Chicago Marathon -- Race Report

You have all heard of the horrible conditions which occurred during the Chicago Marathon this year. The last numbers I have heard is 302 were hospitalized, and one man died. I feel horrible for these people and their families, but am very relieved all my family and friends are safe. Also, I cannot even begin to imagine how frustrated those of you must be who were not given the chance to finish.

We all have our stories from this memorable race. Here is mine.


Before the race, everything went very well. Everything on race morning went exactly as planned, and I got to the front of my starting corral with hopes of catching my pace group. The temperature was comfortable at the starting line. When we weren't running and the sun wasn't on us yet. This made me a little nervous.

Me & my sis before the race

Once the gun went off, everything felt great -- for a little while. I saw my parents on Randolf Street Bridge (thanks for the suggestion, Tom!), and they even saw me too! Shortly after, I heard my track and cross country coach from highschool. Yes. Heard. Over everybody! Coach Lane has a voice that really carries!

During the entire race, I would hear my name every 100 yards or so. Especially at the beginning! I highly recommend getting a neon shirt and putting your name on it, everybody makes you feel like number one! At one point another runner yelled out "Who the hell is Doug?! My name is Doug!" Good times before the race got serious!

High five!

And man did they get serious after the half. This is right where I started to fall apart. My half marathon split was 1:31:00, a bit behind my 3 hours goal, but not much. After the half, though, I lost the shade of downtown Chicago, and the sun started beating down hard. My pace slipped slowly from 6:52/mile to 7:30's between the half and 20 mile mark. I knew I was slowing down, but couldn't help it. I had to, or else I wouldn't be able to finish. The heat was simply too much.

During this part of the race I was constantly calculating and recalculating how fast I had to run to still qualify for Boston. It was still within reach, but was slipping every mile. Around mile 22 or 23, the 3:10 pace group (Boston qualifying time) passed me by, and I made a strong effort to stay with them. This lasted about 400 meters, then slowly they ran away from me; which triggered my mental funk. It was like a dream running away from me.

I stuck with it for a few miles after this, but then completely fell apart. Miles 24 and 25 were absolutely horrible. At one point I made the horrible decision to try and stretch out my quads which were falling apart. The result was my right hamstring turning into a knot, but I walked it out after a little while. I was reduced to a survivor's shuffle, taking about 10-12 minutes per mile. I would walk through the entire aid station, drink two gatorades and a water, then dump a water on my head. Although, the end of each one was really, really motivating! I would start looking like I was about to give running another shot, and a big group would start cheering me on to get me going. Sometimes it felt like I couldn't have made it without them.

Finally with about half a mile left, I broke my mental and physical funk. It was go time again. My legs were feeling okay, and the crowds were 4-5 deep as I shot up the last hill. I saw my friend Lewis halfway up the hill too! Right after the hill, I hauled down the final straight away and finished with some pep in my step. The last half mile averaged 7 minute pace!

My finishing time was 3:21:22. I have heard my official finishing place was 721st, because a friend of mine checked it right after I finished. Since then, they have taken down the places since it was a "fun run" and "fun runs" apparently don't have an order that the runners finished. If I count the race as having the 45,000 that signed up, this means I finished in the top 2%! Oh yeah!

Me and Lewis after the race

It wasn't until after the race I even realized how bad everybody was suffering out there. I got my cell phone and checked the times all my friends were running, everybody was slow. Then they canceled the marathon?! What?! I guess this is serious business! It wasn't until afterwards I started to hear all the stories of the "war zone" in the back.

Family picture!

After being finished for a while I began to wonder: "Where's Sister?" I got the text she finished, but she wasn't showing up at the meeting area. Now, I had a decision to make; albeit an easy one. There was time for one of two things: catch my plane, or find my sister. Eventually she called us on someone else's cell phone, and we found her. The first thing she said was "Why the HELL would you do that twice?!" but since then I think she's starting to see why!

I missed my flight to Kentucky, but ended up spending a relaxing evening with family instead -- much better than being rushed while hobbling through an airport. I caught another one today, not a big deal.

All in all, I'm very happy with how I did. This was a very memorable weekend, and 20 years from now I have a feeling this race will be remembered.

"Do you remember the year Chicago was canceled?"

-Doug

Update: For those interested, here is the Garmin data from the marathon. The signal was bad around the buildings, which made the miles longer. I added an extra lap to try and sync it up with the mile markers, but it kept getting out of sync.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/4158360

Five.

The weekend is getting closer, and my plans are falling into place. Homework is almost wrapped up, my last assignment is due tomorrow. The majority of my grading is done and out of the way. I have very little stress right now, which is great!

My hip is actually feeling really, really good today. I took some advice my dad gave me: to stop stretching my hip so much. For a while I was stretching it a lot, because it gave it temporary relief. However he thinks it might have been like licking your lips when they're chapped; feels good now, but ultimately makes it worse. I started alternating heat in with my icing too, which is providing a lot of relief as well.

I jumped on the old exercise bike today for 30 minutes too. Nothing notable, just enough to burn off some nervous energy!

The game plan is to run tomorrow with Stephanie, who I've been trying to schedule a run with since I moved to Kentucky two months ago, but somehow our schedules never match up. She'll force me to run a little slower, too. Although I'm not saying she's out of shape; from what I understand she's one heck of a rock climber -- she's gotten a few pro deals before; wow!

Tomorrow is going to be one last test run for my gear before Sunday. I'm wearing shorts I haven't worn since I started using Gu's, and I want to make sure it doesn't cause any rubbing on my leg with them in my pocket. I'm switching because these are shorts with a compression liner in them, which I've heard can help tame certain hip problems; think of it as damage control.

(Warning: This paragraph is very much a rant) On a non-running note, I continue to be really unimpressed by the foreign students here at UK. I finished a project last Friday, which is due three days from today. The professor wanted us to give a demo of it next week, but since I'm quite certain my legs won't be working next week; I wanted to ask him about doing the demonstration early. Well, I had to wait behind a crowd of FIFTEEN students, who were all begging for an extension. I swear, I'm not some genius; I even misspelled genius and the spell checker corrected me. I really think these people either aren't qualified for grad school, or they simply wouldn't know hard work if it bit them in the face (end rant).

To end on a positive note, my energy level is still rising! Watch out! My plane leaves in three days, then I get to hang out with friends and family Saturday, before kicking off the 26.2 mile celebration on Sunday!

Also, the vote for quotes is pretty even. The first and last one are out, the other three are tied at two votes each. In case you're being meticulous and counting, I have people voting at another site too. I'm going to throw my own vote into the fray and pick "Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true." VOTING CLOSED!

And finally, to answer the question that Nancy asked when I was half way through writing this blog: my bib number is........ 2435! If you want to track my progress, there ya go! I have no clue how I got such a low number, but I'll take it!

GO TEAM CICHON!

Race Ready

Gu: Check
Legs: (One.. two) Check
Shoes: Check
Shorts: Check
Shirt: Check (Really bright, easy to see!)
Feet: (One.. two..thr.. no, two) Check
Haircut: Check (You call it short, I call it aerodynamic)
Socks: Check
Somewhere to sleep: Check
Loads of pasta and rice: Check

I'm ready to go. Lets do this thing. My hip is feeling great again, back to normal great. But I'm erring on the side of caution. Tuesday is my hip's debut with an easy couple miles. If it goes 110% perfect I'm going to go for a run on Thursday with one or two miles at race pace just to remember what it feels like. All the details are worked out. I just need to eat a ton of carbs this week to push that wall back as far as possible on Sunday!

Today I jumped on the exercise bike for an hour. I had to prove I still have some mental toughness left in me, so I hit it about as hard as I could for that hour. Heres the heart rate over that hour. No breaks, just a whole lot of pedaling! I went and got a haircut today too, and picked up a shirt for the race. I'll run in it beforehand to make sure it doesn't bother me, don't worry! I know I'm not supposed to try out something new on race day, but I never train with a shirt on, and its going to be a little chilly at the start; so regardless, whatever I wear will be new.

Me and my sis are both decorating our shirts before the race too, with "TEAM CICHON" and the phonetic spelling too! My name will be on the front too, so if you're there, look for the guy in a tennis ball colored tank top that says "DOUG" on the front and "GO TEAM CICHON" on the back!

The weather next weekend is supposed to be great! I know most public weather forecasting sites don't have it posted yet, but I have a friend studying meteorology so here's the inside scoop! At the start of the race we're looking at mid 50's, and towards the end mid to high 60's. There is a small chance of rain too, he claims about a 30% chance. These are absolutely perfect conditions to run. Lets do it!

I'm getting really, really revved up just talking about it (in case you couldn't tell by me ending more sentences with exclamation points than periods)! I may explode by the end of the week! Luckily I have most of my homework out of the way so I don't need to really concentrate on anything, because concentration just isn't happening until Sunday is over.

Be prepared for more of me being way too excited this week, and feel sorry for any non-runner that asks me about my plans this weekend!