26.2 Things About the Chicago Marathon
1. Getting a brainstorm to Amazon Prime yourself water is a good idea. Going into your email to get hotel address the day before you leave and not finding a confirmation for the hotel you switched to so that you could be with your friend you’re running with is bad. Seeing an email pop up that it’s time to check into the room you initially booked and cancelled is very bad. Stomach begins to sink.
2. Calling to confirm you never booked the 2nd hotel seems reasonable. Stomach sinks further when they tell you that you are booked. Realizing you have 2 hotel rooms booked in Chicago totaling about $2500 that are both saying they are non-refundable and non-cancelable puts you on edge. You may or may not use the letter you were issued notifying you that your office is closing to support why you KNOW you cancelled the original room.
3. Tragedy averted. All is well. Or so you think.
4. Travel day. Because you are a procrastinator, Packing Palooza commences 30 minutes before your ride is supposed to be there to pick you up to go the airport. Realize the running skirt you were going to wear is MIA.
5. Running skirt is found – dirty, hard and crumbled in the bottom of gym bag. Gross. Commence express wash.
6. Land in Chicago and go to order an Uber with your friend to save money because obviously you’re going to same hotel. Wrong. You booked the wrong Holiday Inn - and you don't even like Holiday Inns. With all of the stress from things going on in your life, you have a nervous breakdown and ugly cry the entire way to the (wrong) hotel.
7. Decide to throw in the towel and fly home. The Hubs says, “If you’re going to pay $370 each for us to fly home – just pay the additional $225 a night to move hotels." True. Decide to stay in Chicago and to stay at original room.
8. The Expo is huge. Like overwhelmingly huge. Don’t forget your packet with the barcode on it.
9. The streets of Chicago are beautiful. Everyone tells you not to get shot; you’re not sure why because everyone was so friendly in Chicago. But you stayed pretty much in the touristy parts.
10. Deep dish Chicago-style pizza looks like tomato soup in a bread bowl when you order it without cheese; you get worried they’re going mess up your food when they tell you it takes at least 40 minutes to bake.
11. Check the weather; the forecast has now changed to overcast. Less than 12 hours away, surely this is a pretty accurate forecast, right? I mean, the Charleston forecast calls for rain every day. And it rains – but only for a couple of minutes.
12. Alarm goes off signaling it’s race morning; no need, you didn’t really sleep the night before any way. Grab phone to check weather and they’re calling for thunderstorms. FUUUUDDDDGGGEEE. Pre-game by drinking coffee, chugging water and grabbing a handful of Nutter Butter Bites.
13. Order an uber to transport you to your friend’s hotel. Uber driver is super nice but tells you the roads are closing, but still speeds through the City, going out of your way. Uh oh. But at least you get an impromptu tour of Chi-town.
14. Meet up with your friend and try to grab a cab. New cab driver says roads are closed and you have to walk. 1.4 miles. Before running 26.2 miles. Crap. You begin to walk; you have no idea where we are going.
15. See 2 girls waiting at an intersection who are obviously decked out to run the marathon. Ask them if they know where they are going. They’re locals and ordering an Uber to the start and offer for us to ride with them. Your new friend, Caitlyn directs, the cab driver to Grant Park. She turns him around, tells him to take side streets. She gets you within 3 blocks of the start line. Not all heroes wear capes.
16. All of the hydration begins to take its toll. You get in line for the porta-potty with 15 minutes to spare, except the line stretches to Indiana. You begin cheering for people as they jump in and out of the porta-potties, hoping to speed up the line. It works; you are in and out and headed to your corral by 7:45am – the time they close them. Oops.
17. It begins to drizzle. You are grateful you have your poncho and trashbag.
18. The race starts. You look at your Garmin and it says you are running 4:00 miles. Your watch “dings” its first mile – and you’re at like 6:00 into the race with no mile marker in sight. You begin to panic a little bit about being able to monitor and manage your pace. Your friend is a math nerd and says, “9:30’s. That will be easy to calculate.” Except running math isn’t my thing….especially when I’m running. As the miles tick by, Rach’s ability to calculate where our time should be dwindled as well.
19. Stops raining, poncho is warm. Toss it. Then it begins to pour. Wishing you didn’t toss the poncho, you’re soaked and cold. It’s drizzly the first 3 miles, then downpours for an hour and a half, then become so humid you think you’re in Charleston after the rain stops. Less than ideal conditions in our book.
20. Mile 5 – you feel the blister starting to form on the bottom of your toe. You know it’s gonna be gnarly.
21. An ambulance tries to pull out onto the course with lights and sirens. And people keep running – refusing to yield. Someone’s life is in danger, people. None of us are winning the race – quit being selfish. You finally hold your hands out old school mom style and tell everyone to stop. Ambulance is able to pull on course and people begin to part so they ambulance has a path.
22. Between an emergency potty stop, the ambulance, the mis-calculating on our Garmins, and the weather, you know you aren't going to make your friend's goal. Foot blister is the only distraction and you wish something would distract you from that. One foot in front of the other.
23. You know the weather is crappy when you don’t even want your “free” beer at the finish. So cold and wet!
24. Spend the Sunday post-race in a bar watching football, paying the price of a six pack for one beer. Get excited when a local tells you about a dive bar that’s right next door. How dive, you ask? Well, it’s “cash only” and has a beer cooler in which you can grab your own beer – but just don’t open it; that’s Kevin’s job. And Kevin was a quirkster, making it all the more fun!
25. Vegan options abound in Chi-town. Lyfe Kitchen earned your business twice; the guy at Giordano’s didn’t even bat an eye when you told him no cheese. Portillo’s even had a grilled portabello mushroom sandwich!
26. Learned a lot about yourself during this run. You like small races. There were too many people in this marathon; focusing on what they were doing (to make sure you were safe) was exhausting. Yes, the crowd support was good throughout the entire race, but you are realizing you don’t really need that. Water and Gatorade were stretched apart to account for the size of the race – walking through the water stops to fuel and hydrate took way longer than one would normally anticipate.
…and of, course that pesky .2
.2 Any time your body carries you 26.2 miles successfully is a good day. You can train and train, you can fuel your body correctly, but you NEVER know what the stars have aligned for you on race day. Just finishing is an accomplishment in itself. And of that, you are proud.
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