I ran the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, finishing in an official time of 3:24:40 (3:24:36 by my watch, but I was scored based on gun time). It was a personal worst for the marathon distance, and yet I'm OK with it.
***
Oddly enough, running Chicago was in some way a late decision. I had entered Chicago in the fall of 2021, listing a goal time of 2:59 and applying for the American Development Program (ADP) based on my 3:03 at Richmond in 2019. At that time, I honestly believed that I'd be able to get into at least 3:05 shape by fall 2022. However, it was not to be - my training made it clear that I was nowhere near that fitness.
At that point, my training became more about the successful completion of a marathon training cycle and less about actually running the marathon. Given my nearly yearlong neurological/dystonia/whatever struggle, just getting through a marathon training cycle and finishing it in better shape than when I started would be a success.
Once I completed the cycle, I went back and forth over whether to do the marathon itself. As a friend pointed out, I hadn't run one in quite some time and there were benefits to just getting another one under my belt. So I decided that I would run Chicago if the weather wasn't really warm.
[My concerns about hot weather weren't about a "slow time' - I knew that even the best time possible for me would be far from my personal best. It's just that racing a hot marathon at any pace can be really hard on the body and I'd rather skip the race than have to deal with extended recovery.]
But as it turned out, Chicago had nearly perfect weather. So I hopped on a plane on Friday morning from DCA to MDW.
***
Things went mostly smoothly once I was in Chicago. I stayed at the Club Quarters on Wacker Drive, which was decently close to the race start/finish area, very close to a Chipotle, and also close to the FedEx store that had received my care package. [Like always, a week before leaving I shipped myself a box of snacks, throwaway clothing, gels, etc - much easier than lugging a suitcase around the airport.]
My room also got bonus points for a) being on the third floor (meaning I could always walk down the stairs on race morning if the elevators were taking too long) and b) having a view of my favorite building in Chicago - Marina Towers (technically two buildings)
After getting myself situated in the hotel and eating some Chipotle, I headed over to the expo to pick up my bib. Just like last time, getting to the expo required a ridiculous amount of walking and was quite busy once I arrived.
I picked up my bib and went over to the solutions table to ask if I could switch bibs and move back out of the ADP corral. I had received a letter from the ADP program telling me that all ADP bibs were gun time only, no chip - thus I would need a different, non-ADP bib if I wanted to move back a few corrals and not add several minutes to my time.
However, the solutions table didn't really understand the issue. After the fourth conversation involving a very nice person explaining to me as if I was a very new runner how timing chips on bibs worked, I gave up trying to get a new bib. I'd have to go with this one.
***
Saturday was all relaxing and Chipotle and stretching, plus a two mile shakeout run on the Riverwalk - not surprisingly, this is where everyone was doing their shakeouts, apparently. My legs felt very fresh (good) but also very stiff (bad). This was the same conundrum I've been dealing with for some time - the more I run and exercise, the less stiff and locked up my body is. I decided not to worry about the stiffness too much - 26 miles would hopefully be enough to loosen stuff up.
Sunday morning I woke up at 4:15 am local time to eat and start stretching/mobilizing. I left my room at 5:45 to walk down to the nearest starting area security checkpoint - almost a mile away. I was worried about a long wait, but getting there a bit after 6 was early enough that I only had to wait about 30 seconds before getting inside and navigating my way over to the ADP tent. Once there, I sat for a while, read my phone some, wished some friends good luck, and snacked some more.
About 6:45 I headed out to do a shake-out jog on a nearby paved path. As it turned out, this was the designated warm-up area for both the elites and the ADP corral, and that's how I ended up jogging loops for about 8 minutes behind a group of world class Kenyan runners, bemusedly reading the names pinned to their backs.
[is it really imposter syndrome if you are truly outclassed?]
After that, it was back to the tent for some final sips of water, and then I walked out to the entry point to the ADP corral. Our entry point was the same point as the elites, and so we were held in place by one race official while another one escorted the elites out from their tent and past us. This of course gave me a chance to high five my friend Susanna as she walked out - meaning that I'm now taking some credit for her 6th place finish (bragging/namedropping finis).
After the elites were in place and announced, we were then escorted into the same corral, right behind them (myself ALL THE WAY at the back). We stood there for a few minutes, shedding our throwaways and shivering. And then the gun went off and the race started.
***
What followed was easily the most surreal first mile I've ever run in a marathon. I started the race at the very back of a group of people much faster than I. Even the slowest runners in that group went out at 7 minute pace, which left me far behind.
I had assumed that the A corral would be starting right behind us, so my plan had been to hug the far side of the road and let them stream past me. However, they delayed the start of the A corral by a minute or two before starting them, which meant that there was nobody behind me.
And that's how I ended up running the first mile of the Chicago Marathon, a 40,000 person race, completely by myself, with confused members of the media on each side giving me golf claps as I shuffled by. I wanted to dissolve into the asphalt, but I haven't yet unlocked that skill, so I trudged on. I really do wish I had just accepted the 5-10 minute handicap to my time, and started with the B or C corral.
I knew what would be coming as soon as the A corral was released (with runners much faster than me), and so I ran the first miles hugging the far left side, rather than following the tangents, so I could stay out of their way. Even so, it was a rough second mile as that wave of runners rushed past me.
***
Because I started so close to the front with so many faster runners behind me, I was pretty much passed the entire race, until mile 20 or so, when I finally started to pass a few people. It's a hard way to run a race, but I just tried to focus on my own effort and not get depressed by the constant passing.
As always, I had my watch face blanked so that I couldn't see splits or paces, and just ran off of effort (this strategy worked particularly well for Chicago, where my Garmin measured 27+ miles for the race). My plan was to stay conservative and very controlled and within myself through 16, and then pick it up if I felt good - when I'm not sure how a marathon will go, this strategy has always worked well for me.
I felt good and controlled through around 13-14, and then my hamstrings started to get very tight and burn. They were tight enough that I felt like I was going to pull a hamstring badly if I kept my pace up. It was more important to me to finish this race than to run a specific time, so I backed off on the pace slightly to what felt like a manageable risk. From there on, the race was just damage control, as I managed my way to the finish, running/shuffling as fast as I dared, while more lower body parts started to burn and my legs started to lock up.
Even though the race hadn't gone the way I hoped, I still felt a lot of satisfaction as I approached the finish line. I had gotten through the training cycle healthy and gotten to the finish line presumably healthy (though uncomfortable), and I was not at all sure I was capable of either at the start of the marathon cycle.
***
Splits were:
Mile 1: 8:20
Mile 2: 7:56
Miles 3-4: 15:03
Mile 5: 7:31
Mile 6: 7:34
Mile 7: 7:32
Mile 8: 7:38
Mile 9: 7:34
Mile 10: 7:41
Mile 11: 7:44
Mile 12: 7:43
Mile 13: 7:53
Mile 14: 7:51
Mile 15: 7:41
Mile 16: 7:38
Miles 17-18: 15:39
Mile 19: 7:41
Mile 20: 8:07
Mile 21: 8:07
Mile 22: 8:02
Mile 23: 7:54
Mile 24: 7:59
Mile 25: 7:52
Mile 26: 8:02
last bit: 1:51
Other notes:
- The weather was absolutely perfect - temperatures in the mid to high 40s, dew point in the low 40s. It really doesn't get much better than that.
- I've thought some about what I might have done different to prevent the hamstring tightness/burning/leg locking. (I should mention that all three are things I have been experiencing regularly, though they are generally provoked by rest, not running). I suspect that part of it may have been my taper. I used the same last week of taper I've used before all of my Sunday marathons, and it definitely left my legs fresh. However, I also got extremely stiff, despite stretching twice a day. I wonder if I might have been better off doing a bit more mileage this last week and accepting the tradeoff of less fresh legs that were looser. This theory is supported by the fact that my body is much less stiff two days post-marathon than it was the day before the marathon.
The other possible cause might have been medication timing. For the last few months I've been taking a medication called Artane that keeps my legs loose and allows me to run. I take it in the morning on the days before I run. On race morning, I took it at 4:30 am (I was worried that if I didn't take it at my normal time, I'd forget to take it). However, the race didn't start until 7:30 am. I'll confess I don't know quite what Artane's half life is, but I'm wondering if it was starting to wear off during the race. Who knows (my doctor probably does, so I'll ask him). In the next few months the plan is for me to try some other medications that should work better than Artane, so if that's the cause then that's an easy fix.
- Post-race I met up with two Running Ahead forumites - as always, it was great to meet Dave and Ian - two people I've previously only interacted with online. That's one of the best things about running and racing - all the friends from various regions and walks of life.
- Yes, my Garmin measured 27.18 miles for this race. No, it wasn't because the race course was long or because I didn't run the tangents. Garmins.Are.Not.Perfect. And mine was even more off because I set it to "smart" data recording rather than "every second" for this race since this Garmin's battery life seems to be getting shorter and shorter and I wanted to make sure the device lasted the race.
- A friend of mine usually posts something along the lines of "any day you get to finish a marathon is a good day" after his marathons. I think I understand that statement a lot better than I used to.
It is frustrating to have lost something that was so special to me, and I miss how my running stride used to feel relaxed and flowing and rhythmical and how things like timing mats and dark underpasses weren't major challenges requiring considerable thought to navigate. At the same time, I'm really fortunate to have the privilege (financially and physically) to jet off to random cities to run marathons and eat buffalo wings after. I get that now, in a way I didn't before.
