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Month: May 2010

I thought this was spring – and am I really seeing blue, orange, or yellow trees?

I thought this was spring – and am I really seeing blue, orange, or yellow trees?

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Well, according to the calendar anyway, it’s spring.

Last Saturday was a pleasant, comfortable 18.5 miles (bad math on my part- can you tell?).  I’m getting back into the swing of distance running now since we’re approaching a month out from last month’s Boston — and especially since South Bend will be coming right around the corner here.  I left the new place around 6:15, and Mother Nature greeted me with the very finest May –ahem, “springtime”–weather: a cold, mist-like rain, fierce northbound winds, and temps that felt like they were in the high 30s, though the thermometer read closer to mid-40s.  I was comfortable enough to sport shorts, a long sleeve, and a short sleeve, but I saw loads of people along the path donning cold weather gear – long tights, hats, gloves/mittens, and the like.

Did I mention that Saturday was May 8???  Unbelievable.

And to answer the latter, yes, I am seeing blue, orange, or yellow trees these days.

I had noticed these trees, that are apparently painted either orange or blue or yellow, or some combination therein, for some time in Lincoln Park, around miles 5.0-6.0 (near North Ave or the Lincoln Park Zoo), but never really did any research into it.  In fact, some of these trees have moved recently and are now located on LaSalle Ave, relatively close to the North Ave. boathouse and Lake Shore Drive.  I thought these strangely, brightly-painted trees were some sort of travelling art exhibit, if anything.  Turns out, it’s that, along with the Park District’s creative way of coding which trees will be getting axed later this year (apparently because the trees are really invasive and are probably damaging the surrounding ecosystem).

Local media covered these wildly-colored trees late last month here and here, if you’d like to read more.  And here’s a video that takes about Chicago’s “painted forest” — kinda sounds Alice in Wonderland-esque, if you ask me…

I suppose we all see or hear things that we can’t believe are real when we’re out on a run, especially the long ones.  Rest assured though that I, too, saw the trees last weekend 🙂

Overdressed in Kenosha

Overdressed in Kenosha

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This weekend marked my first longish run post-Boston marathon, and I ran the Kenosha half-marathon in nearby Kenosha, WI, just on the other side of the Illinois border.  The race was interesting for a variety of reasons—in no small part because I got there late and started 10 minutes behind everyone (including the police swag car), so I got to see a lot of different people as I caught up to the larger crowd.  What I was most surprised about, however, was not the undulating course (which I was not expecting) or the Kenoshan scenery (pretty, as advertised) but what people were wearing for the race.  Translation: I can’t believe how overdressed people were.

Consider this post a PSA on “how to dress for the weather” when embarking on a run.

I’ve always heard to “dress as though it’s 20 degrees warmer” when dressing for a run (though there may be some concessions to that when it’s really, really cold outside).  As best as I can understand, the 20 degree rule takes into consideration the fact that you’ll warm up when you’re running, despite the weather conditions.  50 won’t feel like 50; it’ll feel like 70.  And ungodly concentrations of humidity can further exacerbate the weather, making 70 with 100% humidity feel a WHOLE lot hotter, probably upper 80s/90+.  Some folks will even go so far to assert that you should feel just slightly chilly outside, in your running clothes, before you get movin’.

I know some people are “always cold,” or “always hot,” or something in between, so I guess those anomalies would have to plan accordingly.  What blew me away at Kenosha, though, was that at the 7 a.m. start, it was already about 60 or so, very sunny, and at times, gusts of wind.  In spite of these favorable (if not warm) conditions, I can’t tell you how many athletes I saw donning long-sleeve shirts, gloves, ear-warmers, hats, or long tights—stuff that I wear when it’s closer to <30 outside.

I can’t imagine that Kenosha is much hotter than Chicago, but man… it was weird.  And I think what spooked me so much about it was that it reminded me of the 2007 Chicago Marathon (the hot-as-hell year).  Despite how warm it was, there were throngs of runners wearing similar cold-weather wear, probably exacerbating their heat-related fatigue.  It was not something I wanted to see again.  And the weird thing at Kenosha was that the runners (half-marathoners or full) who were wearing tons of clothing weren’t just the folks in the back of the pack, who would be spending more time outside (and thus, subjected to the whims of the weather for a longer period of time).  The overdressed folks were a cross-section of both the tortoises and the hares, the halfers and the fulls.

Knowing what to wear when running outside is worthy of care and consideration only because runners have to think about threats such as heat exhaustion, hyperthermia, hypothermia, or heat stroke, among other elements-related or elements-inflicted illnesses.

We all just have to be careful and take all these factors into consideration before trekking out on our daily jaunts.