My last race of the year was the Chicago Hot Chocolate 15k. I am really liking the 10 mile-ish race distance. This was a great race with awesome swag.
A few things about this race:
- My first 15k (default PR) and last race of 2015.
- First time I wore that race’s gear on race day. So taboo. Was fine.
- The sweatshirt is my favorite piece of swag this year.
- The expo had a ton of great snacks - hot chocolate, chocolate dipped marshmallows, and a whole bag of chocolate swirl marshmallows on your way out.
Swag
I registered for this race at the Rock ‘n Roll Chicago expo for $5 off for a total of $64. Registering earlier on meant I got a sweatshirt with an embroidered Chicago skyline on it. I love this sweatshirt and wear it all the time.
Race
This was a big race with 12,218 15k finishers and more runners with the 5k. The snacks along the race course were pretty ridiculous - pieces of chocolate and marshmallows. The race course was similar to the Rock ‘n Roll’s course with the weird out and back, but running up the lakefront trail is always nice. I think my Nike+ GPS was a bit off and generously thought I was much faster than I actually was.
My finish time was 1:32:57, which put me at a 9:59’ pace overall. I also had good negative splits.
Compared to the other runners, I was
- Overall: 5,012 of 12,218 (59.0%)
- Gender: 2,724 of 8,300 (67.2%) - lot of women
- Age/gender group: 474 of 1,395 (66.0%)
- 5k split: 31:54 (10:16 min/mi)
- 10k split: 1:02:25 (10:03 min/mi)
Afterwards
I cannot believe how much chocolate and sweets I ate at this race. So many marshmallows.
In short
So yummy and love my comfy embroidered zip-up. If I don’t do this next year, I’ll at least go to the expo.