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Comments: I took a gel about 0730. Took us 20+ minutes to get to the start line. Started jogging a good, comfy pace. Ran down under the road through the tunnel where I managed to pee again. This time behind a steel pylon, hey everyone else was doing it. I refuse to pee on myself. I look over and see Bob jogging on the other side of the road, he looked to have found a comfy pace. Caught up with Nick and ran with him for quite awhile. By the end of mile 1, I was sweating a lot and knew that was not good. I did this race in 2007, where they ran out of water and ended up canceling (made us walk the last 6 or so miles) the race due to heat and lack of ambulances (they were all being used). Nick said he had to pee (peeing is a theme I guess in the start of this race) and he was going to stop at the next porta potty. We passed a park where guys and girls were using the trees as bathrooms, I told him not to pass that up. No wait peeing in not common. He stopped and I ran on ahead. I used some bushes quickly and saw that copper color urine again (see IMWI). Uh, oh. I stayed with a nice pace. My Garmin kept time and distance pretty well, but my current pace was all jacked up and unreliable. I was hitting a gel at the top and bottom of each hour and an e-cap at the :15 and :45 of every hour. I was feeling pretty good and even thought that was probably not great, lol. Nick caught back up to me and then continued up the road. Leapfrogged a guy dressed in a Captain America costume. Pretty cool until I heard him talk. Freaking Captain America was from Great Britain!!!! WTH?!?! About mile 8, I decided some music would be nice. I took my headphones out of my pack and got them in my ears. Went to plug the jack in to the Ipod on my belt, only to find there was not an Ipod on my belt. Great, I lost Heather's (Sister) Ipod and now have no music. I ran pretty well up to about mile 12 where I started a run/walk strategy. I knew this wasn't good as I wasn't quite to halfway yet. Got to 13.1 (halfway) at 2:25. Not too bad, but I knew I wasn't in great shape, but I continued on. Saw James (may have been before 13.1) and we talked a bit. I was still confident of finishing. I did notice that I was quite salty. I rubbed my cheekbones under my eyes and it felt like sand, dry sand. Not good, this means I wasn't sweating much and getting dehydrated. I skipped a gel, took some 5 hour energy, and tried to push some extra water. Then the wheels fell off quickly. As you can see from the mile splits, it went bad quickly. My legs just went dead about mile 15. I did some extra walking, but walking bothers my foot more than jogging (go figure). Got to mile 16 and started to look for family. My legs and foot were hurting bad. I was thinking, if I was in the ER I would say about an 8 on their 10 point scale. I decided that when I found my family, I'd call it a day. Went passed mile 16 and didn't see anyone. Got to about 16.5 or so and had to go sit in the shade for awhile. I found a ledge behind a transformer to sit for awhile. I didn't want Bob to see me as I knew he'd stop to see how I was and I didn't want to effect his day. I was going to have someone call my family for me, but the people around me didn't speak a lot of English and I didn't want miscomunicaiton about my status. I sat there for about 10 minutes or so. I was a little light headed, but not bad, mostly just hurt. I got up and continued on to try to find some family. Tried to jog a little, but it just wasn't happening. I didn't want to stop at an aid station or medical and risk having a nervous volunteer call an ambulance for me. Right before mile 17 I saw James, told him I was done, and sat down behind a bus stop so Bob wouldn't see me when he went by. Texted the family so they would know I was alright and to tell them not to tell Bob or Nick. Bob jogged by looking strong. James and I then walked to the finish line. this was a painful walk. Got to the finish in time to see Nick and Bob finish. Both gave me goosebumps. What would you do differently?: Better training, better nutrition, better mind set. But, I do not second guess my decision today. I do feel a little guilty. My family chased us around all day and I watched some physically challenged people finish the race today.  Post race
Warm down: Drove home. What limited your ability to perform faster: Heat, lack of run training, lack of recovery, lack of good nutrition.... Someday, I'll run a marathon when the temp is not 85+. I got just what I deserved for the last month of "training." Call this experiment of "can you sabatage months of training in 1 month" a success, lol. I'm really not bitter about this and think for the heat and my preparation, that my body did what it was supposed to. 9 sub 11 minute miles, 3 sub 12 minutes, and 2 sub 13's before legs said enough. I will learn from this and let it fuel my offseason training. Event comments: Chicago puts on a great marathon. It was cool to see the changes that have been made since the disaster in 2007. They had cups of water stacked and ready, which was great, but also meant that it was warm. The color code race conditions that started the day at green or safe and ended up at red (one below cancelling the race again). Last updated: 2010-02-15 12:00 AM
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85F / 29C
Sunny
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So many ways to handle this rr, most negative. I'll try to keep it as positive as possible while still hitting the lessons to be learned and the facts :).
Let's start 1 month ago (9/12/10), I finished IMWI. That was the "A" race for the year, so I had a huge training (lacking) and nutrition (donuts) breakdown after. I signed up with Bob (Stepdad) and Nick (Brother), this was their first marathon. I only ran 6 times between IMWI and Chicago, with the longest being about 10 miles. I've been nursing a sore foot since then as well. I don't think I had the right mindset going into this race. I need to do some learning on recovery post IM or big races and how to get back to training or how to bridge training from race to race.
Is that enough excuses?
The positives: My body performed as well as expected for the training I've done. I felt really good from mile 5 to 10 or so. I didn't end up in the ambulance. I got to see Nick and Bob finish their first marathon.
Now for rr:
Not a great night of sleep in hotel. Up early and ate a bagel, banana, and drank coffee and Gatorade. Headed to race site and had to find parking as we were running a little behind. Hit the porta potty twice outside the parking garage. The girls headed to the train and Nick, Bob, and I headed to the corrals.
Walked to the corrals. Needed the porta potty again, but the lines were huge. Noticed a lot of guys AND girls peeing by a retaining wall. Well, when in Rome...Headed to corrals and ran into James, who surprised us by coming up to spectate.
We all stood just in front of the 11 minute mile group, where Ryan found us and we waited for the start. My stomach was not feeling great, but I figured I'd just deal with it.