Chicago Marathon - RunMarathon

A lot of this is clipped from my blog: Death March 2007. And that's not sarcasm. A 35 y.o. police officer doing the race died and that sucks. Turns out he had a heart condition but it seems hard to believe the heat didn't contribute in some way. People were dropping left and right. The first was a woman who dropped shortly after the halfway mark. It wasn't far from a Red Cross tent so while a couple people stopped with her a bunch of us ran over there shouting RUNNER DOWN RUNNER DOWN. This would go on A LOT for the rest of the day.

Just before the halfway mark I walked about a 1/4 mile to try to bring my HR down, hit the bathroom and walk through an aid station. Then I ran again and it was VERY exciting going through the halfway mark. Most of the run at this point was in the shade of the taller buildings in Chicago. After the halfway mark you head west and that's where it starts to get brutal.

I was very lucky to see Jen (who is my HERO!) who was hanging out with Jonathon and Jen Schmitt at a couple points during the first half. Coredump was with them once too. Things got mixed up after that with as slow as I was going. I also saw my buddy Larry, who was hired to photograph the race, a couple times on the course. He walked with me for a while. I cannot say enough nice things about Jen and Jon for chaperoning Jen around and Larry for his help before, during and after the race. Not sure what I've done to end up with friends like this but they are awesome!

Later in the race a guy walked up behing me and asked if I was from Crystal Lake. I had HANG LOOSE written on my legs so anyone from BT would know who I was. It was Dave from Algonquin (daviddclough). Talked to him for a while, then we tried jogging and we separated, then he caught up to me again later. We walked most of the last 4 miles together. The last time I tried to run - somewhere around mi 21-22, my legs cramped and my vision went blurry. While I was walking with Dave my speech was slurring. They cancelled the race but at that point we were just about at the furthest point south and ready to turn toward the finish. There was about 5 miles left to go and we had to walk back anyway, might as well finish. They were ordering people to walk and that was fine with us. As we were going by a display honoring the fallen officers of the Chicago Police Dept. this hippie guy, in the race, goes running by with his fist up yelling "RAISE YOUR FIST AND RESIST, THE CHICAGO POLICE DEPT IS THE LARGEST TERRORIST ORGANIZATION IN CHICAGO!" People didn't seem to know what to say and then David and I yelled sarcastic things like "Rock on dude! Fight the power! and everyone had a good laugh at the hippie. I think Dave and I have a lot in common considering we had just met.

Nutrition info: I ate 6 crank e-gels, drank 9 bottles of water from my own bottle, probably another 4 bottles worth of water from plastic bottles and cups, and about 3 bottles worth of Gatorade Endurance. I took a salt pill every half hour. I felt so full at times that I was sloshing. I did not pee after that mile 12 pit stop. Not until about 6pm. Keep reading for more info on that.

At some point, I'm not sure where, maybe a mile or more from the finish, Jen and Jon and Jen found me. Finally! I hadn't seen them (except for what I thought was a glimpse of Jen in Chinatown but there were great looking women everywhere so who can know for sure?) since 11.5 mi. They walked in with us the rest of the way. Jen could tell I was in bad shape. I crossed the line, drank more water and ate 2 apples and 2 bananas. Went to gear check, got my stuff and laid down for a few minutes. We headed to the car. This is when things really started to go south.



Run 10:00/miles from the beginning. I was a fool.

We got down the the 2nd level where our car was parked in the underground garage. I had to sit down and when I leaned forward sweat poured off my face. As soon as I hit the pavement I began to cramp everywhere.

A couple of other runners, angels really, stopped to help me. One was an EMT who had just come from the medical tent himself getting some fluids in him. Casey, wherever you are, thank you. He helped me and stayed with me until the ambulance got there. For you locals, to give you an idea how big this was, the ambulance was called in from Mundelein. They declared a state of mass casualties and were in full emergency mode. They weren't even taking personal info - just your race number and then they'd drop you off at a hospital. The EMT's got a line for fluids in my and put oxygen on me, just before I projectile vomited everywhere. Then I cramped up enough that I finally screamed. They carried me back up to ground level and put me in the 'lance. My blood pressure was 80/60. That's bad, right? Pulse was 60. Glucose 81, I don't know what that means. They took me to Northwestern. 3 bags of fluid later and I felt much better, although I was going through chills and sweats and more puking during that time. My blood work showed signs of acute renal failure. My second blood test after the second bag of fluid showed enough improvement that they let me go after the third bag. This was also when I finally peed again.

Again, I cannot say thank you enough to the people who helped me through the day. Especially my wife, who was my rock and who did not deserve the scare I put her through. More on that in a moment. Jen and Jonathon, Larry, David, my mom for watching the kids from 5am til 9:30pm, my dad for coming downtown to get me and then waiting so many hours for them to release me. For the random acts of kindness and support I saw on the course with runners helping each other. For the people along the route encouraging us, filling up water bottles from their homes and bringing it out onto the course. It was unbelievable.




If you haven't figured it out by now I can't help you.


The questions above like organized? mental effort? race difficulty? just don't make any sense to me. I don't know how to answer them. They could run this race again for the next 60 years and it will never be this hot again. It was a disaster of epic proportions and cannot be quantified accurately on paper.

I had two moments of clarity this day. The first one was somewhere between miles 14-17. I realized that I had to let it go. I was so worried that all my hard work at having a respectable time in a marathon was shot by the weather. I realized it didn't matter. This was my race. I needed to live in the moment and not worry about the race I could have run. I needed to run the race I had in front of me. From that moment on it was much more enjoyable. Instead of regretting the situation and being stressed about I relished it. So what if I walked most of the second half? Who cares. I also realized that the whole "dig deep and keep running" attitude that I used in Racine to keep going has a limit. At least I have a limit. I held back because the fact is that my wife, my family and my job come before this endurance sports in my life and THAT also needs to be a factor in how I race. After this I felt like a weight was lifted off of my shoulders. As brutal as it was the race was a lot more fun after that point. Of course, at this point I didn't realize the damage I was already doing to myself.

The second revelation came while I was laying on the concrete in the parking garage. Before I started puking I was laying there with an IV in my arm and the oxygen mask on. I was looking at Jen, who was rightfully freaked out, and all of a sudden my back cramped up. I reached for my chest and lifted up off the ground a little. It was just a back cramp but to her it looked like a heart attack and I saw it in her eyes. It is not right for me to put her through that. That's not fair to her and I will never do it again. I don't know if I'll ever race anything longer than a half marathon again. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I don't want to make statements like the morning after a bad night of drinking when you say you won't drink again. But I can say this for sure. I'll never RACE (as in push really hard) anything longer than a half mary for a specific time goal. I just won't do it. It's not worth it for me. I can't put that much pressure on myself because I'm too damn stubborn to let it go. I foolishly ran the first half at WAY TOO HIGH OF A HEART RATE. That was just stupid.

With as bad as how some parts of the day went the whole experience was phenomenal, this race is really amazing. And my heart goes out to those still in critical condition in area hospitals, and of course to the wife and brother who were doing the race with the man who died.

Also, the debate about placing blame on this seems misguided. This thing is too big, and too complicated to simply say "They ran out of water." Yeah, they did. But that doesn't mean that if they had an infinite supply of water that none of this would have happened. Look at me. I had water and GE for the whole race. I still had my problems. Now out of all the people who needed help how many of them were in the same boat as me? AngeB said she was turned away from the medical tent because they were overwhelmed and she finished at 3:30, 2 hours ahead of me! I think its a shame that they ran out of water and they should consider reducing the size of the race unless they can significantly bolster the support, but ultimately each runner shares a huge amount of responsibility for their own care. We knew for months before the race where the aid stations would be. We knew there were stretches that would be 2 miles between stations. That's why when the heat came up in the week before the race I changed my mind and decided to wear my fuel belt so that I could carry more gel and liquids. As far as I'm concerned any runner who was out there without a fuel belt/water bottle of some kind was as foolish to think they could make the gaps between stations as I was for running so hard in the first half.

Now, the argument about whether they should have even had the race in the first place or not is another story. I'd be more willing to agree that should have been considered more strongly. From what I could tell once the race went on they seemed to be doing what they could. The police were at intersections ordering people to walk and warning us that the medical facilities were overwhelmed. People were still running! If those are the people who ended up in the hospital is that the RD's fault?