Sunday, November 1, 2009
Imig, Marinangeli Sweetest at Hot Chocolate 15K
The Hot Chocolate 15K and 5K attracted close to 10,000 runners to the north lakefront on Sunday. I wasn't there, but I would be interested on hearing how crowded the course was or wasn't. According to preliminary results, 4,172 people finished the 15K (9.3 miles) and 4,473 finished the 5K. Congrats go out to Steve Imig, 32, of Geneva, who wom the overall 15K title in 49:11, and Jean Marinangeli, 25, of Arlington Heights, who took women's honors in a nice 56:32. Ryan Hopper, 27, of Chicago, comfortably placed second overall in 50:58, and Mac McCulley, 25, of Grayslake, nabbed third in 51:29. No. 2 woman was Suet-Fei Li, 34, of Schaumburg, who is at or near the top at every CARA Runner's Choice Series race. She ran a 59:30. Third went to Emily Inskeep, 27, of Chicago, in 59:41. Two of the many notable performances in this race were by Mike Egle and Nancy Rollins. Egle, 47, of Glenview, finished eighth overall and was top master in 53:45. Rollins, 63, of Evanston, was 38th woman overall and easily won her age group in 1:05:49. In fact she beat all the male 60-64 runners as well. In the 5K, Brent Alexander, 29, of Wilmette, won in 16:06, and Angelo Kidd, 32, of Clarendon Hills, was women's champ in 18:38. So how was it today? Comments are welcome.
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8 comments:
The course was horrible! I ran the 15k, and it was very crowded the whole time. My three friends that ran at different paces experienced the same thing. There were times that you were on an open road with plenty of room, then you would be on the trail, then on the trail with two way traffic and even on the grass. The course also had some very tight turns so that added to the crowding. I was very disappointed with the organization of the race. They let their greed take over, and the race was way too big. Two days before the race they sent out an email changing the start time of the 15k to 8:30; 5k start at 8:00. You were supposed to take a shuttle there and many people arrived after the start of the 5k. I could keep going with problems.
Abysmal.
I did the 15K and I didn't find it to be too horrible. The packet pickup in Naperville on the 24th was a disaster. Changing the times at the last minute was inconvenient, but I did like the course and I felt like the water and aid stations were certainly adequate.
We found street parking at 7:15 and were there in plenty of time for our friend to get to the 5K start. The 5K start seemed to take forever, but I was surprised that the 15K started on time and we made it through the starting gate fairly quickly and smoothly.
I ran the half marathon on the south side this past June, and in comparison, the 15K course and crowds were fantastic.
Maybe it was a factor of our pace, but once we made it past mile 2.5, things spaced out well enough.
Snacks at the end were good, but I was hungrier than just a half a banana, apple slice, marshmallow, and graham cracker! Again, it wasn't enough to ruin my day, but it was a little cheap.
I think I'd run it again - it's a good distance to train toward.
We ran the 15k. Packet pick up was easy -- parking at UIC, walked right across Harrison to Pavilion. No problems. Updates from Race Director were timely. Knew it would be terrible to park, so thought ahead and parked @ Ravenswood Hosp. and rode bikes (encouraged by race) to venue - 1.7 miles down Wilson. Bike rack right there for us. Other folks parked at Weiss Hosp. for a nominal fee.
There was a double line of porto-potties - no waiting. They actually had guys cleaning and restocking as the day went on.
Race, in my opinion, was fine where I was staged. Course was accurate and enjoyable.
I thought that given the fact the numbers of runners kept growing, the race director made appropriate changes and gave people ample time to prepare.
I ran the 15K both this year and last. Compared to last year, this time it was much more crowded, and the post-race food & chocolate were skimpier and lower quality. In general, I would say that the twisting & turning course on the narrow paths in northern Lincoln Park is simply not adequate to handle the number of people running in this race. Even though I am a faster runner and was able to run free from the crowds most of the time, there were a couple instances where I was forced off the path when I was returning on the out & back section at the south end of the course - at one point I saw a wall of runners taking up the whole path approaching me head on, so I had no choice but to step out into the grass, and consequently then have to dodge low tree branches at face level while running at 6-minute pace, which is not exactly a safe running experience. They should not use the same path for outbound and returning runners in a race of this size. In fact, the race organizers need to either move this race onto the park roads (which were closed anyways, so why not do that?), or reduce the cap on the race size. I heard many complaints from pack runners that they simply had no control of what pace they could run for much of the course due to the overly crowded course. Bottom-line: Greed appears to be getting the better of the organizers of this race.
On the positive side, I will say the porta-potty situation was very good. They had enough of them, so pre-race lines were fairly short compared to most races. And the public address system announcing was very good (audible and clear), so runners could stay on top of pre-race logistics.
I heard that the park district is not allowing them to have the race at the same location next year because of safety concerns. They were apparently very upset with the race organizers for reopening registrations and allowing more runners. A new location will definitely fix some of the major issues.
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I knew Ryan Hopper one day that I was running around the park he is absolutely great and I admire him because even he's so famous and great running he is so humble.
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