Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Depends how you look at it I guess

Perhaps we need a better Marketing Campaign:  One of my pet peeves is when someone refers to living within the city limits of Chicago as being Downtown. To those of us who grew up in the city, Downtown is the section of Chicago that surrounds the Loop including the Magnificent Mile and a few smaller areas like River North and parts of the Gold Goast.

The term even more specifically applies to the section of the community area surrounded by the circuit formed by Chicago's elevated "L" trains. The circuit runs along Lake Street on the north, Wabash Avenue on the east, Van Buren Street on the south, and Wells Street on the west. The name, however, predates the elevated loop, coming from a streetcar loop in 1882. Currently, most residents probably consider it to be the area bounded by the Chicago River on the north and west sides, Congress Parkway to the South, and Columbus Drive to the east.

Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Loop


I suppose to someone living in Naperville, Aurora or Oswego, neighborhoods like Jefferson Park are as much downtown as the South Loop. But if you grew up in the city, they are as far apart as Northbrook and Tinley Park. 

And I suppose in some ways that's more democratic than the transplants who move here from the suburbs or border states and think Chicago is nothing more than Gold Coast, Lincoln Park, Old Town and Lake View.   I'll just have fun saying "Oh you're from Michigan, isn't that like Ohio?"

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Longer Distances Actually Feel Better:  Two weeks ago I had a bad 13 mile LR. My knees were awesome but my body quit on me. I took a slight break from training, only running the short distances and skipping the next Saturday's 10 mile cutback. This past Saturday I had a decent 15 mile run. The first 12 were great and then my knees started feeling sore and my leg muscles were tightening, so I had to drop back and do some walking.


What's interesting is my cousin is having a similiar experience with his training. he's more than a decade my junior and his training issues are more of the Life Gets in the Way variety than physical limitations. But he also reported having a great run until the last three miles of his LR.

So now my latest Hair Brain Scheme is to sign up for the Detriot Marathon instead of the half. The reason is the cost is essentially the same. And If I can get my body to run at least 20 miles or so of a marathon, I can walk the rest and get another finisher medal and marathon 22 in the books maybe even under 4 hours. Not that I really need to do that.  

Twenty-one marathons proves I can push my body through 26.2 miles of whatever.  Most of the 21 marathons have been of the first 13-16 miles were good and then the wheels came off variety.  I'll see how the remaining 8 weeks of training go.  If I only suffer through the last three miles of every run longer than 12 miles, then it's a go.  If things go even more south of that, then I'll have to switch to the Detriot Half Marathon as originally planned.

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