What it’s like to run the Chicago Marathon
Spend ten months training to knock something off your bucket list and inevitably the nerves are going to set in and they’re going to set in early.
That’s how I found myself up at 3 am on the morning of the Chicago Marathon, freaking out over checklists and doing hip stretches despite the fact that I had laid out everything I needed the night before and I wasn’t going to start the race for another five and a half hours.
So it goes.
Sunday represented the culmination of months of training and sacrifice for me and 45,000 other runners. For me, it was my first marathon ever, the culmination of a journey that started on New Year’s Day and taught me a lot more about myself than just about anything I’ve ever done in my life.
I’ve been asked repeatedly what it’s like to run the marathon since crossing the finish line yesterday afternoon and the short answer is it’s incredible. Absolutely incredible.
The first thing you notice when you get to the starting line of the Chicago Marathon is the sheer enormity of it all.
It’s almost overwhelming to a point, the amount of people in Grant Park that are going to be running with you — and that’s just in your corral, a fraction of the 45,000 or so runners who were going to attempt to tackle the course — and the skyline laid out in front of you.
Then the race starts and suddenly the city is yours and that’s when the adrenaline really kicks in and you realize “Holy cow, I’m running a marathon!”
Remember that euphoric feeling, as you’re going to need it in a couple of hours.
The first few miles of yesterday’s Chicago Marathon were a breeze, both literally and figuratively. Cooler temperatures prevailed early on, making for ideal running conditions.
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to running the Chicago Marathon besides the distance itself is controlling your emotions and your pace throughout the first 8–10 miles of the race itself.
The race starts and continues through its early stages and you’re surrounded by people, complete strangers who are REALLY excited to see you jogging through the city on a Sunday morning. The amount of support runners get from spectators at the Chicago Marathon is absolutely incredible, with nearly two million people lined up along the race course to cheer you on — and trust me, you’ll need every single one of those people at some point. If you have your first name clearly visible on your race jersey as I did, you’ll hear it shouted a lot throughout the race.
Make sure you acknowledge those cheers because, again, they’re awesome.
Also awesome — the signs and costumes you see along the course. My favorite of the signs was one I saw somewhere near the third mile marker (I think) which encouraged runners to “Run like Millennials run from commitment.” Brilliant. I also doubled over laughing for some reason at an infant who was dressed like a chicken.
One of the absolute best parts about running the Chicago Marathon is that it takes you through the entire city, allowing you to see it in a way you’ve never really seen or appreciated it before, even if you’re a local. From Boystown to Old Town to Pilsen, the marathon course itself is an aesthetic wonderland that serves as a reminder of why Chicago truly is one of the greatest cities in the world.
As for the running itself, the race can really be divided into two sections — the first 16 miles and the last 10.2 miles. For the first 16 miles, you’re breezing along, chatting up spectators and generally enjoying life.
Somewhere around mile 16 though, it hits you that oh crap, I’m running a marathon, I’ve already run 16 miles and I’m nowhere near being done.
Now what?
Your body at that point goes into a sort of fight or flight mode, your legs and feet growling at you “hey, we are tired and sore and would greatly appreciate it if you stopped abusing us,” while at the same time your mind is telling you “you trained far too long and far too hard to get to this point and you are NOT stopping now.”
This, again, is when the crowd picks you up, and when it helps having familiar faces there to cheer you on. Couple of things wound up saving me personally throughout this stretch. My buddy Ben, a Milwaukee TV reporter, was stationed at miles 14 and 16 and at both, he decided he was going to run with me for a stretch and videotape an “interview” with me for Instagram. That got me mentally engaged again and gave me a boost needed to continue on.
It was also during this stretch that I appreciated some of the benefits of running for a charity team. Open Heart Magic, the charity that I ran and raised over $5,000 for throughout training, had teams set up at miles 12, 16 and 18. Seeing that group of people wearing the same shirt that I was wearing and screaming their heads off for me at a point where I was physically exhausted helped a ton.
This is how happy you get when you see someone you know when you’re at that point in the race, by the way:
Mile 18 soon enough gave way to mile 20 and that’s when the math started coming into play. “Oh, I’ve run a 10k before, I can just run this last 10k and be done, no sweat, right?”
Hahahahaha WRONG.
You don’t realize just how hot 78 degrees and sunny is until you’ve experienced those conditions while running a marathon, and make no mistake, the back half of Sunday’s Chicago Marathon was absolutely miserable. The first 15 miles had perfect weather conditions but as the sun inched higher in the sky and the temperature started to climb, things started to deteriorate and it didn’t matter how much you trained or how much water or Gatorade you had consumed, you were miserable.
It is at this point that you learn to lean on the camaraderie of your fellow runners and make friends along the course.
I was walking at mile 21 because A. it was hot and B. I was mentally and physically drained at this point when I befriended a fellow charity runner named Tim, who was running for PAWS. Tim and I were walking together making small talk, when all of a sudden he uttered a magical sentence to me:
“Hey, I know we just met, but let’s be running buddies and stick with each other.”
YES.
So, together Tim and I traversed through Pilsen and Chinatown and back into the South Loop together, running in spurts and walking at other points and generally keeping each other going during a point in the race where we were both mentally and physically spent.
I wound up leaving Tim at mile 24.5 because I wanted to try and run the final stretch of the course.
That last nearly two miles of the course felt like a mirage because while yeah, you only have a mile and a half to go, at that point you’re so drained that the finish line keeps getting farther and farther away, or so it seems. People were walking and part of you is like hey I can walk too but at that point my mind was like JUST GET THIS OVER WITH SO WE CAN GRAB A BEER OKAY?
So, you do it. You do it because you have to, because after 24.5 miles, not finishing the marathon is not an option. Luckily for me, I had my family and friends waiting for me at mile 25.5, the exact spot where I needed them to be to give me the final push necessary to suck it up and finish the race.
Turning onto Roosevelt and seeing that final hill at the end is both incredibly rewarding and defeating at the same time. You’ve conquered 26 miles of a relatively flat course and…NOW there’s a hill?
Come. ON.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Chicago, the stretch of Roosevelt Road that I’m referring to is, at most, a 20–30 foot incline, but after you’ve run that far, any incline at all may as well be Mount Everest. I pushed myself up the hill and once you get up the hill, all you’ve gotta do is turn a corner and there it is, the finish line in all its glory.
I took everything I had left and somehow launched into an all out sprint and when it was over, I was a marathon finisher and nobody could take that away from me.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. The sense of accomplishment you feel after running that far is something that’s difficult to put into words, not to mention being able to tick a major item off your bucket list.
Am I going to do it again? You bet. Even though as I write this, I’m laying on my couch with ice packs on both knees because they’re both incredibly sore,
running the marathon in my hometown and having the support of the entire city was something I’ve never experienced before and it’s something I want to experience again. Training for this changed my life for the better in so many ways that I can’t begin to list them all. I’m a happier person because of it, I look better now than I have in my entire adult life, I checked a major item off my bucket list, and most importantly, I raised more than $5,000 to help kids in hospitals.
This was worth it. Every single early morning training run, every single mile, every single ache and pain. It was all absolutely worth it.
See you in 2018!
To learn more about Open Heart Magic, which has more than 120 volunteers that go around to Chicago hospitals and teach kids how to do magic tricks and is the charity that I’m running the Chicago Marathon for, please click here and consider donating.
