Bank of America Chicago Marathon

Thursday - Travel

We left Thursday night, and got to Hotel 71 on E. Wacker and Michigan at about 10:30 local time. Not much going on, so we hit the sack almost immediately.

Friday

Got up around 8 am, and went out for a short little jaunt, we ended up doing 3.75 miles. After the run Amanda went up to the room and showered, while I got us coffee at Starbucks, and a pastry. After I showered quickly we headed out to meet my sister Betsy for lunch at COSI. We were then off to the Expo, I was actually a bit disappointed, my favorite shoe maker (Adidas) was inexplicably not in attendance. Asics and Nike had quite the setup, and I did purchase a few things, but not near as much as last year at the Marine Corps Marathon. The highlight of the expo had to be seeing that Bart Yasso was set up at the Runners World booth, and I stopped in to talk to him. I met him at the Flying Pig expo and bought his book My Life on the Run. This book is about, well, just what is says, his life on the run. He has run many, many marathons, ultra's, and other kind of races. I told him that I met him in Cincinnati earlier in the year when I bought his book, and that I absolutely LOVED it. I started to walk away, but then I asked him if he had any recommendations for Sunday (because of the heat). He said, indeed I do, then went on to tell me to buy a sponge, soak it with water at all of the water stops, and use it to keep me cool. He also said to get a bandana and keep it nice and wet throughout the marathon. I did both of these things, and I must say, Thank God for Bart! We then left the expo and headed for Michigan Avenue and did some shopping. We had an early dinner reservation at LaScrolla where I loaded up on the carbs.  I wanted to load up on the carbs on Friday night because it's difficult to control my blood sugar after eating spaghetti. After this we went to Bin 36 where we met up with Erika, Kyle, Britt, and Marc. Meeting them is by far the best thing to come out of my short "blogging life". We had a great time over a few glasses of wine, and I hope to be able to do it again some time. As we were finishing up with them my Sister and her new boyfriend walked in with my Parents and we had a drink with them. Total for the night I think I had 3 glasses of wine and 1/2 a beer, which was a little more than what I was planning on. Saturday

We slept in, when I first got up, I inserted my new sensor so that it could be calibrated and working great on Sunday.  I'll get back to this one later, as I was doing this, Amanda went for a run, and I waited, and waited, and waited on her.  She got back and I asked her how it was, she said it was F*$#@*^ HOT. This was when I started to tinker with the idea of not running and waiting till Columbus next weekend. We ate lunch at the Corner Bakery (LOVE IT). Then, you guessed it, more shopping. This was cut short for Amanda though as I told her I had to get off of my feet and I wanted to watch the Buckeyes. We met up with my sisters, and Mom at ESPNZone and watched the 2nd and 3rd quarters. The game was pretty uneventful, but a Buckeye win nonetheless. We left hear and attended mass at Holy Name Cathedral, beautiful church, wonderful priest, GREAT Mass.  We then met my family and had a wonderful dinner before calling it a night.  

I didn't mention this earlier but on 3 occasions during the day, I lost the signal on my Glucose Sensor.  This is not a good thing, and if it happened during the day doing nothing, it would probably happen during the marathon.  Unfortunately, it was in my buttocks, this is the easiest, least painful site, but it seems to be the site where I always get a "weak" signal.  After dinner, I inserted a new sensor, this was at about 10pm.  I knew that I'd have to get up in the middle of the night to Calibrate, but no biggie.  In the meantime, I put my number on my shirt, and set out all of my stuff.  At about 11pm, I received a lovely "Sensor Error", and I started to freak out.  I cleared the error, and hoped that it would not cause a problem.  Luckily, an hour later, it asked for a BG reading. In the clear!

Sunday

I woke up at about 4:50am, 5 minutes before my alarm.  To say I was excited would be an understatement.  I really wanted to run this race!  I ate a blueberry bagel (that I got at Corner Bakery the day before), I drank 2 cups of coffee (to aid my GI issues), and ate a Southbeach diet bar that was absolutely phenomenal (I picked this one up at a Seven Eleven store, I think, but I need to get more of these).  

The Race

My goal was anything under 3:30:00.  When I walked out of the hotel room on Sunday morning to meet Craig (my brother-in-law), I knew this probably wasn't possible.  It was about 64F and I didn't feel the least bit of chill in the air.  The thought of scrapping the marathon snuck into my head again, and I quickly dispelled it because I was SOOO excited to run through this beautiful city.  When I ran the Marine Corps Marathon last year, I pretty much enjoyed every minute of the race.  During this race, I never really felt that comfortable out on the course.  The crowd support was amazing.  In the first 5 miles I saw my Mom, Dad, Amanda, Darrin, Kim, Stacey and the kids on 2 different occasions.  I did catch myself smiling on a number of occasions early on because the crowd support, not to mention the chills that all of the people caused.

At about mile 18, we lost the "shade" that came from the buildings and trees early on in the course.  As the sun beat down on me, I could feel my energy drying up.  I was able to keep running, and I gutted out the last 8 miles.  I feel very strong that the reason I was able to finish was due to my new friend Bart Yasso.  Yes, I hydrated very well in the week leading up to the marathon, but in order to get through those conditions, I needed to keep as cool as possible during the race.  At mile 25 I saw Amanda, Darrin, & Kim, who by the way were amazing!  They also helped me get through these extremely difficult conditions.

My splits were M1 = 6:36, M2 = 8:03, M3 = 8:08, M4 = 7:37, M5 = 7:39, M6 = 8:07, M7 = 7:56, M8 = 7:31, M9 = 8:00, M10 = 7:59, M11 = 8:00, M12 = 7:50, M13 = 7:43, Half = 1:44:011, M14 = 8:00, M15 = 8:04, M16 = 7:58, M17 = 8:03, M18 = 7:55, M19 = 8:22, M20 = 8:30, M21 = 8:21, M22 = 8:20, M23 = 8:47, M24 = 8:56, M25 = 8:48, M26 = 9:06, M26.56 = 4:39.  My garmin showed 26.56 which is probably closer to what I ran, b/c I obviously didn't run the "marathon line".  

To those who didn't "finish"

I realize that there are only a few people who actually read this blog, and I think those 2 people ran in the marathon.  We are all living a marathon and we are not "finished" yet, THANK GOD for that!  There will be many, many more races, I think it's safe to say, we're all disappointed in the conditions we were dealt on Sunday.  We have to remember, at least we're still able to be in the Race!