Hot. So Hot.
Took my time (as you can see) and just tried to not injure myself before my Half-Marathon road trip next week.
Time: 2:51:36
Pace: 13:06 min/mi
Overall place: 6422 / 8021
Place in Male: 3050 / 3482
Place in M45-49: 317 / 378
It’s the weekend of Riot Fest, so I’ve been standing around for two days listening to bands and I’ve got one more day of standing around scheduled for this afternoon. And I’m undertrained for the three half-marathons I’ve got coming up in the next month. So… makes let’s go knock out an old friend of a 5K.
Time: 28:22
Pace: 9:08
Overall Place: 706 / 2167
Place in Gender (Male): 459 / 906
Place in Divsion (M45-49): 32 / 76
The Ravenswood 5K is not precisely our neighborhood race, but we spend enough time in the Ravenswood neighborhood that the race has the same transformative effects that a good neighborhood race does—we get to see the neighborhood in a different way by running down the middle of the street instead of driving or walking on the sidewalk. It’s a small thing, but the different perspective is always an eye-opener for me.
Also, so many of our friends do live in the neighborhood that we seem to run into people we know at every turn.
I started the race with Erica, who was kicking off her season with the run, and then spent the rest of the race trying to catch up to Shaun, who had Stella in a running stroller. Shaun thought I was ahead of him, and was trying to catch up to me. Neither of us ever saw the other, but the chase meant we both had pretty fine times.
Time: 28:42
Pace: 9:15
Overall Place: 884 / 2498
Place in Male: 584 / 1106
Place in Division (M45-49): 64 / 157
I don’t believe in numerology, but I do believe in number fun. I turn 47 on my birthday this year, which is a prime number. Both 17 and 2017 are both primes as well, as are 2 and 3, the day and month of my birthday. So, it only seemed to make sense to run 13 miles (another prime!) for my birthday this year. The F^3 Lake Half Marathon was the closest half. (There’s usually a non-branded Super Bowl race, the “Big Game 10K” or something, closer to my birthday, but nothing this year.)
When you’re running a winter race, you almost kind of hope for snow, just to make the photos really dramatic and cement how hardcore you are. The weather didn’t cooperate in that regard—it was plenty cold, but just overcast and grey. I’m a little undertrained (as usual), with a mild case of pneumonia over the holidays that didn’t help, so I decided to be sensible and just tuck in with the Chicago Endurance Sports 2:20 pace group. That worked out really well—I just looked it up and I guess was a new PR in the half marathon. Thanks, CES.
Time: 2:18:41
Overall place: 1287 / 1789
Pace: 10:36 min/mi
Place in Gender: 694 / 842
Place in Division (M45-49): 93 / 115
In 2016 I did:
- 1 storytelling show
- 1 live comedy show
- 6 improvised movies
- 8 appearances in a play
- 2 TV appearances
- 1 podcast guest appearance
- and made one short music video
So we’ll call that 20 shows.
I also read 15 booksand saw 46 movies.
I ran 718 miles, biked 130 miles, and swam 6 miles and completed 14 races.
I posted 56 photos on Flickr, posted 485 tweets, and made 28 blog posts here at FuzzyCo and 13 at Chicago Flag Tattoos.
Numbers from 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2007.
I’ve long documented the movies I’ve watched each year. Below are listed the 46 movies I watched in 2016. This year I became a full-time employee of NetherRealm Studios, part of Warner Brothers Games, and so I should note that my movie watching choices are personal and do not reflect anything about my employer.
- The Hateful Eight
- Ass Backwards
- SPECTRE
- The Adjustment Bureau
- Swimming to Cambodia
- Tig
- Grown Ups 2
- Grown Ups
- Ant Man
- The Martian
- Once Upon a Time in the West
- West of Zanzibar
- Botched
- Severance
- Bloodsucking Bastards
- Deadpool
- The Final Girls
- Lemonade
- Green Room
- The Man from UNCLE (2015)
- Tusk
- Murder Party
- Blue Ruin
- You’re Next
- Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
- Zootopia
- Barely Dead
- Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
- Suicide Squad
- College Swing (1938)
- The Mechanic (1972)
- The Mechanic (2011)
- Die Another Day
- Jason Bourne
- The Detective (1968)
- Mascots
- Ghostbusters (2016)
- On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
- Three Days of the Condor
- The Nice Guys
- Broadcasting Christmas
- Hail, Caesar!
- Diamonds are Forever
- Live and Let Die
- Running the Sahara
- The Night Before
It’s becoming something of a Gerdes family tradition to run the Evanston Flying Turkey 5K on Thanksgiving day. Erica wasn’t feeling too hot this year, so she slept in, but the race is so close and at a reasonable time (a 9am start) that it was easy enough to slip out of bed, drive up and run the race, pick up coffee and breakfast at Hoosier Momma, and be back before Erica was up.
Time: 29:50
Overall Place: 842 / 2308
Place in Sex: 533 / 1065
Erica, Disco, and I ran the World’s Largest Corn Maze 5K back in 2013 and were looking forward to doing so again this year, with Zach subtituting in for Disco. Unfortunately, the race was rained out on it’s original date and Erica was unable to make the rescheduled time. But Zach and I went out and had a great time.
The biggest difference from our last time at Richardson Adventure Farm was that this time the whole place wasn’t shrouded in mist. It’s quite a lovely place when you can see it all.
It was an easy drive out to the Farm and we got there early enough that I got to meet some of the locals:
I’m coming off a cold and a couple weeks off running, but I gave the run a really strong effort this morning and I felt good about getting through the thing without ever biffing it. There really are over 200 turns and it’s not always obvious which way you’re going until you’re right up on a turn. My time isn’t too bad for a regular 5K.
Zach has been on an even longer hiatus but gave it a great effort as well and came in second in his age group and got an extra medal and caramel apple. Last time I ran the race I complained that the Farm activities weren’t available until 10 am—this year because of the reschedule, the Farm isn’t actually even open anymore and so Zach and I hightailed out of there as soon as he had collected his awards.
Time: 28:06.4
Overall Place: 104 / 718
Pace: 9:04 min/m
Place in Gender: 74 / 266
Place in Age Group (M45-49): 8 / 27
There’s not that much to say about the Monster Dash 10K that I haven’t said in previous runnings: they do a good job of running multiple distances on the same day and have really nice jackets.
The one difference this year was that now for two races in a row I’ve had timing chip issues. In this case, I just don’t have a time from the race at all. I ran, I swear! Look, you can glimpse me in the crowd in the photo above. A total glimpse of Fuzzy!