TL; DR: Today truly was f*cking freezing frozen … and wet. This was my third F3 Half, and fourth time participating in this event (I did the 5K last year). I keep coming back because 1) it’s good motivation to keep running through the winter and 2) I’ve never experienced truly awful weather the years I’ve done it. In 2013 it was cold (20) but sunny. In 2018 it was downright balmy for January (40s and sunny). In 2019, it was cold AF (5ish) but sunny, and due to some ongoing pain, I dropped down to the 5K. This year looked promising – temps around 33-35, and light snow. What I faile ..read more

I set some goals last year.  Grad school Finish all of the foundational courses by the end of the year. So, I’m working on a masters in data science at DePaul. And if I had stuck with my original concentration (healthcare), I could check this one off. But I’ve decided to change my concentration (to computational methods) which had one more foundational course. So… close enough … ish.  Fitness Build back up to a 10-mile long run. No injuries – keep up with weight lifting / pilates-style workouts, and yoga. Check and check. I did a couple 10-mile runs ..read more

Last year, Robert and I visited New Orleans for the first time and had such a great time that we decided to do it again this year. We booked our trip for mid-October, hoping it would still be warm enough for a pool, but not unbearably hot like it was last time we went (in mid-September last year). Instead of highs in the 90s, we had highs in the 80s, but at least overnight it got down to the 70s. Also this time we were a group of 5 (Jason, Paula, Drew, Robert, me), last time we were a group of 8. We stayed in the Tremé neighborhood. We were walking distance to Frenchman Street and the ..read more

Thanks to my awesome new job, I was able to travel to London in September. I work for the largest travel tech company in the world, on the analytics team for their business travel platform. I’m the only person on my team who works in Chicago. The rest of my team is mostly based in Seattle, London, Paris, or New Dehli. This isn’t abnormal at my company – with offices in over 70 locations, it’s normal to work with teammates located in other cities or countries. As such, most of our meetings and collaboration are done over video conferencing. However, it’s nice when we do have the opportunity ..read more

My best friend Vera moved to Seattle a couple of years ago. My first trip there in 2017 was full of lots of sightseeing. This past spring, I booked my second trip to visit her, and as luck would have, thanks to my new job, I ended up visiting Seattle two more times in 2019. April My trip in April was planned to coincide with Vera’s birthday, and also given that she was 9 months pregnant at the time, it could very well be the last time for a very long time when we could hang out just the two of us. Plus … I never in a million years thought I would ever see Vera pregnant, so I had to see ..read more

Nike has been doing a series of “unsanctioned” “pop-up” races, leading up to the Chicago Marathon, for at least a couple years now. I’ve always watched them via everyone else’s Instagram posts, not participating because I’m not as fast as I used to be and I always seem to be recovering from some kind of injury or ache or pain or I have a grad school class at the same time. Anywho, I finally participated in one, their last for 2019, the 4×0.5 relay race the Friday before this year’s Chicago Marathon. I signed up for a team with some November Project Chicago friends – we ended up fielding ab ..read more

Apparently, I started writing these out back in January and then forgot about them. Even though I’m publishing this pretty late in the year, I’m writing it as if it’s Jan 1, 2019. Grad school Finish all of the foundational courses by the end of the year.I’m a year into graduate school. Time sure does fly. Because my undergraduate degree (Communication) is so unrelated to my graduate degree (Data Science), I had to take three prerequisites before I could start the four foundational courses. And because I’m still working full time, I’m doing one class at a time. But by the end of the yea ..read more

I wrote this two weeks ago (on the day of the race, June 1st) and didn’t get around to posting, oops. I don’t know how to start this post without being all “I used to be faster” but … um … I used to be faster, LOL. This race was a reminder that I’m not as fast as I used to be, but, I think I’m fast enough for now, and also it’s all for fun, so what does it matter? Anywho, this was the 4th year of The Humboldt Mile, which as you might have guessed, is a one-mile race in Humboldt Park. It’s put on by 3RUN2 and Dark Matter Coffee and supports Hope For The Day Suicide Prevention. I signed ..read more

Last November, my husband and I were up in LaCrosse, hanging out at his sister’s bar on Black Friday, chatting with one of her friends, when we found out there was a half marathon in LaCrosse the following May, and we should all sign up and run it together. Surprisingly, of the three of us, my husband ended up doing the half marathon, I dropped down to the 5K, and our new friend ended up doing the half marathon as a relay with another friend. But that’s what brought up up to LaCrosse this past weekend. Putting a Sombrero on a mini-David statue because “Cinco de Mayo” The Grandad Half M ..read more

Normally, I like to write my race reports in the afternoon the same day after running a race. But this report is coming at you 2 weeks later if that’s any indication of how I feel about the race and running in general right now. The race itself was fine. The weather was nice enough that I could comfortably ride a Divvy to and from the expo. I picked up my bib and Robert’s. One little mishap – when I went to pick up the team bibs for aSweatLife, the folks at the booth said someone already picked them up. I messaged the other team members, but no one spoke up and the bibs never appeared and ..read more