So anyone who knows me well enough, knows that sitting still and not working out is not a strong point for me. Just about a month after Ironman Wisconsin was the Chicago Marathon. I had no plans of running in the marathon, just to go down and watch friends. Well me being me this year decided that I would run and for my friend's charity-Miles for McKenna. McKenna's family is friends with my friend Vicki. McKenna was born premature and has had many complications. Please check out this website and if you can, please donate to help little McKenna.
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/lovemckenna
I asked a few friends who I heard may be running as part of training for an upcoming Ironman. Turns out on race day they were going to be there. We met up at the Congress Hotel, but the lines for the bathrooms with crazy. Lucky for me, my friend, Kim had a room at the Hilton. This is another cool note-Kim was chosen for her charity work she has done in the memory of a friend of hers, who was part of SEAL team 6 and killed in the helicopter crash in Afghanistan. So we went back to the room, did what we needed to do and headed to the start line.
To start off the day, Jim Cornelison sang the national anthem. What a great way to get us pumped up. In my opinion there is no one better, especially in the Chicagoland area. I'm thinking the NFL should hire him to sing at the Super Bowl. He at least knows the words ( Christina Aguilera). At 7:20 the wheelchair competitors start, 7:30 for everyone else. It took us about 8 minutes just to get up to the start. I believe I heard that it took about 45 minutes to clear the entire starting area, but there are up to 45,000 people competing. As we are walking to the start we are all in disbelief at the crap people just throw down, like water bottles. Umm yeah, someone could trip over that. Just my thoughts.
So we cross the starting line and we are on our way. The first mile was probably slow because there were so many of us. Since there was three of us, I decided okay, I will hang back and watch as we pass people because it is really hard to run 3 across at that point in the race, actually at any point in the race. So we would just past people, make fun of a few with some of the crazy stuff or apparel they had on. The first 6 miles were not overly interesting, but felt easy, which is what they should feel like. We got to 7.75 miles where I saw the only people of all the people I was looking for. Jenny and Matt were hanging out. I don't know how I spotted them, but I did. After we passed them we ran into Boystown. Boystown is one of the main reasons I wish the marathon was run backwards. The crowd is awesome there. So many people dressed up in anything and everything. This is not to knock the other neighborhoods on the course because each has something unique, but it is a fun part.
Around mile 11 I looked around and realized we lost one of the group. We kept going at our pace, which was awesome. We caught a few more people we knew around the half marathon point that were spectating. Then after 14 miles, we saw a few girls from Luna Chix, each getting a little slap on the rear from us. Just after 16, I started to feel my legs. Before 17, I turned to my running buddy at said, hey if you feel go, go for it, you only have 3 miles left, don't wait on me, I will be fine. She told me remember this doesn't count for anything.
At mile 18 I decided that I was going to run until I got to the aid stations and walk through those. There is a lot of congestion there with all the people and it gave me a little chance to recover. I actually felt better with the small break. Miles 17-23 were a little rough, but I kept reminding myself why I decided to run. I knew it was not going to be a PR day, especially not even being a month removed from an Ironman. I kept telling myself, you're having fun, tell everyone thank you. Once again, that took any pain I was feeling away. We got to mile 23, which is just past the Cell. They had some camera people out there so I smiled and went on. At mile 24 I was told myself, okay, you have 2.2 more miles to go, just keep moving forward. I caught up to a girl I knew from high school and that ran in college with my brother. We chatted a little bit, then I decided okay time to get this puppy done. The crowd got louder as we got closer, signs were out saying 1 mile left. Weird as it was, that mile felt really long, but that is probably because I knew it was coming.
Now the organizers of the Chicago Marathon have a really good sense of humor, maybe in their minds. We turn off Michigan Ave. to head to the finish and before we turn left onto Columbus we have to go up what at that point in the race is a hill, right before mile 26. Now after doing an Ironman and listening to how loud the crowd got as I got closer to the finish, I was expecting the same at the marathon. Nope, I made the left turn for the finish and it was like dead silent. I threw my hands up a few times and was like hey people, get loud, we're finishing. As I was crossing the line, the clock read 4:18 and some change. I was like really, probably around a 4:10. I checked later and my time was 4:10:22 for 9:32 mile pace. I was pretty happy considering I didn't train for this and relied on the fact that I had trained for an Ironman.
The finish area took forever to get through and at that point I only wanted to go back to the hotel and shower. Finally I was able to turn off. As I was coming through to the end, you have to go down stairs to get back towards Michigan Ave. REALLY????? On any other day, those stairs would have been fine. Yesterday, not so much. None the less I got down them and back to the hotel to shower. I hate a great time with 45,000 of my friends yesterday. I keep saying I am not doing any more marathons. I have decided that I am not going to say I won't do this ever or I'll never do that again because I always end up doing whatever this or that is. Oh well, that is just silly me.
