Chicago Marathon - RunMarathon

My "plan" was to do at least a 3:45 and hopefully better. The problem is that I have never raced in this kind of heat before. We started out and everything was feeling good. I had drank plenty before the race started. I was taking gel every 45 min and gatorade at every station. There was plenty of gatorade and water at every station I went through.
I was maintaining roughly a 8m/mile pace. Which felt good.

At mile 12 I saw my wife and at that point I started to realize I was getting kinda tired. When we got about half way out going west I stopped for a quick breath at a waterstation and both of my legs cramped up. So I took about 5 ecaps and some more water and ran some more. At the turn around back east the sun started to beat down pretty hard. Now the water stations started feeling like they were too far apart. I could not run all the way from one station to another.

This is when I hooked up with hangloose. He was in about the same condition I was. He was suffering from dizziness. I was all cramps.

I was able to sudo-run between stations till about mile 18. That is basically when the running stopped. My system was not absorbing any fluids. Everytime I tried to run, al I could feel was the sloshing in my stomach and then something would cramp. I had cramps in my feet, legs, sides, arms and hands.

I started to feel like I was going to puke around mile 20. Someone had handed me a banana in Pilsen and I don't think it sat well. I also caught a breath of a spectator smoking and it made me gag. Under some bridge is where I finally lost it. Puked about a gallon of water up. A couple people came over and asked if I was alright. I was not going to give up. They gave me a half gallon jug of water and I was on my way walking again. I think this is where they were handing out ice water sponges to people.

The whole rest of the race was a walk. Which really sucked. I walked through Chinatown. The crowd was going nuts. I think if I heard one more person yell, "You look great, keep going.", I would burst. My feet were killing me. Blisters had started to set in on my toes. I have never had that happen before.

When they started announcing that the race was cancelled I was so relieved. It was kind of a confirmation that I was not going nuts. That the conditions really were extreme. Up to that point I had been questioning my training. I talked to a bunch of people on the course who had the same experience as I did. That the energy had just left them.

I hooked up with hangloose again and we walked to the finish. I got to meet his wife and a couple other BT support crew. They seemed very relieved to see us. It was very cool to meet them.

I did finish the race. In fact I was able to run through the finish line.
I walked over to the meet and greet section and stood by where I though my crew would be. I could not find them. I did not want to sit down. I thought I was going to blackout any second when my running buddy throws his arms around me and yells into his cell phone, "I found him, and he's alive". That was pretty dramatic. I guess he had come in an hour earlier. I had run ahead of him at mile 4, so they all assumed I would finish first. They had been calling around to the hospitals and the medical tents.

Respect the heat and the distance.

Found my wife and we walked "ouch, ouch, ouch" back to the train station. We missed the train by ten minutes and had to wait 2 hours for the next one. That was alright though because there was plenty to eat and drink there in the air conditioning.


Cramping and foot pain.


I signed up for this race because I had watched it from the sidelines last year and it was everything I could do to not jump in and run with them. I also wanted to see if I could do this leg of the race if I would ever seriously think about doing IM distance.

I think I learned a lot. It was hell. A nightmare really. But you know it will be an experience that will be talking about for the rest of my life. An experience for a lifetime. I am damn happy that I did it. I am pretty sure I will be able to PB my next marathon without much of a problem. I hope. :)