Nike and Akin Unveil Chicago Marathon Gear and Lunarglide+3

How did I not know about this event until, oh, just now?



I've always thought that I stay on top of at least some of the running action in Chicago and that I'm a reporter, considering I also run with the media team (we'll be out tomorrow at the Bucktown 5K and you've seen some of us throughout the spring and summer at the Soldier Field 10, Elvis is Alive and Fort2Base). I'm nowhere near as recognizable as my media teammates--trust me, I can arrive and depart pretty anonymously, just how I like it--yet I still find and report on the endurance community's news.

But apparently I missed the boat on this release until now. Sure, I got to run in the Lunarglide+3 two weeks before it was officially unveiled--awesome!--and learn about the Nike 26.2 Preview before it actually happened and see some of the 2011 Chicago Marathon gear fresh on the shelves (Fleet Feet had it on display when I stopped by last Saturday). But this? I think I'm rearranging my Saturday schedule--aka workout--to go check it out. The gear is awesome as Fleet Feet already showed me. I need a little running kick in the pants. My run that was supposed to happen this morning hasn't started yet and at the rate I'm going, probably will not. And heck, it beats watching my college football team get beat down on the field.

26.2 Places to Eat Over Chicago Marathon Weekend, the Last Half

Art Smith ran the Marathon, too, in 2010.

Have no fear, I wasn't going to leave you stranded at the 90/94 overpass right before you cross under the halfway mark banner at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Just like the race, we have to make it to the finish line with these eats. So for the second 13--and 0.2 for good measure--I've picked up right where I left off with a spot that's steps from the course when runners hit the north end of Greektown.

14. Greek Islands
I definitely ate here one year after the marathon, I remember my dad requesting it and I acquiesced—and I ran so hard during the race that I couldn’t get up from the chair when the meal was over. Besides, you ran through Greektown earlier in the day, you may as well dine in it—plus now’s your chance to overload on saganaki and bread, both of which are about as free flowing as the wine around here.

15. Grahamwich or Graham Eliot 
Some may disagree with me but I’ve enjoyed my meals at both the original (can I call it that?) and its fast casual cousin.

16. The Purple Pig 
Jimmy Bannos and Tony Mantuano behind the same spot? This is almost too good to be true. And they’re open late so if you need a near-midnight snack after the race, you won’t have to go hungry, you can go gourmet.

26.2 Places to Eat Over Chicago Marathon Weekend, the First Half

If Stephanie Izard (middle) is expediting, she'll break for photos.

The foodie in me comes out around marathon time. The parents are in town (hello meals my wallet can’t afford), my stomach is screaming out for food and lots of it after running 26.2 miles (as long as I don’t drink too much Gatorade on the course), and well, I never would have majored in journalism if I hadn’t thought that my post-college dream was to become a food critic (picture Julia Roberts’ character in My Best Friend’s Wedding and you had my 18-year-old self’s grand aspirations). And I feel like I need to set the record straight on places to eat when you’re in the Windy City after reading another runner’s list last year—one, I might add, that Runner’s World caught wind of and posted somewhere in the depths of social media. The list wasn’t bad, per say, it’s just that there are better choices—or my choices—and they’re different. And more must-eats-when-in-the-Windy-City. And not deemed go-to’s by a site that’s based out of Albuquerque (in defense, the list was compiled by a traveling runner--and Chicago 2010 participant--and gastronut).

Coming to Chicago to run the Bank of America Chicago Marathon? Check out these 26.2 eats when you’re in town—or save them for your next, non-running trip.

1. Girl and the Goat
Unless you reserved this one right around the time you signed up to run the marathon, you’re going to have to reserve now for the next time you plan to be in town. This Top Chef (Stephanie Izard) hot spot has a two-month long wait list for most nights in the near future—I tried weeks ago to reserve on Opentable and couldn’t get in until November. But the cuisine? Soooo worth the wait, even for this barely-eats-meat girl who’ll take bikes of the pig face any day.

2. Table Fifty-Two
Oh Art Smith, what would we do to dine at your Chicago restaurant (and not because I can walk there from my house). Your hummingbird pie, your hot-out-of-the-oven biscuits to start off the meal, your deviled eggs that I’ll only eat out of your kitchen, your mac n cheese that’s so rich I can’t take more than a bite, your pleasant surprises on the menu—the fish special that I think I eat every time because not one sounds worthy of skipping for fried chicken.

Why you need arm muscles for skiing--and how to get them

I've been obsessed with Michelle Obama's arms, I've envied many a triathlete's guns (something about those muscles that look even more defined after perching in aero position for 112 miles), and I've engaged in plenty of yoga sculpt classes in hopes of scoring my own envious arms. But in all honesty, it was probably more for show than for utilitarian value.

Even so, I know the importance of arm muscles for the sports I partake in, not excluding skiing. I like to think of it this way: You never know when you'll need to use your poles like a Nordic skier. I've been practically stranded in Vail's back bowls and felt my arms burning as I furiously used my poles to traverse the flat (or what felt like it) Silk Road. I've high-tailed it on Cloud 9 in Blue Sky Basin to the China Spur on the other side of the mountain. I've felt the arms burn on the cat track that I want to traverse in a hurry: I'll skate, I'll pole, I'll don my best Nordic skier interpretation all in the name of reaching my destination faster.

Now those are all situations I've found myself in where a little arm strength does the body good. But how about an example that we've probably all felt at least once in our lives? The "I've fallen but I can't get up." Sure it's a phrase we memorized from those lifeline commercials, but you don't have to be old, living alone and unsteady on your feet to utter the phrase while you're skiing. Take my mom who I got on skis for the first time in seven seasons back in March. She toppled over not once, not twice, not three times. Totally understandable considering she hadn't skied in years and was even more rusty than her last attempt. But when tipped over, she couldn't get herself back up. These weren't difficult falls to recover from, it's just that she lacked the arm power to push herself back up and couldn't leverage herself with her poles. Instead she had to pop her skis off (or rather I did it), stand up and start all over. A situation that easily could have been avoided. 

The fix? Stronger arms. The benefits? Sculpted muscles, longer ski days, less arm burn so you can expend more energy in the legs--and maybe even sporting those killer arms when you're chillaxing in the hot tub. How? Buzz.snow.com lays out some exercises to start with that'll shape and strengthen your biceps, triceps and deltoids--and maybe a few others, too. It'll all in the name of toning your arms for skiing.

What moves do you use to max out your arm muscles?

Photo grabbed from dreamstime.com.

Chicago Marathon 2011: 13 Days and Counting

The countdown to the Bank of America Chicago Marathon suddenly became more real. I'm running, or I'm supposed to be running, 26.2 miles in 13 days. Where did the time go?

I look at the marathon’s website on a semi-regular basis—I almost have to, or find myself doing so, as a part of my day job—and I know plenty of people, me included, who’ve been set on running it since February. I’ve written tons of marathon content (plug: you can soon check it all out at Time Out Chicago’s website, Chicago Athlete and the official marathon program), talked to enough awesome sources and attended an array of events, with more yet to come. But I didn’t bat an eye once the Chicago Triathlon passed and I knew it was time to focus on running and long mileage. And it didn’t phase me until days before that I’d be missing the 20-miler weekend thanks to a wedding, nor did I fret about not doing in the cold and rain and undesirable running weather that hovered over D.C. when I could have laced up my shoes.

Yet this whole less-than-two-weeks-and-counting thing really hit, and hard, this weekend. Was it the table conversation about the marathon Saturday afternoon? Definitely. How about the advance screening of the official marathon gear, available at Fleet Feet and Niketown? Absolutely. Or did the Breaking Through the Wall seminar, which I virtually attended for the first time via live streaming on my computer, have something to do with it? No doubt, as I heard mistakes I’ve made a million times before, tips that I knew would have been good to hear years ago when I started this whole marathon running thing, and answers to questions that I’ve been too afraid to ask at more than one point in training and racing.

Gotta love the heather blue!

As for a visual, check out the above display of the 2011 Chicago Marathon gear. If it hasn’t hit you yet that you’re running 26.2 miles in less than two weeks—and by the time you read this, you’ll likely be too sore to stray too far from your most comfy piece of furniture—maybe the gear will get you as it did me. And if not, consider it your excuse to go shopping for a new running outfit that you can break in now for race day (even if it is taboo to wear race wear from said race) or save for later to subtly brag about your accomplishment. I did (thank you, Fleet Feet), though I might be jinxing myself if I wear my newest Nike pullover out and about before the race.

Surely I’m not the only one thinking like this, am I? Are you getting nervous, anxious, excited for the aptly nicknamed #cm11 or whatever else it’s being called these days?

Note: a version of this story originally appeared at FFCheer.