the well-seasoned bagel: the chicago marathon

Last month I made a game time decision…

When registering for marathon lotteries last year, I was betting that I would get into either Berlin or Chicago or neither. Not both. But… I got into both. So I was definitely excited about Berlin and decided to make that my goal race and plan out of vacation out of it… I played it by ear during training regarding Chicago, and when the last day for deferral came up (September 19^th), I was feeling strong, no injuries, so I decided to go for Chicago too knowing full well it was 2 weeks after Berlin and 5 days after I got back in the States.

Needless to say the week leading up to Chicago, I did not get great sleep but I was carb loading very hard as I didn’t eat many meals in Europe. My main goals were to finish with no injuries, have fun, and hopefully finish under 4 hours.

Short and easy flight in.

I flew into Chicago Saturday morning, dropped my stuff at the hotel, grabbed breakfast from the Goddess and the Baker, then headed over to the expo shuttle at the Hilton Chicago.

Had a solid breakfast sandwich too.

The expo hadn't even opened yet so it wasn’t terribly crowded like the nightmare that was Berlin.. Nike, North Face, and Saucony had some really cool Chicago Marathon gear. I gave into a Nike tank! Nuun also had a good deal for 3 little containers of electrolyte tablets and a Nuun Chicago water bottle for $15.

I had to partake.

Cooling down the beer with Kombucha.

I love Nuun!

From there I explored Milennium Park, grabbed lunch at a fast casual vegan place, watched the Ohio State game, then grabbed dinner at Whole Foods.

Fake chicken of course.

Thank you Whole Foods Hot Bar.

The next morning..race morning! For my corral/wave, the suggested arrival time was 530a (the race started at 730a). But since I was 0.3 miles from the starting line… I left my hotel at 645a, lol. I randomly ran into one of the Oiselle girls I met up with in Berlin walking in through security, and then we ran into another Oiselle girl in our corral.

Ran into Sheila, I met her in Berlin!

Her third marathon in 3 weeks. One more to go this weekend for her!

We eventually crossed the start line around 748a or so.. it took a while. Overall I was feeling really good, just excited to run this race! And then I had to go to the bathroom. I had a feeling this was going to happen and it wasn’t anything causing me to cramp thank goodness! I was right behind the 3:45 pacers.. and didn’t really want to lose them but knew I had to go. I hit up the bathroom at the 5k mark and then somehow caught my way back up to the 3:45 group a mile or two later.

Nothing really notable happened to mile 6 or 7 when I felt a weird cramp in my left shoulder.. luckily it was in my head. We had plenty of shade options for the first half… and then the second half hit.

One of two action shots from the course. Pretty sure the other photographers didn't take pics because I was likely walking..

It was around mile 15 where I remember saying to myself, “Omg I have 11 more miles to go” and the wheels just came off from there. My hips were just feeling so weak, my hamstrings were doing some weird tightening things, so I began walking through every aid station…like the WHOLE aid station, drinking all of the Gatorade and some water (which I barely had in Berlin..) and then just walking/running along as I could. Folks passing me were cheering me on but I was like…you know, I’m good, just ran a marathon two weeks ago, it’s all ok, lol.

I kind of missed the Oiselle Cowbell Corner at Mile 17 so that was disappointing on my part.. and probably the next best moment was coming through the Mexican area of Chicago. The crowd support there was insane. Apparently I missed out on someone handing out bags of gummy bars. Words cannot express how disappointed I am about this still. From there we headed into Chinatown where with the energy there I got a little kick back in my step with less walking (this is around mile 21).

Chinatown! One of the few times post-halfway point where I was happy..

Then the last couple miles, I was able to jog it out for the most part thankfully. I finished in 4:14:09. So not a sub-4…but I finished with no injuries, and… I tried to have fun. Lol.

Still feeling that Chinatown love.

Overall, the crowd support for this race was really strong, there were some bands along the course like Berlin…but Berlin had way more bands. Way more. And the crowds there were loud there too even with the poor weather. I would do Chicago again… if I trained for it specifically. Though... I don’t think I would have PRed this year had this been my goal race considering the weather. However if the weather is good for this race…. It is known to be PR and BQ friendly and I can see that – it’s very flat! Also, I will commend Chicago – the logistics and organization of the marathon weekend and everything leading up to it, including the app, were outstanding!