Our morning started very early at 3:30 am. The weather was a brisk 32 degrees with light 8 mph winds. The temps would be 41 when we finished.
An important factor that would come into play later was my stomach was not right all morning. Not a good thing to have right before the long run ahead of us.
Outfit wise I went with shorts, short sleeved shirt (actually wore the Chicago Marathon Race shirt cause it was awesome), arm warmers, throw away gloves and hat, and throw away shirt.
My bib with autograph from Deena Kastor and Jerry from Spirit of the Marathon:
My feet were frozen up to the arches by the time we started. When they released our corral we got to run up to the start which made for a nice warm up. We had to be careful to not trip on any of the clothes that were lying all over the road.
And we were off! I was on a good pace right from the beginning. I was expecting a couple warm up miles due to the people congestion, but it really wasn’t bad at all.
I had packed little sandwiches for my fuel that were one slice of whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter and honey. I ate a half of sandwich at four miles and planned to eat a half every four miles through the race. I also made sure to have a mix of gatorade and water along the way. My legs were feeling great! My stomach….not so much. After my mile 8 half sandwich my stomach fought back. It was making horrible noises and I knew I was going to have to plan a stop. I wanted to make sure that if I did stop that I was ready to go since before the race I had no luck resolving the issue. As my stomach churned I was still doing okay with pace and came across the half at 1:52.
Rob was getting a lot of response to his USAF Mararthon shirt, here is he waving to someone in the crowd who shouted Go USAF!
My second and equally difficult challenge was my IT bands. They tightend up at mile 10 and I thought about how I should have KT taped them to try and help them, maybe wear capris to keep them warmer, etc. There was nothing I could do, but deal with them hurting and tightening up.
The sequence of events is a blur in my head, but at mile 10 I saw Rob! I passed him and we said “go baby” to each other.
Mile 14 I made a pit stop thinking I was very ready to resolve my stomach problems and no dice! I lost 2-3 minutes screwing around with a pit stop and still had this awful stomach pain.
Mile 16 was my last sandwich half cause I couldn’t take the stomach pain any more. I was going to try and get by with gatorade.
Yep, got food stuck in my teeth and was dealing with it when I notice I got my picture taken.
My pace also deminished with my IT bands that continued to tighten. I wasn’t running at my usual paces and I was just existing.
At 22 mile mark – 10K to go. 10K actually feels a lot further after doing 22 miles. It’s not right around the corner feeling, but I also wasn’t scared about the remaining miles.
Rob came in at: 4:35:11
Rob finishing:
So there you have it, we survived! We are marathoners! We learned a lot! We are hungry for more! Can’t wait to get to the training for the next one in February!
Stats:
4:08:13
9:29 pace
F 30-34: 747/2678
F: 3715/14618
Overall: 13076/33687
We will be on a 5 week recovery plan before getting into our next training plan.
Thanks everyone for all of your encouraging words and support through this whole thing!
When we finally got back to our room and cleaned up we went to lunch at The Grill. Everyone in Chicago is so nice. We had people who saw us hobbling with our medals on stop and congratulate us and ask us about the race and our running background.
Later we took a nap and then headed out for dinner at Giordano’s on Rush St.
Us at Giordano’s:
The food was amazing! Rob got a small special thin crust pizza and I went with the small spinach ravioli with marinara. It was so delicious and worth the hour and a half wait. We will definitely be back for more!
A video of the Chicago Marathon on Runner’s World produced by News 5.