Why do we do this to ourselves??

Oh yea, we're here to demonstrate the importance of beef in a healthy diet: Zinc, Iron and Protein. Fuel for the finish. So of course we all ate beef last night at the Savoy restaurant in Rome (before dancing at Bucky's).

Gotta run...go Team ZIP!