As previously covered in earlier posts, I successfully made it through the Mens Health Urbanathlon in Chicago this past weekend! Before I get to the race info, a word about Amtrak. I had never ridden the train to go anywhere until this past Friday. Let me say that if you are going to downtown Chicago for anything and live in close proximity to the Amtrak rails, TAKE THE TRAIN! For a total of $48 round trip you can relax in comfort for the 4 hour trip, no headaches, no crappy drivers, no gas, no parking fees. I arrived in Chicago refresehed and relaxed, just a short walk to the hotel and I was good to go. Anything in downtown Chicago, i.e. Soldier field, museums, Shedd Aquarium, Sears Tower, Navy Pier, etc is easily accessible from Union Station. I highly recommend the train to anyone taking a trip to the city, at least if you don't mind walking a little bit.
Back to the Urbanathlon! The weather, while very chilly for Oct. turned out awesome for a majority of the race. Rain was forcast the entire week, and I was not looking forward to running wet and cold, but the weather gods prevailed and it turned out partly sunny with a decent amount of wind. Temperatures got to upper 40's by the time the race was in full swing.
5,000 competitors pit themselves against the 11 1/2 mile course with obstacles to get over and through. Tyrese Gibson of many movies and stardome gave everyone a pep talk at each wave and set us on our way with the blast of the air horn. The course was very flat and the run itself not very difficult at all, if you are in shape to cover 11 miles of running. The first obstacle was tires on Navy Pier (like the football drills) then climbing over bigger tires, then football drills again, not too hard, a few more miles and we had the monkey bars, one length of the bars and you were on your way, again, not hard, but there were a fair share of people struggling with it. The marine hurdles were next and they were not hard at all, each obstacle gave you a little breather to catch your breath and recover a little bit. Once through the hurdles, we headed back north to Soldier Field, the north wind which helped us going south, now firmly in our face on the return trip. Upon returning to Soldier field we climbed up the stairs on the west side of the stadium (the new "spaceship" section they added some years ago. The race kind of bottle necked at that point and everyone was pretty much walking at that point. Doing stairs at Soldier field, very cool. A few more miles to the finish, as I was nearing the end, the north sky was getting darker and darker the lake effect rain was coming, the only question was when it would hit us. I made it to the finish line, jumped over 2 taxis and scaled an 8 foot wall (much harder after running 11 miles). I finished approx. in the middle of the pack, which was my goal having not done this race before. On the way back to my hotel to get cleaned up, it opened up and poured on us, at least it didn't happen during the race.
If you are looking for a good race with a little more challenge than a straight run, I would highly recommend signing up for the Urbanathlon. I will probably do it again, had alot of fun and enjoyed the weekend. The next challenge is yet to be announced, the three that I had planned were accomplished with flying colors, once I get the next events lined up, I will let you know.
Until then. . . .
If you know you can . . . YOU WILL!!!
