Bold Moves

On Oct 12th I ran the Chicago Marathon, with ~50k runners!  My first major, international marathon and my first “destination race.”  It was an amazing experience and it’s taken several weeks post race for me to absorb it all.

First, let me say that I am very blessed.  I am grateful that I can run marathons and I do not take that for granted.  I am also grateful that I have a very supportive family who traveled to Chicago with me and made the whole weekend that much sweeter.  We stayed just a block off MI Ave at the Palmer House Hilton, it was only a 10 minute walk to my corral entrance point.   Super nice hotel and very convenient!  The Expo was fun and I was excited to meet Bart Yasso and get a nice pic with him.  Always good to meet the guy responsible for your speed work suffering (Yasso 800’s). Ha!

Every night we ate at a wonderful Italian restaurant, enabling Hubby to sample Chicago pizza and me staying neutral to food that would not cause issues on race day.  It was a good move that we drove up on Friday so I was well rested by the race on Sunday.  The race itself is just so hard to describe.  It took 25 minutes for me to cross the start line once my wave started.  There was never a moment along the 26.2 mile route that I wasn’t in a crowd of runners.  Every inch of the route was filled with spectators — a truly amazing thing to experience!  There were so many things to look at along the route that the time passed fairly quickly.  I felt great through mile 20 too!  I was on pace to PR by a big margin. Then my legs turned to cement, for some reason.  I’m still analyzing what happened.  The last 6 miles were tough and I really slowed down.  The good news is that I still managed to PR, albeit by 23 seconds!  The crowd energy from both the spectators and the runners was really great and helped me a lot in those tough last miles.

At mile 21 I promised myself that this would be my last marathon.  Of course, that promise was quickly forgotten after I crossed the finish line!  I met up with my family at the Balboa VIP tent (super good investment) and as I sat with them, letting my legs rest before walking back to our hotel, I could see the finish line and the runners just kept coming….an endless wave of humanity….all pushing to finish that marathon.  It was such an incredible sight!

On our way back to the hotel, MI Ave had been invaded by an army of slow walking, silver blanket clad, zombies.  Kind of funny actually.  I was very happy that I didn’t have to climb or walk down any stairs enroute to our hotel.  My 4th marathon was done.  On to a hot shower and a celebration dinner!

On our long drive back home on Monday, I asked my family if they had fun and if they liked the whole “destination race” adventure.  Hubby summed it up by saying, “Well, you had a great race; I had a great weekend of eating Chicago pizza; and Morguen had a great weekend of shopping so I’d say we like this destination race thing.  Where are we going next?”  Yes, I am truly blessed.

Now planning for 2015 begins though I have one more race this year, the Longview Lake Half-Marathon on Nov 15th.  Still deciding if I’ll run a Spring marathon or wait until Fall.  Maybe both?  Some promises are meant to be broken.  Hehe.