Half Marathon Update – 8 miles

I finally took my race singlet for the January Half Marathon out for a spin today. It was great … besides the fact that I look like a marshmallow with all my layers. :P

Last night, I went to the Fleet Feet Chicago fashion show. Wow! I wanted to buy almost everything they showed off. :P Especially since most of the items were geared towards cold-weather running.

The fashion show also got me super pumped for today’s training run with El. We met at 6am per usual, but this time it was actually light out. Why thank you Daylight Savings Time!! :) It was such an odd feeling walking to the Lakefront and not having it be pitch black.

As you can see from the pic above, I was layered. I wore the same stuff as last week, but added a nice Fleet Feet Chicago hat (which we got in our goodie bag from last night’s show). The hat was a great addition. Next up: gloves!!

We kicked off our run and I did not plug in my headphones. It was nice. I really wanted to get into the groove of running … just like last week. It felt awesome to just hit the pavement, get in a groove and chat with El.

I switched up our route a tad bit on her. Muah ah ah - having the power in the run. :P I had us run farther North so that we didn’t have to get hit by waves again like last week. The Lakefront path ends at a certain point so we kept running up along the sidewalk. It was nice to take in a different view of Chicago.

As we hit just short of 4 miles, we turned around to start the trek back. We both thought the pace was slower than last week, but comfortable. Well, come to find out. We actually finished about a minute faster than last week. We finished 8.02 miles in 1:17.46 (9:42 min/mile pace).

Overall the run felt great. I was happy with my clothing options, but I know I will need to adjust as the temperatures continues to plummet. The fashion show last night gave me some options to think about and I will really have to sit down and create my “cold-weather running plan” soon.

What do you do to combat the chilly weather? Any brands you recommend?