I ran the Chicago Marathon yesterday, finishing in 3:20:29.
I ran Chicago last year also, finishing in what was then a new lifetime personal worst. Of course, I was honestly just happy to actually make it through a training cycle and a marathon then, but I instantly wanted a do over. So I registered for the next Chicago marathon as soon as it opened, with the understanding that it was very unlikely that 2023 would be gifted with the spectacular weather that 2022 received.
Like last year, I flew out to Chicago on Friday morning, which gave me plenty of time to do stuff, and also fudge time in case I had travel difficulties. While I've historically been a Southwest Airlines fan, I've shifted allegiances in the past year. Now I try whenever possible to book an airline that has hubs in both Baltimore/DC and my destination - the idea is that if there are cancellations/delays, there will be plenty of other options to get me to my destination without having to swap airlines.
So I flew American Airlines for the first time in possibly 15-20 years. The only thing of note about my flight was that there was a chunk missing from one of the wings.
I noticed this before we departed and pointed it out to a flight attendant (in case the pilot had somehow missed it on the walkaround). We took off anyway with no delay, so clearly it wasn't an issue. In retrospect this wasn't surprising because (based on my very limited aviation knowledge) a chunk missing from one of the flaps doesn't affect the overall airworthiness of the aircraft.
I Googled later and learned that this is a standard repair when there is a crack in the flap. So file that under "today I learned (not to bug the flight attendant with silly stuff)."
Once I landed, I did my standard routine - pick up the box I'd shipped myself and then grab Chipotle. The marathon expo was also on the Friday checklist, but first I had a pilgrimage to complete.
***
The Museum of Post Punk and Industrial Music was founded in 2021 by Martin Atkins, who is pretty much the Kevin Bacon of the Wax Trax era of music. Both Brian and I are "founders" which means that we contributed some money and were granted lifetime access to the Museum (by appointment - we can't just randomly show up).
Since I was in Chicago for the marathon, I scheduled a visit for early Friday afternoon, thinking that I'd first visit the Museum and then take a cab to the expo. This also gave me a chance to personally courier my contribution to the Museum - one of two chunks of wood I owned from a stage that a lot of industrial/post punk/goth bands played on 20 years ago.
The Museum was amazing. It's a place to display cool stuff, but unlike most museums, visitors are allowed to touch stuff, examine it, even play it (in the case of a drum kit that apparently survived multiple tours). I suspect this is because a) the entire ethos of industrial music is experimenting and playing around with stuff and b) the Museum has complete control of who can attend.
The staff on hand were all as enthusiastic about this stuff as the guests (just me and a really nice guy henceforth known as Norwegian death metal guy, plus his elderly relatives) and so the whole visit felt like hanging out with a bunch of cool people and chatting about the latest iteration of Coldwaves, flipping through old tour passes, and listening to unreleased demos.
I could go on and on, but instead I'll let NPR describe the Museum.
***
My visit to the Museum was slightly marred when I couldn't get a cab to pick me up afterwards. The first service I called informed me that they didn't serve that part of Chicago; the next told me that they would, but it'd be an hour+ wait. Fortunately, I was able to bum a ride off of Norwegian death metal guy and his grandmother to the expo.
[No, I don't normally bum rides from strangers in a strange city. But given the fact that a) he had his grandmother with him and b) my other options were either walking two+ miles by myself through an arguably sketchy area of Chicago or sitting outside in a light rain for an hour+ as the sun set in hopes a cab might arrive, I took my chances.]
Transitioning from the profanity-strewn intimacy of the Museum to the mass neuroticism of bib pickup for a World Major marathon was a bit jarring, but fortunately the Chicago Marathon expo offered me plenty of walking and escalator time to adjust.
***
Saturday was pretty boring. I jogged four miles at an effort that seemed very slow and a pace that seemed shockingly fast for the effort and concluded that I had nailed the taper. I celebrated with a few bowls of Chipotle and some stretching, and then confirmed that the Sunday forecast was still for perfect weather before going to bed early.
Race morning was an early wake-up - a bit before 4 am. I wanted plenty of time to eat, digest, and stretch before leaving my hotel room about 5:15 am to head over to the start. This should have been perfect timing for a relaxed pre-race experience (ironic foreshadowing).
I was staying in the Magnificent Mile area of Chicago (I don't make up the names here) and so I had a short ride on the red line subway down to the race start. I was entered in the "World Age Group Marathon Championships" which meant that I and the other entrants had our own gate through security to the starting area, a warm tent to sit in before heading to the corrals, private bag check, and designated corrals.
This all sounded great in theory. However, it took 25+ minutes to get through the security at our designated gate, which was the only gate we were allowed to use. [I've run Chicago twice before - once with a normal bib and once in the ADP corral - in both cases it took 10 minutes or less to get through security]. That, plus a few minutes delay on my inbound subway, meant that all of my pre-race fudge time had been eaten, digested, and pooped.
***
When I finally got through security I hustled to the tent so I could jam my feet into my racing shoes (I had decided to go with the Hoka Rocket X2), rummage through my bag to make sure I had everything I needed and nothing I didn't, and then check my bag before heading out for a warm-up jog/bathroom search.
The gossip in the tent had been that the lines for our "reserved" portajohns were impossibly long, and a visual inspection confirmed this. Many people were using bushes, but as I jogged I noted another set of pristine portajohns, with a very bored race official standing out front. These portajohns were intended for volunteers, but the portajohn guard generously allowed me and a few other desperate-looking older runners to use them. It was blue plastic aloe-scented bliss.
After taking care of the necessary, I squeezed in roughly a 1/2 mile of mostly jogging, and then it was time to head to the start. I entered my corral at 7:10 (mindful of the fact that at exactly 7:20 the corral would close) and waited.
***
I had been assigned to corral B, which was for 3:10 marathoners and faster. I knew I belonged in corral C (for 3:20 and faster), so when the race started, I stood aside as the waves walked forward, watching for the 3:20 pacer. When I saw that sign go by, I paused a few moments and then slipped into the corral and walked to the timing mats to start.
The first two miles of the race were unsurprisingly rocky for me. Running in crowds, especially tightly packed ones, is an issue for me, as is standing around for some time before running. But I knew this and planned for it. A forced slow start is not a bad thing in a marathon, as long as you don't let it stress you out. So I just mentally chilled out and let my body calibrate itself to running, and then I started to open my stride up.
Chicago is a boring marathon, and I mean that in a good way. There's no hills or otherwise challenging terrain to worry about. Just flat, mostly smooth pavement. Even after a few miles had passed, I was working fairly hard to mentally manage my dystonia stuff - the course was pretty crowded, and friendly spectators throwing confetti or waving signs in my face didn't help. But I knew this what I had signed up for, so I dealt with it.
***
One problem that did show up pretty early was my right adductor/groin. I had tweaked it slightly while stretching about 5 days ago. It didn't bother me at all when running, so I decided not to worry about it other than being very protective of it in the final days of taper. But now, only about 3 miles into the race, it was hurting. It hurt enough that I would have been really concerned except for one thing: the same thing had happened early on when I ran my marathon PR at CIM.
With that knowledge, and the fact that I could drop out of Chicago at any time without being stranded, I decided to ignore it and keep going. If it hurt enough that I had to stop, I would, but I wasn't going to give it any mental energy until then.
[I'll jump out of sequence so I can fast forward to the following: the pain was completely gone and forgotten by 10 miles, and a day later it doesn't hurt at all there. So we'll cross that one off as early race tension manifesting as a tight muscle.]
***
The other issue that I faced was the water stops. I was wearing the Hoka Rocket X2, which is a great shoe with horrible traction on wet pavement. I had decided to wear the Rockets since rain was nowhere in the forecast for race day. However, I forgot how wet the pavement gets at water stops. Especially when you're running at roughly 7:30 pace in a big marathon, which means that plenty of runners ahead of you have already splashed the ground.
I was carrying a handheld water bottle, which enabled me to skip the first few water stations. But even then, the entire road was wet and strewn with paper cups. Between the slipperiness of the Rockets and my own personal balance issues, it was problematic. I had to treat each water station as though it was a patch of black ice and adjust accordingly, slowing to navigate the water station and then picking up the pace after. Lesson learned for next time - save the Hokas for smaller races where you can avoid the water stop madness.
***
Other than those things, there wasn't much of note. I had expected to feel really good on race day, but I didn't - just kinda average. But...you can only work with what you have. So I focused on holding the correct effort instead of panicking and trying to force something. And tried to keep my zen as I continued to navigate a crowded field long after I expected it to clear.
Given where I was, I was shocked when the 3:20 pace flag came into view in the distance, around mile 18. I had thought they were far ahead of me, but nope, I was reeling them in. Excellent.
I continued to slowly but methodically gain on them. Unfortunately, a mile or so later, my hamstrings started to cramp. Not horribly, but enough that it altered my gait some. The last few miles of the race were among the tougher of any marathon I've done, as the 3:20 group gently pulled away.
When getting into cramping/other gait issues late in a marathon, I've always it helpful to think about "relaxing and flowing forward" rather than "fighting" and so I relaxed and flowed forward as "hard" as I could, while also trying to find people who were in more trouble than I was to chase down. Fortunately, at this stage in a large marathon there were plenty of pawns for that purpose, and that's how I got myself to the finish without falling apart completely.
I crossed the finish, stopped my watch, and checked it. 3:20:33. So a little more than a second per mile off of the time I had hoped to run. There was a twinge of disappointment, but mostly satisfaction. I had fought a pretty good fight, especially the last few miles, and had improved significantly from last year, which was my biggest goal.
Manual splits (I missed quite a few mile markers):
Miles 1-2: 16:55 (8:23 pace)
Miles 3-4: 15:21 (7:41 pace)
Miles 5-6: 15:19 (7:40 pace)
Mile 7: 7:22
Mile 8: 7:31
Mile 9: 7:22
Mile 10: 7:21
Mile 11: 7:32
Mile 12: 7:43
Mile 13: 7:22
Mile 14: 7:34
Mile 15: 7:19
Mile 16: 7:33
Mile 17: 7:32
Mile 18: 7:30
Mile 19: 7:02 (short)
Mile 20: 8:13 (long)
Mile 21: 7:47
Mile 22: 7:32
Mile 23: 7:49
Mile 24: 7:47
Mile 25: 7:39
Mile 26: 7:42
last .21 - 1:43 (8:10 pace)
***
I wish the race story ended there, but there's more. I gingerly made my way over to the Age Group Championships tent to pick up my bag and was presented with a line much longer than what I had faced when going though security a few hours prior. It was incredibly frustrating.
Quite a few people abandoned their bags either temporarily or permanently, but I didn't have that option. I had a cell phone, a jacket, shoes, and a set of headphones in my bag, and I also had deadlines for checking out of my hotel and meeting friends for lunch. So I waited, and waited, and waited. In what felt much more like an airline terminal during a computer meltdown than a post race celebration.
Having given up on being able to match bag to runner, the few valiant volunteers (who are blameless here - they just showed up to do their job when not enough other people did) dumped our bags out onto the lawn, leaving the runners to sort through them. Fortunately, a volunteer helped me find mine, and so I was able to quickly (or as quickly as I could) put on my jacket and relocate my feet from one pair of a shoes to another, before hustle-hobbling out of the finish area towards shower, checkout, friends, and food.
Other notes:
- The weather was as good as it could be for a marathon. High 40s and low 50s, with not much wind (maybe a bit of a headwind in the final 2 miles) and mostly overcast skies.
- I took 6 Maurten gels this race. Despite pre-tearing them before, I still had a bit of trouble with getting some of them open and had to toss one away for that reason. Fine motor skills have never been my strength.
- Starting around mile 17 or so, the third and fourth toes on my right foot really started hurting. Like the shoe was too small for my foot, though that didn't make sense. I didn't have any choice but to ignore and finish the race, but it was pretty damn painful by the time I was done. When I changed my shoes after, I realized that I had placed an extra pair of toe spacers in my right shoe, in case I somehow lost the ones I was wearing. In my pre-race hustle, I had jammed the shoe on without checking, and....Ooops. I don't think it cost me any time, though, and amazingly those toenails are NOT black as of the writing of this blog post.
- I carried a water bottle which tided me through much of the race, refilling it once around mile 16 or so. My mouth was really dry and I was thirsty when I finished, which tells me I should have taken more water during the race. I'm normally good about that, but my challenges with water stops made me hesitant. I suspect this was at least partially the source of the cramping in the late miles.
- I think my dystonia and balance issues might have also been an indirect cause of my late struggles. Essentially, it's best to run a marathon as relaxed and smoothly as possible - no sudden changes in pace, direction, etc, and thus no wasted effort. However, I wasn't running that way. Instead, I repeatedly encountered scenarios where I had to work to stay on my feet. Slick pavement, people cutting me off, dark underpasses where my gait would get really screwy. I suspect all of that extra effort came at a cost, and so the pacing by feel that would have normally put me in a good place in the final miles instead left me in a hole.
- Overall, I was still really happy with this race - not just from a time standpoint, but from the fact that so many things are better. I didn't struggle with timing mats the way I did last time. The very modest downhills after overpasses were no issue this year. And I handled the crowding better than last year. Progress is a great feeling.
- It took a full HOUR for me to get my bag from the time I first lined up to grab it. I run Chicago because it's a very well run marathon, and I did the Age Group Championships thing because I thought it would be even better. Instead, I feel like an idiot who signed up for the mature marathoner's version of the Fyre Festival. (To their credit, the Chicago Marathon did email all of the participants an apology that evening)
- I discovered that Chicago public transit lets one use their credit card as a fare card just like New York. So convenient for visitors. Every city should do this.
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