this blog post has been brought to you by chewing gum and roosters

The best things about Chato's race circuit is that the beginning of the season runs typically begin bright and early. For some reason, I don't remember the Wrigley Run being one of the earlier ones, but we were up with the roosters and on the road to Lincoln Park by 6:30am. This year, it was warm and sunny, a great contrast on the snowy Shamrock Shuffle only a couple of weeks ago.

Benny the Bull welcomed the kids - Brandan will learn his lesson for trying to butt heads with a bull.

Aly looked for some birthday love from Brother Bear...
(I secretly love that they still enjoy meeting up with the characters!)

It was perfect running conditions for this 10K.

..and a much better group picture of all of the runners (minus the hats and gloves of the last race)!

Carmen ran the 5k, while brother Jose took on the 10k...

Another bright start on 2009's Wrigley Run...

...leave it to Aly to start hiding from the camera...