Last summer, I (Charlie) spent a lot of the warmer months training for the Chicago Marathon. I had run 2 marathons previously, but the last one had literally been over 7 years ago (the 2007 Cincy Flying Pig Marathon). I didn't know if I'd ever run a marathon again, so it was a fairly daunting task. I joined a group called Team in Training (TNT). I raised nearly $1,500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society - thanks to everyone who contributed!
The night before the marathon, TNT had a pre-marathon dinner with the standard past type fare. I got my carb loading out of the way and also got to play with Brady as he was learning to walk. He was still in the midst of the "knee-walking" phase at this point, but he was now to the point that he could walk with you holding one of his hands.
The dinner itself was very inspiring. There was a slide show and a number of cancer survivors spoke to get us pumped up for the big day the next morning.
I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and got all my stuff ready for the run, then took a cab downtown. Even at 5:45 when I got down there, it was already very crowded downtown. Being a part of a group like TNT has its benefits for an event like this - they had a spot allocated at a downtown hotel. The weather was pretty close to ideal for the marathon - but at 5:45, it was still pretty cold. It was also nice to be able to leave a bag of extra clothes there and not have to worry about finding it later. We took a group picture and around 6:30 I left to go out to the starting line.
I had a long sleeve shirt on and a bunch of "gu" packets for energy. I had an old long sleeve shirt on to keep warm that I discarded right after we started. It was actually an old Winking Lizard shirt from back in my Columbus days! I won it from drinking a certain number of different craft beers over a few months at the bar back in 2005 - so trading it in for a much more healthy endeavor seemed appropriate.
As I mentioned the weather was close to perfect - a little chilly at the start, and it never got too warm during the run. I started off at a very conservative pace. My goal was to run under 10 minute miles, and I started out much slower than that - my first 5k was at about 10:30 pace. It's extremely crowded early on, and I was sure to get a water or gatorade at each chance - I think they had 18-20 water stations throughout the course.
The race was really fun. Around 45,000 people ran, which dwarfs the 5-8,000 that ran the Cincinnati and Columbus marathons I'd done previously. It's literally crowded the whole time. Even at mile 20, you're practically shoulder to shoulder. In some ways this is frustrating - I had to do a little more zigging and zagging! But it's also great for energy, and I needed that. I didn't stop the whole run, though I really had to fight it around mile numbers 23 and 24.
Katie and Brady went downtown to watch the race with Brady's buddy Eli and parents Rachel and Pete. Rachel is tall - so that was helpful as I was able to spot them from the crowd. They were right at the halfway point, and I stopped over to give Brady a quick hug. He seemed fairly confused with the whole endeavor!
Ultimately, I finished in under 4:20, 4 hours 18 minutes to be exact. That's about 9:52 per mile, so I was pretty happy with that! It was a great experience, and worth being sore for the next few days!
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