Chicago Marathon Weekend -- Part 1

So the goal is to write this without crying... We'll see how that goes. I'm going to split this into two posts with the first being all the pre-marathon Chicago activities and the second being about the actual marathon.

I'll start with a short summary of the marathon though -- It was amazing. It went by in an incredible flash and was over before I could even begin to comprehend what had happened. I not only demolished my previous finishing time, but also met and beat my goal of a 3:50. I approached this race with a lofty goal that I was unsure I could accomplish, but thanks to supportive friends and family and great weather I was lucky enough to achieve what I came to Chicago to do.


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I flew in Thursday night after work. My boss and co-workers were very supportive of the upcoming marathon and wished me luck every time they passed my cubicle. I was asked repeatedly in the break room about my upcoming marathon from individuals not even in my department and even received a good luck e-mail from the general manager of the station. All of their support was only further encouragement to return with my head held high.

After getting in Thursday night I slept in and did 5 miles on my parent's treadmill Friday morning. One mile warm up, one mile at goal marathon pace, one mile above GMP, another GMP mile then a final cool down mile. I also did an easy ab circuit that didn't use too much leg work.

After my workout my mom, dad and I headed out for breakfast before going to the marathon expo. We went to a place called Bakerhill Pancake House and it is my favorite breakfast place I think I’ve ever been to. I make my parents go there every time I come to visit. My dad got a stack of blueberry pancakes, my mom got the Portuguese omelet (that I stole more than a few bites of) and I got the strawberry crepes covered in whipped cream -- carbo-loading at its finest.

After breakfast we were on our way to the expo. I was pretty giddy at this point. We encountered some traffic getting in, but go to the convention center pretty easily. We picked up out bibs with no wait and headed on in.

We met up with Samantha and William Newman (old friends from our old ward in Orland Park) who were also running the marathon that weekend. We paused for photo op before my parents and I headed into the thick of the expo.

I made my poor parents walk up and down every aisle at the expo. I was a kid in a candy store. The expo is where things become real and it was starting to sink in that the marathon was here and no longer a distant event I spent time looking forward to. 

During our time at the expo we tried some samples (as many as our stomachs full of breakfast food could handle), collected our goodie bags, found our names on the big marathon wall and walked around for about an hour and a half.  

I was the only "Renda" running.

My Christmas list grew to be about 10 miles long after seeing all the fun running goodies out there! I didn't walk away empty handed though. My parents ended up buying me a shirt and I bought my dad and I "26.2" stickers for our cars! 

"Life Moves Pretty Fast So You Better RUN"

 After the expo we headed up to my sisters. I had a movie date with her! We were stuck in pretty awful traffic getting out of the city and the 1 hour drive turned into 2, but we made it there just in time for her and I to head to our movie! We saw Pitch Perfect and we both highly recommend it. My dad took the boys to see Hotel Transylvania while my mom watched Maddie. It was a long day, but lots and lots of fun.

They had these at the expo. I am not above exchanging baked good for love.

The next morning my mom and I were off to Johnny and Brandon's pee-wee football games. We stopped on our way to get donuts and hot chocolate. I was sticking to Gatorade and water for the day, but I did enjoy a donut and half a bagel! It was really really fun to see the boys all decked out and playing football. 

It was so cold out though! I think this is when I officially started to freak out about the pending marathon the next day. I was SO COLD at the football games and I was convinced I was going to be miserable the next day.

My mom and I stopped at the store on the way home and I picked up some post-marathon candy corn and some other goodies for the following day. I made myself a huge sandwich with loads of cheese and meat and grilled in up on the stove. I also had a banana and a million grapes covered in whipped cream. After that I took a hot bath (I was still chilled from the game!). My dad and I set out shortly after that to the goodwill and pick up some throw away clothes for the next morning.

Once we got home it was pasta and movie time. My dad has mentioned before how inspirational the movie Chariots of Fire was to him and so I bought it for him as a gift before my visit. After I gave it to him he told me that the movie was actually the one that had inspired him to become a runner. It seemed very appropriate for a pre-marathon movie. We watch as we chowed down on multiple bowls of pasta.

When the movie ended I entered extreme marathon melt-down. I started laying out my clothes for the next day and could NOT find my safety pins for my bib. I poured out my marathon bag, went through my dad's marathon bag and ransacked the entire car. My mom eventually told me where I could find some spare safety pins, but the damage was done. I was on EDGE. I spent the next thirty minutes choking back tears pretty much convinced I couldn't run one mile let alone 26 of them. I felt overly stuffed from all the eating too, which did not help.

Eventually I laid down at about 9:15pm to tried and sleep. Unfortunately those tears I was holding back while getting everything ready for the next morning came pouring out. I was literally saying/shouting "I can't do this" and "are you crazy? you think you can run a sub-4?" out loud into the darkness. I was not in a good place...

The last time I looked at the time it was 9:50pm and I fell asleep soon after that. I woke up twice-- first at 2:21am and again at 4:15am before my 5:00am alarm woke me up... That is when marathon morning started (aka the good part of the story).

First was a shower, followed by getting dressed and heading upstairs to check in with how my dad was doing. Where I was melancholy, he was bouncy and excited. I gave my post-marathon bag to my mom, put my bib on the table and started sipping on gatorade. My dad proceeded to put on his bib and I helped attach his tracker to his shoe since I had put mine on the night before. I was still really full from the night before so I only ended up making one piece of toast for me pre-run fuel.

At right around 5:30am we piled into the car and took off. Now if you were paying attention you might notice something I forgot to do. Well, right as we were getting on the free way I realized... I FORGOT MY BIB ON THE TABLE.

It had already taken 15 minutes for us to get to the freeway and we had to turn around to go back and get it. I was already in a foul mood feeling unprepared for the race, but forgetting my bib and having to turn around was really the icing on the cake.

Luckily my parents stayed really positive the whole time, because I was sort of about to melt down. I raced in and picked up my bib and we were on our way again. I am so lucky I remembered my bib when I did.

Now we were running late thanks to me, but since it was ridiculously early there was no traffic on the freeway and we made record time into the city. However, once we got off the freeway traffic was horrid. We didnt know exactly were we were going and I could tell my dad was very anxious to get there. It was 6:40am at this point and we needed to be in our corral by 7:45 at the latest.

We made it to Millineum Garage by about 7:00 and I felt a flood of relief come over me. we had made it. We were running a marathon. It was then I think I smiled for the first time that morning.

We found the bathrooms, said goodbye to my mom and headed on in. We were in different corrals so soon after we entered the corral area my dad and I hugged, said I love you, good luck and see you at the finish line before we headed our separate ways.

I wouldn't be here without his inspiration!

 It was about 7:30am when I reached my corral. I had no phone or camera with me and was equipt with nothing besides my little iPod nano shoved in the tiny pocket in my shorts and a bottle of water/Gatorade. I was cold, but not as cold and miserable as I thought I would be. At 7:45am when the corrals closed they had us move up to the starting line. I was in corral F -- the first corral of the wave 2 start so I was right up at the front. They had a clock right there counting down to the start and an announcer spoutinf off a bunch of stats about the race. I just stood there going over my strategy and goals -- Keep it at 8:50/mile pace, DO NOT go faster, DO NOT go slower, reassess at the halfway mark, 18 mile mark, 20 mile mark and every mile after that to increase speed, run a race with negative splits (second half faster than the first half) and finish in 3:50. Before I knew it it was 3... 2... 1 ... GO!