My summer of endurance
sports has come to an end and since I promised a race recap of the Chicago Half
Marathon, here she is.
First I must say, that
despite it is now Tuesday afternoon as I write this and I ran the race Sunday
morning, I have never in my life been so sore.
Yes, that includes after the triathlon two weeks ago. Hello, burning calves! I am thinking there are a number of reasons
for this. The first is it was two weeks
after the triathlon! The second is I
have not really moved that often since the triathlon, except for a swim and
running about eight miles total (and not all at once). I also hadn’t got a long run in since the
time I ran the eight miles in early August, so going five extra miles further
than I’d ever gone before might have done me in.
Let’s start with the
beginning. I found this race to be
very…inconvenient. The locations of the
race and packet pickup were definitely not my favorite – with packet pick-up at
Navy Pier and the race itself starting in Jackson Park on the South Side. Navy Pier isn’t terrible because at least
there are plenty of public transit options to get there (and at least it is not
McCormick place!), but why does it have to be all the way at the end of the
Pier! Once you get there it’s a
half-mile walk winding through tourists and tourist-trap shops. And I wasn’t all that impressed with the
expo…it seemed so small for the hype it got.
And then for the
location of the race itself – way down on the South Side. My only issue here is it is just inconvenient
to get to in terms of a lack of convenient public transportation options. It was helpful the race provided a shuttle
from the Belmont stop (along with two others between Belmont and downtown so
you could choose the one most convenient for you), but it cost $15 for a
ticket! We paid up, though – didn’t
really have any other options to get down there at 5:00am.
From my complaints
above about location, you’d think I hated this race. Actually, it was quite the opposite – the
race was great in my opinion, other than the 4:45am wake-up call that is.
Like I said, race
morning we woke up at 4:45 so we could head out the door by 5:15. Mark wasn’t racing this one but he came as a
spectator/moral support giver. The last
shuttle was leaving Belmont at 5:30 and we didn’t want to miss it, but also
didn’t want to get to the race too early since it didn’t start until 7:00. We made it with plenty of time and soon we
were off. I just wish we would have sat
on the side of the bus facing the lake rather than the city so I could have
watched the beautiful sunrise!
We arrived at
Jackson/Hyde Park at about 6:15 as promised, a little earlier before a race
starts than I like to get there, especially when you don’t have to go to gear
check for any reason. But at least it
was painless to get down there! Mark and
I found a spot to sit down on the curb and posted up until about fifteen
minutes before the race started. It was
pretty chilly, so I was sad to shed my outer layers before heading to the
corrals. We decided our meet-up plan for
after the race (near gear check) and I said I’d probably finish somewhere
between 2:20 and 2:30, so don’t expect me until then. I was under no impression I’d be able to
complete this race running the entire time because I’d never ran close to the
distance before and also hadn’t really done much in terms of training
specifically for this.
And then we were
off. I liked how in this race you
started in your corrals but once the gun went off everyone could just go at
once in a steady stream, without the minutes of waiting in between. At the very beginning, I was surprised how
well I felt. My few runs in between the
triathlon and this had not been very good and my legs felt heavy. On this particular morning I was having no
trouble and started off at a pretty brisk (for me) 9:22 minute per mile
pace. Maybe it was the beautiful weather
and temperatures we had – starting out in the 60s and ending in the low 70s
with no humidity. Very nice!
Falling into a rhythm,
before I knew it I had passed the five mile mark. I had a moment of reflection after I passed
it, remembering the Cinco de Miler from May and how that race was the first
time I’d ever ran five miles. It seemed
like so long ago! I was still feeling
good at this point and wondering when the urge to walk would set in.
Soon enough I was at
the turnaround point at mile 8 at the 31st Street overpass. I think this was the only hill of the entire
race (heading up the ramp) and it wasn’t really that bad and I didn’t break
stride. Again I had to remember when I
did the Hot Chocolate Run last November (5k, not 15k) and the mini hill
(incline) on Columbus at the end of the race made me stop to walk because I
thought I was going to hurl. I still
didn’t feel like walking.
After crossing the nine
mile mark and not feeling like I needed to walk, I figured I might be able to
do the entire race running. And I was
going to finish 20 minutes earlier than I thought I would! Around the ten mile mark was where I saw a
lot of people slowing down to walk, but my thoughts were ‘just a 5k left!’ so I
powered through and still felt good. I’d
come this far, why stop now?
I didn’t really feel
lethargic until hitting mile 12, but by then there was only a little over a
mile left to go, so stopping wasn’t an option.
I slowed pace a little to closer to 9:40 but kept going. I think it was here where I decided the
marathon was a crazy distance. Not sure
if one of those will ever be in my future.
When I crossed the
finish line in a time of 2:04:31 I couldn’t have been happier. My first half marathon almost at the two hour
mark! The flat course helped, but I
still couldn’t believe it. And I hadn’t
walked once! I collected my medal, used
a strangers phone to track down Mark and our friend David (who also ran the
race, sub 1:40:00 I believe), got my pizza, skipped the beer line (woah long),
was thankful I didn’t have to wait in the gear check lines (woah longer),
dodged hundreds of bees while consuming the pizza, and headed back home on the
shuttle. All said, it was a successful morning…and
then the soreness set in…
Here are my casual
observations about the race (which I put here because I couldn’t figure out
where they would fit best in the above post).
I’d definitely run it again:
- Course support was amazing – there was an aid station and bathrooms around almost every mile marker. I didn’t have to use the restroom, but if I did it was nice to know the next was never far away. It also was nice to not feel like you had to grab water/Gatorade from every aid station, knowing the next one was coming up soon
- South Lake Shore Drive is a lot flatter than North Lake Shore Drive – thank goodness!
- It was so nice to be able to run on a traffic free Lake Shore Drive and not have to run on the path…I feel like every race these days follows the same Lake Shore Path – south past the museums/Soldier Field/McCormick and back…it was nice to have a change (granted this race didn’t even intersect with that part of the path if we would have been on it, but it was nice to just be off the path for a race)
- It’s amazing how comforting the sounds of so many shoes are on the pavement all running in unison. I didn’t wear headphones and was scared I’d get board of silence, but turns out it wasn’t silent!
- There were sooooo many bees in the park, I didn’t realize this late in the year there were still so many out and about! It really made walking around and eating pizza afterwards less than enjoyable