Chicago Marathon, Part II

I love Chicago. If it wouldn’t be such a drastic change in lifestyle for my kids, we’d already be living there. Since we can’t live there yet, we do our best to make a trip at least one time a year. Fortunately, we have some very close friends who live there and as an added bonus, they don’t mind us staying with them when we come into town. This weekend it would be Jen, I, my cousin Tim and Aunt Marilyn who would be guests at Casa de Papczun for the weekend. We all agreed that we would take it easy in the City on Saturday, doing our best to stay off our feet after we hit the expo in the morning. The Chicago marathon Expo is the expo’s of all expo’s, but the highlight for me was meeting Ryan Hall and his wife, Sara there. Jen and I were just strolling down a side aisle and there they were, at a booth promoting their Foundation called “Hall Steps Foundation” signing autographs. What caught me off guard was how few people there were there. It was as if nobody knew who he was and it seemed like the Marathon organizers didn’t know he’d be doing that because that guy of all guys should have taken center stage at an event like this. I quickly pulled out my race bib and asked him to sign it. I also shared with him that I had been telling everyone who said they wanted to follow my progress online that I had registered under the name Ryan Hall just so they could see a great time! They both thought that was pretty funny but unfortunately Ryan withdrew his participation from his race earlier in the month so he wouldn’t be giving me that US Marathon record that I was looking for!


Race day as they all do came pretty early on Sunday with us getting on the Metra and getting downtown at 6:30. The forecast for the day predicted temps in the mid 80’s with clear skies so I knew the weather wasn’t going to be any help at all. Typically, I really like it to be down in the mid 40’s at start time. This day we’d be starting in the low 70’s. That’s great weather for spectators, not so good for runners. My first impression of the Marathon when we got into the start corral was man, this is incredible. There’s something about being a part of 38,000 runners who are all sharing a common goal of trying to finish a marathon that is hard to fully express in words. The other element that made the experience so incredible was the tremendous spectator support that was out there on the course. It wasn’t like other events that I’ve done where there have been spotty spectators at best. Chicago was non-stop people from start to finish. Each neighborhood that I ran through had its own identity and its own unique way to celebrate the runners. Whether it was dressing up in costumes, making signs, playing instruments, or handing out candy along the way, each spectator I passed made this marathon unique. One of my favorite moments was running through the northside of town and there along the side of the road were some people holding what had to be a 12’ tall cutout of Brutus Buckeye. I had to shout out “OH” and there was on cue a thunderous “IO” response. A lot of runners near me laughed and one even commented how cool of a saying that was. Of course it is.

The excitement and energy of the crowd wasn’t going to be enough to carry me through all the remaining miles on this day though. I knew that by the time we got to mile 13. The heat was catching up with me and of course, the lack of any real training miles in my legs would be my real limitation. I told myself at that point to just try to get to mile 17 and than evaluate what to do at that time. I knew Jen would be in that general area and if it was going poorly, I could call it a day then. Mile 17 came and although I was suffering, I was able to play a mind game with myself that I was finally down into the single digits of miles left in the race so there really wasn’t that many more to go. Funny how after you’ve run that far those 9 remaining miles seem short. That would be a game I would play in my mind for the remainder of the race as well as giving in and walking. I began that at mile 18. I’d walk a little bit and then run for a little bit. Honestly, my legs felt relatively fine and I wasn’t noticing any pain where my fracture occurred but it was I just getting tired. I hadn’t done any type of cardio work for longer than 2 hours and the way this day was going, I knew it would be closer to a four hour effort to reach the finish. I knew there was no dishonor in walking though as there were a lot of people walking at this point in the race. I had seen people walking as early as mile 10 so I knew I was ahead of a lot of people out there. So the remainder of my race would be walking for a while and running for a while. I’m actually surprised that I finished as quickly as I did because it felt like I was doing so much more walking than actual running.

I crossed the line in 4 hours and 32 minutes. That was 45 minutes slower than I thought I should have finished. My only consolation was that my cousin Tim finished 30 minutes slower than his goal time and Pat finished 40 minutes slower than his goal time. We all agreed that if we had been running the race solo, that we would have quit that race. This was by far the worst marathon that I’ve ever run but it’s also the one I’m most proud of. Although I wasn’t physically prepared to run this race, mentally I was able to persevere and make it to the finish line. I’m officially retired from marathons now. I think I’m better suited with how little time I seem to have these days to run ½ marathons and shorter events. However, as I’m sitting here in a Columbus hotel the night before the Columbus Marathon (Jen is running the ½), I’m getting the itch again. Maybe another shot at Chicago next year?

Here is the data from my Garmin for the day. The first two miles are bogus data as my watch was having trouble dialing in with all the tall buildings we were running next to.

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Chicago Marathon, Part I

It has been a long time since I've sat down to blog anything. So long in fact that I wasn't sure I would remember my username and password here but fortunately, I was able to retrieve it from the back of my mind and here I am...sitting at my laptop typing away my 2010 year. My big (and only) goal for the year was the Chicago Marathon which occurred last weekend (10.10.10). From my initial registration in early February, it's all that I've had on my mind. Turn a corner in my house and there was a copy of the route staring me in the face. Open up the cabinet door to grab a snack and there was the route map asking me if I really wanted to grab an Oreo. No matter where I turned, Chicago was staring me in the face. So knowing there was a hefty registration fee on the line, I decided I'd try to find a way to get to this marathon healthy for a change. Some reading this post might remember that I have a poor history with marathons. Training for Columbus in 2008 I suffered a stress fracture in my Femur and was only able to complete in the 1/2 marathon. Cleveland 2009, had IT Band issues, started suffering at mile 10 but gutted it out to finish in under 4 hours. Then in the fall of 2009, I suffered a hip flexor strain which set me back but on minimal training leading up to it, I completed the Columbus marathon in 3:38. My goal for Chicago was to get there healthy and finish faster than 3:30. In the back of my mind, I was hoping that my training would go so well that I could get a Boston Qualifier which for me would be finishing faster than 3:15. No pressure though, the real goal was just to find a way to get to Chicago healthy.


So mapping out a plan and working with an old friend of mine who helped coach me during my bicycle racing days, the plan was to stretch out my training so that in lieu of a typical 20 week training plan, I would slowly build up over 8 months so my body would have time to adjust to the increased mileage and this would also give me ample opportunity to rest. Going through the spring the training was going great. I was shedding pounds and becoming a stronger runner. I entered the Cleveland 1/2 marathon and ran a PR time of 1:38. Mid-distance runs (5 to 6 miles in length) were becoming easy. I was feeling that running tempo's at 7:30 min/mile were becoming too easy. That was a good feeling.


Unfortunately, that feeling was about to change in mid July. I had just completed a tough hill workout and on my next day's recover run, I noticed some soreness in my shin. Not thinking much of it I continued on my run and chalked up the soreness to a tough workout. That soreness lingered on for the next several weeks so at the end of July I decided to breakdown and go see my sports medicine physician just to see if there was anything serious going on. Sure enough, there was trouble in River City. Doctor said the x-rays didn't show a fracture but there was signs of the bone trying to heal in the area where I was having some pain so that was an indication of some micro-fractures. His recommendation, back off on weekly runs but still try to get my long runs in. Sweet Chicago was still on track! The next big run after this appointment was a 15 miler. I've taken to doing all of my long runs down in the Valley on the Towpath. Although it's an out and back route to get the mileage in, it's always a softer surface than the road, there's plenty of drinking fountains and bathrooms on the route so it's a lot like running unsupported like I would in a long road race. I have to believe that if the bone wasn't fractured before that run, it certainly was afterwards. In hindsight, what I should have done was not to do the long runs but keep up with the small runs and do those on a treadmill. I knew at that moment, that any great time in Chicago was most likely out of the question. My only hope was to get back on the bike, renew my membership and the gym and try to cross train until I could get healed up enough to start running again. It took about 4 weeks before I could really start running again but it was slow tempo, short distances and on a treadmill. Before I knew it, the Akron Marathon was staring me in the face and I had previously registered to run the 1/2 as a test for Chicago. I find it funny that when I registered, I thought it would be a test to see what kind of time I might be able to aim for but this time, I was running it to test my leg and to see if I could even run Chicago at all. The aim was to run slow and try to finish pain free. I finished in 1:48 which wasn't horrible and I only had mile soreness in my leg. I saw that as a win-win situation, I knew I could run Chicago and I thought I could put together a good time.

With only two weeks between Akron and Chicago, the only thing I could do was be optimistic.

Part II of Chicago Marathon coming tomorrow night.

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