I just finished Week 2 of the Chicago training and I feel pretty good about it.Last Saturday’s 12 miler was pretty intense (as in FAST!!!), and yesterday, on July 4th, I did a trail half and was quite “fast” too! YEY!
You’ve heard me talk about the Holiday Marathons up in Van Cortland Park; fun event, all trail, lots of people, and very chill. July 4th was no different! (news clip here).I met Texas Dan by the Uptown 1 train and we were up in the Bronx in no time! He brought me the biggest skinny caramel iced latte and, as I don’t drink coffee too often, I was sure this would go either really well or really bad! 

-Mike JUST did Western States!!!!
Everyone was there, as usual (Phil, Mike, Mary, Chris, Todd, Jeff, Wally, Michelle, Lisa, etc., etc.) but soon we met up with Tessa and Blaise as we had planned to stick together for the two 6.55 laps, and by 9 am we all went charging up the trails!! RAR!!!! It had rained the day before so there was a bit of mud, but it was nothing compared to the St Patrick’s Day Marathon when we had streams running through the trails. It was a bit hot/humid, but nothing compared to the Easter Marathon two months ago (super hot, sunburn…). And hey, no ice or packed snow on top of the ice on top trails, like in the Valentine’s Day Marathonso… I DEFINITELY had no issues at all! Got to run with/by pretty much everybody at some point, and as this was my fourth time up there, and had ran the same loop 6 times before, I was very very comfortable. I was so comfortable, I didn’t even have a gel. I just had a banana midway through the race and some water. Or maybe it was the quite-large cawfee… We finished the first lap in 1:03 (two minutes faster than my fastest lap there), and then we did the second lap in 60 minutes!!! We had an overall pace of 9:38, which I am quite happy with! I think that if someone would have really pushed for it, I would have gone for a third lap!
Everyone seemed to have a great time, and it’s the best way to set up a holiday having run early with lots of fun people!


My run there was quite rewarding. I felt like I finally had a grip on a course that used to kick my butt and now I was able to power up it a bit. I never really know what is the particular reason why these good runs happen (whether it is that I am in better shape, the weather, the company, the coffee, knowing the course better…) and I have stopped analyzing. Still, it’s always fabulous to feel that way; mostly when you’re surrounded by so many amazing runners! That’s a Happy Fourth of July in my log!

4th of July (Half) Marathon: Double YEAH for running on holidays!