Naperville Half Marathon. Highlights and Video.

 Yet another Race to add to Cheryl's "Wall of Fame."   The entire thing was over so quickly!   Half marathons seem to be far easier to handle than the full Marathon deal.  Not only for me, but also for Cheryl.




We rose up in the early hours of sunlight to arrive at the start line.  We were only about 3 miles from the start, so this allowed us to "sleep in" a bit and not rush for parking.  Oh!  And parking was relatively easy.  Aside from some guy who was low on coffee parking next to us.   But that is another story....  even though "abrasive" may be too kind of a word.  ( Hey!  I had not had any coffee either, but you did not see me being rude to anyone!)

So let's talk about her results.

Official time: 1:41:46
Age group.  8th out of 311
Female.  47th out of 1536

Cheryl at the start

I'm finally able to catch her!

Overall placement:  220th out of 2764 Half Marathon Runners
Average pace:  7:47 minute mile. ( That is pretty good!  I doubt I could run a single mile under 8 minutes now)

Cheryl at Mile 8!

The Full Marathoners also ran the race with the halfers.   So the total number of runners was actually larger.  ( 650 additional runners.  Totaling a little over 3400 runners for the race.....   Not too small.)

Cheryl at Mile 11!

I have to point out that races of this size are much more "Ethan Friendly" than the larger ones.  I was able to catch her at several different points during this race.  AND...I was able to actually FIND her in the cluster of runners.  Too bad the camera is not the best with "instant focus" or rapid snap shots.   I guess the old Nikon ONE camera spoiled me.

Cheryl at the finish!  The bright clothes and thin crowd helped!

Cheryl said the actual race was not as exciting as Chicago....  No surprise there.

Very Pretty area

Calder sculpture?  

  But it was a calming run through residential streets lined with colorful autumn trees. The crowd was not overbearing and the people were nice.  In all,  a short, pleasant run.   What more is there to say about that?

Hosted by SUBARU!

Cheryl helps drive home.

We did not stick around long after Cheryl finished.   Instead, we headed back to the room, showered up, and ate some breakfast.  On the way home, we had to navigate the IKEA load under our elbows and back seat.  Surprisingly, it was not a terrible ordeal, and we still had enough energy to assemble the IKEA furniture and replace the old stuff.

With all that IKEA furniture

 I'm not sure if it was because I had energy or if I simply did not want to sit around the apartment with all those boxes in the living room.

Pushing out from the trunk!

So there it is.  We took the day off from running today and are, instead, finishing up stocking orders and basically relaxing.  Well...  I am, anyway.   Cheryl continues to drudge in the shop trying to handle custom orders and answer questions.