So...
No, I don’t blog much at all nowadays. But I will to publish a race report so I’m not clogging up people’s Facebook feeds. Anyway...
This story starts back in January. I was a couple weeks out from the Rock N Roll Marathon, in pretty good shape, and it happened.
It.
Injury.
And no... not running related. I somehow managed to step off of a curb onto some uneven concrete and broke my fibula and the fifth metatarsal in my right ankle/foot. It sucked.
What really sucked though, was I was registered for my first world major marathon, Chicago, in October. I did the 3 weeks on crutches, 5 more weeks in a boot, 4 more weeks of being unable to run thing, and made my “running return” at the Crescent City Classic 10K. I had a long, challenging, uphill road in front of me. So of course, I decided to try to jump right in to a really aggressive training plan.
Yea, that didn’t work. At all.
And besides the fact that I wasn’t even remotely in shape to attempt such a plan, I also was dealing with some major challenges at work that made keeping up with a tough schedule even more difficult. Finally, sometime in late July/early August, I tapped out. It just wasn’t happening. And I was angry with myself, frustrated, and about ready to pull the plug on the whole thing. But after a day of feeling sorry for myself, I found a 12 week plan that wasn’t particularly aggressive, loaded it up in Training Peaks, and re-committed myself. I stuck to that plan nearly perfectly, only missing a couple easy workouts. My ankle started feeling really solid again. And my long runs, despite the heat, were going just as they should. Hard fast efforts still hurt, so I had to limit those, but otherwise I was back where I could enjoy the training process again. Training for Chicago culminated in a 3 hour long run that worked out to be a touch under 19 miles. Every other marathon I’ve run I did at a minimum a 20 mile long run. Some... 21, 22 miles. Needless to say, I felt like I was undertrained. I was fully expecting Chicago to be a total 5 hour shit show of a race.
But then... as race weekend approached I started paying attention to the weather, and it was looking like it could possibly be nearly ideal. And instead of getting taper crazies, I just felt like I was backing off a bit and getting my legs loose. And my last long run (9 miles) felt really good. I started thinking this might not suck nearly as much as I feared.
On Friday, myself, Shellie, and Brynn (the comfort goat) boarded our flight to the Windy City. We checked in to our hotel, headed to the expo, got me checked in to race, and then hit Labriola for some Chicago deep dish pizza. Saturday, I got up to 38 degree temps and took in a 4 mile run along Lake Michigan while enjoying some of the scenery. Then we gathered up and headed to the Shedd Aquarium, Navy Pier, and did some touristy stuff. We capped off the evening again at Labriola, this time for pasta, before calling it an early night. Sunday was just a few hours away.
Race Day
I woke up Sunday morning about 4:30am. I rarely sleep well the night before a race, but I did that night. I got up, ate a Larabar, got dressed to run with cheap sweats over my race gear, and then headed out to the starting line. Once I got to Grant Park, it quickly became obvious this was different than anything I’d ever done before. There were no family members, as only runners were allowed in the park. And I had to pass through metal detectors to get into the start area. Strange... I got to my corral around 6:30 or so, and just kinda hung out for a while. Nobody was particularly social, unlike an Ironman start where there’s always that one over-enthusiastic guy giving everyone high-5s and trying to hype up everyone. No... here, people just kept to themselves, stayed quiet, and loosened up without much fanfare. At 7:15 I made my way to my corral, and put myself all the way at the back since I was proabably corralled one to far up. The national anthem played, the wheelchair athletes went off, then the elites went off, and I started my walk to the start line. 15 minutes after the gun went off, I was finally racing the Chicago Marathon!!
5K - Plan was to run a bit “slow” and settle into a groove and get comfortable. Saw Shellie and the Comfort Goat right before the 1 mile marker. Got hugs. Was blown away by how many people were running.
10K - Try to step up a bit, but not quite target pace for this segment. Had some phone issues and had to walk a minute to resolve. Still felt really good. Lincoln Park is pretty awesome.
15K - Time to start putting in work. Got into a solid groove right at my target pace. Wrigleyville is insane. My ankle barked at me a bit right at mile 9 but settled down within a quarter mile.
20K - Headed back into downtown. Feeling REALLY good. Still blown away by the crowd support. Are there really that many people that want to watch people run? Probably a bit ahead of schedule on pace, but all the other metrics were right where they needed to be. And where did that wind come from???
Half - 1:54:20 - Probably the easiest 13 miles I’ve run since.... uh... I dunno. Been a while since I had an ‘easy’ 13 mile run. Felt amazing though. Ready to step up the pace a bit and take on the back half of the course.
25K - Started doing math in my head and thought that possibly a sub-3:40 finish was likely. Then I remembered that 15+9=24, not 26. D’oh!
30K - Getting into deep water here. I hadn’t run this far since Ironman Texas. And that sucked. But this didn’t. Still felt really strong. But starting to feel like I was ready to be done.
35K - Last segment of running a target pace. Can’t believe that I’m still feeling like I can run like this forever. Then I hit mile 23...
My plan was for the last 3.2 mile to try and run it like a 5K. Hahahahahahahah...
It turned into ‘hold on for dear life for the last 5000 meters”. Every mental trick in my book was deployed. “It’s just a 5K.... Look, you swam further than that in shitty green duck poop water in Texas,..... 2.5 miles.. nothing. 2500 meters... you swam further than that in the Pacific Ocean... 2000 meters... what’s that in American??? I can’t math any more..... 1 mile... You got this... 800 meters... Almost done... 400 meters... I’m still not done yet????”
Then I hit the finish... and was, uh, a bit underwhelmed.
After going down the chute at Ironman a couple times, I was expecting HUGE. But instead the bleachers are all VIP and not very crowded. And I guess because of the two assholes at Boston a few years back the general crowd can’t be at the finish line. So after 25.5 miles of the most incredible crowds, the finish line was meh.
But... I finished in 3:47:08. I had a plan going in and executed it almost perfectly. And without having to make a couple pee stops I probably would have gone under 3:45. Heck, if GPS worked in downtown Chicago I may have been more aware of where I was distance-time wise and could have made the pace change. Initially I wasn’t thrilled with the result, but upon reflection and thinking about where I was in January, I’m pretty happy with it.
Next up? Dopey.... Because why the F not?
