The Chicago Diaries: Chapter 12
Juggling
I was never good at juggling growing up. My dad was. At baseball practices here or there, I’d look at him in a bit of awe. “How does he make it look so easy?” I’d ask myself. I tried and failed over the years, ultimately deciding it wasn’t for me and I couldn’t do it. I don’t remember the last time I even made an attempt at it.
While I’ve given up juggling tennis balls, I can indeed say that I have mastered the art of juggling runs.
The start of football season always brings an uptick in things. My day job — hosting Unsportsmanlike Conduct on 1620 the Zone — doesn’t change so much. My prep within a morning and early afternoon isn’t all that different. It’s just that the tonnage of information is so high and I do my best to take in as much as possible.
Rather than looking at the clock wishing it would go a bit faster so I can get to the end of my workday, I’m often looking at the clock trying to squeeze one last article, one last bit of information, that I can use on my show.
The start of this football season brought all that back but also included the opportunity to head to Evanston, Illinois for Northwestern’s season-opener. I’d fly out Friday morning, do my radio show from my brother + sister-in-law’s place1 in Chicago, head to Evanston, and spend much of Saturday at their temporary stadium on the lake. After that, I’d head back to my hotel, host a podcast2, and do my best to get some rest before an 8:45 am flight home Sunday morning.
All that said, getting out for a long run on Saturday or Sunday morning was going to be difficult. Heck, doing so Friday would have been darn-near impossible too. As Saturday turned to Sunday last week, I looked over my schedule and mapped things out as best I could. Instead of a LR on Sunday, I’d run it on Wednesday. Instead of a workout on Wednesday, I’d run it on Sunday. I’d juggle a few other runs here and there and do my best to get in 80+ miles, while still having time for everything else in my life.
Juggling. I’d say I did a good job.
This week in podcasting:
It was so much fun welcoming Dan van Den Berg onto the pod this week! Dan and I got connected in person at this year’s Eugene Marathon and have been in touch ever since. He has quite the story to tell, including ones of loss, ups and downs with his running, and why he was able to have such a great day in Oregon. I hope you enjoy it!
As always, Chasing Three Hours is brought to you by Fleet Feet Omaha! Stop by one of their two locations in Omaha or their location in Lincoln, mention the pod, and you can get $15 off your first pair of running shoes! Thanks so much to Fleet Feet for being a great supporter of a local podcast.
The log:
August 26th: 6 miles in the AM + 4 miles in the PM
August 27th: 15 miles
August 28th: 22 miles
August 29th: 10 miles
August 30th: 7 miles
August 31st: 9 miles
September 1st: 12 miles with 5 x 1200 meters at slightly slower than 10k pace
Total: 85 miles
August total miles: 335.01 miles
Year to date: 2326.67 miles
August 26th: The final week of August will hopefully be the one we look back on as the last hot week. That said, it ended up being a bit cooler than expected, especially in the middle part of the week. Monday? Not so much. Got out around 9:00 am for the first run of the day and felt pretty good, even with temps approaching 80°. We’ve now entered into the period of my training where I’ll be hitting 80+ miles in a week often, so the legs will be mostly fatigued for the next month. I’m really going to emphasize the recovery runs and making sure I take things easy. This one fit that to a t, averaging 9:09-per mile for the six with my heart rate averaging 123. A good way to start a busy, busy week.
It felt like a furnace outside when I got going for the final four miles of the day. The feels like temp was above 100° and the shade didn’t help all that much either. I write so often about pay-off runs — confidence builders3 — and while a four-miler isn’t going to put me in the headspace of success at a marathon like a hard workout, running this one in these temps certainly had me feeling mentally tough. It was gross outside and I made sure to keep things slow and not do anything stupid. Finished the four miles averaging 9:19 with my HR at 128. I’m hoping this is one of those last really disgusting night runs as the calendar flips to September
August 27th: Tuesday was the first day of juggling as I traded a scheduled nine-mile run for 15. It was going to work better for future me if I could run the nine miles in Evanston on Saturday morning and with my LR on tap Wednesday, I figured it would work out better if I moved the 15-mile run to Tuesday instead of running it Thursday. Got all that? Sheesh!
Got out around 7:30 am and because of the heat, I decided to hang around an 8:00-pace for much of the run. Things hummed on by and I felt good. Finished at 8:02-per with my HR at 145 on average. A great late-summer run at that distance. As I wrote on Strava after, “Proudest I’ve been of a run all summer.” Metrics were all on point on another warm morning and I gained confidence for what was to come 24 hours later.
August 28th: 24 hours later was 22 miles? Which meant I’d be running 37 miles combined, the most I’d ever done over two days. I remember in 2020 when I put together a stretch of 10 miles on a Friday + 20 more on a Saturday and how much it did to boost my morale ahead of the virtual marathon. This was more of the same, especially given the 22 miles were coming on a weekday morning. I went to bed early Tuesday night, woke up early Wednesday morning, and set off at Flanagan4 around 6:00 am, preparing for loop after loop (after loop after loop).
The goal was to again hang around 8:00-per, if not a bit faster, and see what one final5 LR in the high-60s/low 70s could do to build up my fitness. My legs were a tick heavy as I took off, but this one felt pretty good over the course of close to three hours of moving. My splits were fairly consistent, usually between 7:55-8:00, but with a few that dipped to 7:50. It wasn’t until the fourth loop, as the sun finally crested above the city, that the heat of the day actually felt noticeable. Until then, I had done a great job at keeping my HR exactly where I wanted it, but it rose a bit towards the end. Not a problem though. 22 miles on a freaking Wednesday. 7:56-per mile. HR averaging 144.
That was a damn pay-off run!
August 29th: Was absolutely wonderful receiving a text from my friend Blake Ziegler Wednesday, asking if I’d wanna get together Thursday for a run. Told him I had ten and wanted to keep the pace around 8:20 or so. He was in. We met at the mouth of West Papio at 8:00 and headed south.
Every run with him or anyone else from the Aksarben Athletic Club just flies on by. We discussed the start of the football seasons, work, and the Chicago Marathon, among other things. The hype for Chicago — a race with at least a dozen of us from AAC running — is increasing by the day. It’ll be his first and I cannot wait for him, and others, to experience it.
The goal was 8:20-per and we finished at 8:23-per for the ten miles. My HR averaged 134. A great one.
August 30th: I didn’t get a chance to run on Friday until the end of the morning, another of my juggling runs. I was up and at it before 6:00, as I got ready to head to Chicago, but had no desire to push my alarm close to 4:00 am, which is what I would have needed to do if I wanted to run in Omaha. Instead, I’d do so after I landed, the last thing I needed to do before my radio show got going.
The last time I got the full lake experience in Chicago was in 2020 and as I made my way south and then back north, I couldn’t help but think about how different those runs were compared to this one. So many people were out, whether on the beach or on the trail. So many people seemed to be having a great time. The views were gorgeous and the wind off the lake was excellent. I hadn’t checked the forecast before I left, so as my HR rose towards the end of the run, I chalked it up to fatigue from the day of travel, if not a little sun too. Finished up and realized it was over 80 degrees the entire time. Oops! If anything, it made my 8:11-pace and 144 HR look even better.
August 31st: Earlier this year, I did a poor job of enjoying my travel runs, keeping to the treadmill and feeling miserable. In the leadup to this trip, I made sure to search for trails near my hotel in Skokie, and was thankful to find one about a mile away. Absolutely perfect for a nine-mile run. I got going before 7:30 am and enjoyed that first full CFB Saturday run of the year, one of my favorite things there is.
Thankfully, the weather matched the vibes and it was an incredibly enjoyable run. My HR was higher at the start than it was throughout most of the back half, as I settled in and got comfortable. In particular, the trail was absolutely lovely. Lots of shade cooled things off and it was full, but not too full. A fun one, averaging 7:50-per with my HR at 142 over the course of all nine miles. By the time I got back to the hotel, I was ready for a fun day of football.
September 1st: I landed in Omaha at 9:58 am. 44 minutes later, I set off at Lake Cunningham, 12 miles ahead of me. After a five-mile warmup, I’d have fix intervals of 1200 meters. On a normal morning following a normal week, I would have tried to keep my pace below 5:30-per rep. This week was not that. Instead, I’d dial things back just a bit, aim for ~5:45-per, and see if my legs had what it took to go get it.
I’m happy to say the legs had the juice.
Went 4:16 (5:43 pace), 4:13 (5:39), 4:16 (5:43), 4:16 (5:43), and 4:15 (5:42). If anything, I felt more exhausted from an atrocious night of sleep in the hotel and a full morning of travel than all the mileage I got in over the week. I could have punted on the workout miles. I could have just ran 12 miles and went home. Instead, I pushed through.
I texted Riss after I finished: “Proud of that one.”
Indeed.
Shoutout Caleb and Cass for being such great hosts!
This podcast is not Chasing Three Hours, but the I-80 Club, a subscription-based podcast I host with a radio friend named Jack Mitchell. We ended up recording four separate pods from Wednesday to Saturday, which added to an already crazy week.
Stay tuned for Wednesday’s write-up!
The best part of this run? Seeing how close it is to being re-opened all the way around again. Fences officially opened up this weekend Cannot freaking wait to get back there!
🤞🏼