Three weeks. Three weeks time stands between me and the Chicago Marathon. I have trained and sacrificed the past three months in preparation for this day. Soon it will all be over, and the satisfaction of finishing will arrive.
To get to this point has been a journey of one thousand steps. It started in June when I tackled the first long run of six miles with my CARA group. The mileages gradually increased through the weeks, finally culminating in last Sunday’s long run. That day our group took on the twenty miler. When I want to put the twenty mile run in perspective, I think of it analogously. If the marathon is the big show or opening night, then the twenty mile run is the dress rehearsal. This is the training run that is closest in distance and conditions to the actual race. We never pass this threshold in our training. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, it has been concluded through previous training trial and error that if you can survive running just twenty miles, you can tough out the full 26.2. Secondly, it is always better to undertrain than to overtrain. Training too much usually results in injury. For most people, running more than twenty miles increases the chance of injury without adding much training benefit.
Honestly, I hadn’t given much thought to the twenty mile run in the weeks preceding it. I carried no anxiety over it. In fact, the realization that the twenty miler had arrived really didn’t hit me until a day or two before the event.
I arrived at the starting point, Foster Avenue, a little after 7AM. Since this was a large event that was open to the public, things were a little chaotic at first. However, after checking my gear and waiting in the restroom lines, I was fortunate to find people from my running group. The event was setup so that everyone was divided into starting waves according to their race numbers. Everyone in my group was divided all among the ten minute per mile waves. However, we all wanted to run together as we had the past three months. Luckily our fearless running leader, Tom, was also a pace leader in this twenty mile run. Unfortunately, he was precluded from running due to a biking accident which had resulted in a knee injury. So he was able to substitute one of his running friends into his pacer position. The plan then became to run together as a group behind this pacer regardless of where we were told to start. That’s exactly what we did. We approached the starting line and were told to wait by the CARA workers with the microphones. However in typical Team Run Amok fashion, our pacer just decided to take off and we all followed.
The course took us north initially from Foster to Hollywood. We then turned south and headed all along the lakefront trail toward the South Shore Cultural Center. At first it was chilly, especially while we were waiting to start. However, as the Sun emerged, things started to heat up considerably. For the first half of the run, we ran past the usual things we had seen through much of our training. However, once we reached the area around the loop, we didn’t turn back. We kept on going past the museum campus into the unknown territory of the south side.
I had never seen the south side of the lakefront trail before, but I was pleasantly surprised. I had never expected it to be that scenic or that beautiful. The south side of the path was more pristine and more natural than the more familiar north side. I loved it. At one point during the run, we came around a bend in the shoreline and saw downtown Chicago very far away over our left shoulders. It was one of those moments that just floored you. We suddenly realized we had just run from the north end of the Lakefront past downtown into the southern half of the trail. It was amazing.
We kept pushing on, coming closer to the finish. At about the seventeen mile point, our group began to disintegrate. Some people fell back at a slower pace, most stayed with our pacer, while others including myself decided to push ahead. Eventually I ended up with two other runners from my group.
Even behind the pacer, our pace had been quicker than our supposed ten minutes per mile. Realistically for most of the run, we had been burning at a 9:30 per mile clip. Now that the group had separated out, I was pretty sure I was approaching a 9 minute per mile pace. We kept pushing onward; at this point I began to feel some discomfort. The lower left portion of my right heel began to hurt as my foot was pushing off the ground. However, it wasn’t enough to stop me. I was going to follow through to completion.
My subgroup was quickly approaching the finish. We hit a bend in the path, at which point an event worker told us it was the home stretch. I figured at this point we were either a mile or half mile away. Sure enough, my two cohorts could smell the finish. They started to push even harder and faster toward the goal. I, of course followed suit. When we finally hit the final stretches, the leader of the subgroup went into an all out sprint leaving the two of us behind. Once again, I felt challenged and decided to give chase. I also went into a full sprint, staying behind him. We kept this up until we finally crossed the finish line. We were greeted there by our team leader, Tom, and other people from our group who had finished earlier. According to my stopwatch I finished in 3 hours 13 minutes (I stopped the watch while going through water stations).
It was a great feeling. We had finished the twenty mile run. The climax of training had been completed. It was time to relax and have fun.
After the run, we waited until the rest of our group finished and then went on to enjoy the after party. There was a live band, lots of running snacks, and even a few free beers haha. We all sat on the grass in the sun and talked amongst ourselves. We found out our leader, Tom, wouldn’t be able to run the marathon this year due to his injury. It’s really sad and disappointing. He is a marathon veteran, and he had been there all through the training to lead us. All it took was one freak car-bike accident to end this year’s mission for Tom. I thought back to last year when I wished I had run the marathon and then had to wait anxiously for this year’s race. However, my past situation pales in comparison to what Tom is probably feeling now. I decided that when I run the race, I will think of Tom and finish for him.
Overall, it was a banner day. The weather and scenery were awesome. The feeling of accomplishment was great. We could all go forward to race day with added confidence.
