Running Around Illinois: Westchester

November 12, 2023

Westchester Park District Veterans 5K

Westchester (Cook County)

Gun Time: 26:57

Westchester is technically only two towns away, but the way that things flow around here, it’s not a frequent destination. And I think it works like this: the forest preserve land that separates Westchester from LaGrange Park is sort of de facto the line separating a “west suburb” from a “southwest suburb”.

Westchester is relatively young though, having only been founded in 1926, and it was founded by the British business magnate Samuel Insull, which among other things means that the street names have a more English flair than most, as does the name of the town.

When I see a place with a name like Westchester, my mind usually goes to, but where is Eastchester? However after thinking about this some today I realized that the built-in assonance in the name Westchester is very satisfying indeed: wEHSTchEHSTer. It would be like if somebody were named Phil Miller. Or, hey, how about Phyllis Diller!

So this was a run to support veterans, coming on the weekend of Veterans Day, and as the picture at the top reflects, there’s a nice armed forces display, the Field of Honor, in the middle of Mayfair Park. It’s always a source of interest to me how something like this can kind of shape the character of a community in a certain way. Practically every suburb has a 5K at some point, but this one is a for veterans, and it seems to me to be very connected to the presence of the Field of Honor.

META-SPIEL readers will of course know that Veterans Day also happens to be the birthday of one Kurt Vonnegut Jr., this year being the 101st. Kurt was, at once, decidedly anti-war, while also being an outspoken advocate for veterans, he himself of course being a veteran who lived through a particularly horrendous experience.

I don’t know that I ever quite thought about it like this before today but it strikes me that the term “veteran” has sort of come to mean two slightly different things. I know people younger than me who are veterans… but they weren’t the types of people who were handing out water at the end of the race today. Those were, probably, veterans of the Vietnam War, veterans from a time when odds were that you were in the military not because you exactly made a decision but rather because your government did so for you. In other words, not merely someone who went to war, but rather who was sent to war.

All of this is just by way of observation. It’s not a value judgment on my part. It just struck me today, seeing a small number of people who were clearly veterans, and them all being old enough to have been in Vietnam. What will an event like this look like in 10 years? 20 years?

I think about all this in light of knowing that the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library makes a point of continuing Kurt’s advocacy for veterans, but beyond that, also seems to me to make a very specific point of advocating for all veterans. The literary journal So It Goes explicitly seeks contributions from veterans, and explicitly calls them out in the list of contributors. When you think veteran you probably don’t immediately also think poet or painter or whatever else, and I think that’s exactly the point they’re trying to make:

You can order this volume - and get my story in the process! And while you’re at it, it’s an excellent time to order a copy of Player Piano, because yes, we’re finally doing the book club thing, starting in early January.

As for the race itself, the eagle-eyed observer will surely have noted that my race time was below 27 minutes. And of course the close META-SPIEL reader will also recall that Kurt and I share a birthday. So get this: Every single 5K I have run at the age of 47 has been in less than 27 minutes!

Gun time was 9am and at that time it was sunny and in the low to mid 40s. I registered on site, got a shirt, went back to the car to change (I wore a long sleeve t-shirt under the short sleeve race shirt), and at that time I thought, oh, I don’t really need a hat. I walked back toward the starting area, got hit with a gust of wind, and thought, yeah, I need a hat. So I wore a short blue stocking hat. Is that even the right term anymore?

The race wound its way around the neighborhood adjoining Mayfair Park, tucked in behind a forest preserve. I did not see a lot of very tall houses. Maybe split-levels, maybe ranches, maybe some shorter seeming bungalows? And they felt spread out. I’m sure it’s all related to the town not actually existing 100 years ago. Kurt was born before Westchester was!

I felt pretty good early on, and my app confirmed, my first mile was at about an 8:10 split, which is faster than I’m used to running. My second and third miles were not anywhere near that good. As is usually the case, several times I had to slow to a fast walk. The two people who finished closest to me were in the same boat though… even though they were probably 35 years younger!

About halfway through the race my head was on fire. I was kind of out of pocket space though so I kept the stocking hat on. And a little while later, my hands felt pretty warm, but I didn’t take my gloves off. I’ve kicked around trying something else to cover my ears instead of a hat. Does this even make sense? Or does it make more sense to just make sure there’s an extra pocket somewhere for the hat?

Also at the completion of a race like this, my hair is wet and bizarre. Should I just shave my head? Maybe? Maybe not?

When the race was over, there was staff from a local Athletico Physical Therapy office assisting with postrace stretching. I’ve been an Athletico client on multiple occasions and I really like the place and many of the people I’ve worked with and I figured, sure, I’ll have somebody push my leg into space, sounds good.

The guy who helped asked me about the race and I told him I’d run sub-27, and he asked if that was my goal, and I said yes, and he said, what’s your next goal, sub-25? And that’s been the goal all along, right? To get back under 25 minutes, which would mean an average pace below 8 minutes a mile? And while I know there’s a long way to go to get there, I’ve been there, and it does feel eminently doable. It’s just a matter of getting on the road again, right?

Speaking of which, here’s a veteran for you all, and one who keeps advocating for his fellow veterans: