Chicago Marathon - RunMarathon

I had a real good first half. My first half went well. My goal was to break 4 hrs for the race, and as you can see, my 1/2 mary split was right on pace. I fell apart in the second half though. You can see my pace dramatically slow and the lack of distance in my training showed. My right hip, knee and thigh began to hurt and it really slowed me down. Note that the 13 min/mile segment reflects a potty stop I had to make. The porta potties were about 100 yds off the road.

(Split)(Time of Day)(Elapsed Time)(Time for Split)(Pace)

05K 08:06:13AM 00:28:04 28:04 09:02
10K 08:33:54AM 00:55:46 27:42 08:55
15K 09:01:18AM 01:23:09 27:23 08:49
20K 09:29:29AM 01:51:21 28:12 09:05
HALF 09:35:34AM 01:57:25 06:04 08:55
25K 09:58:16AM 02:20:07 22:42 09:22
30K 10:29:45AM 02:51:36 31:29 10:08
35K 11:06:53AM 03:28:44 37:08 11:58
40K 11:48:05AM 04:09:56 41:12 13:16
Finish 12:03:45AM 04:25:36 15:40 11:29


Needed the longer training runs. My kidney stone attack prevented that though so not much I could've done.

Walked, walked, walked. I also used an ice foot bath in the American Cancer Society team tent which felt great!


Training.


My kidney stone development took three weeks out of my training schedule during the time I would have been ramping up my mileage. The setback took me out of my goal time. I think I had a real good 1st half. I was right on pace and I felt good. I really started to hurt about mile 15 though and I never recovered. My mental game was right on though. I never hit the mental wall that made me want to quit. I think part of this was due to the fact that I was running for a cause. I couldn't let the ACS and the thousands of cancer victims down. My pain was nothing compared to theirs and I realized that and it kept me going.

The race conditions started out reall good for this race, however, they turned south during the race. We went to race environmental condition red when I was passing about mile 20. I was told that the race directors almost stopped the race due to rising temperatures. The temp at race start was about 62 degrees and we were pushing 87 when I finished. Reports were that there were 65 people taken to local area hospitals and there were many that did not finish the race. My totals above are for race finishers only. There were over 49,000 REGISTERED runners. I don't know how many of those were no-shows, but many did start the race and just didn't finish.

I'm happy that I did this race. It was a truly amazing experience. While I didn't make my original 4 hr goal, with the training setbacks I experienced, I can't complain about my results. I'm looking forward to my next race now.