Reflections On My First Chicago Marathon

This past Sunday, I got to enjoy my fourth marathon, and my first Chicago Marathon. I started my running journey several years ago and affectionately referred to my comrades in the running community as a bunch of nerds in the first blog I ever wrote, but surely enough, with time it has become harder and harder to distinguish me from them. 

My journey with marathons has been interesting to say the least. I’ll keep it brief because I think many readers already know the story, but basically I had some pretty bad luck with health initially.

In my first marathon, I got rhabdomyolysis in Mile 11, which is a potentially life-threatening condition that presents itself in the form of muscle spasms. I slowly willed my way to the finish line and to this day I consider that the time I exhibited the most mental toughness in any given situation.

In my second marathon, I improved my time considerably to sub 4 hours, which was a pleasant surprise considering I came down with COVID two days before the race. I felt pretty miserable but I had already done all of the work and the organizers would not let me defer due to my health. I guess they wanted me to just spread as much COVID as I possibly could.

In 2023, I ran again and got my time down to 3’37” or so. My goal has been to get to 3’30” so I still felt a little bit disappointed by this outcome. I was in good health this time. The only thing that threw me off was pretty torrential downpours midway through the race which basically made it so I could not use my phone (and therefore pace myself) for the second half of the race. That was a stupid mistake on my part because I knew rain was a strong possibility and I should have had a way to waterproof my device (or wore a running watch).

That leads us to the Chicago Marathon. I was approached about fundraising for the marathon and immediately seized the opportunity. One specific reason was because Chicago is a flat course and I figured I could prime myself for a much better outcome than my Boston marathons. Boston is a notoriously challenging course with its Heartbreak Hill in Miles 17-21.

Now, in retrospect I kind of regret jumping on the opportunity when I did for a couple reasons. The first and most obvious one is that my wife and I welcomed our first child, Josie, to the world nearly 11 months ago. So committing to all of the training with a little one at home was probably not a good idea and an unfair burden to put on my wife, Julianne. So one major takeaway I have from running this event is how grateful I am to have her support. More on that later.

The second reason the timing was not great was because I ended up being injured before my training even began. In early spring, I developed terrible sciatica in my left leg and excruciating lower back pain. This made it so that even attempting to run a single mile was nearly impossible. I would show up to running classes trying to fight through the pain and I would find myself leaving ten minutes later. Kind of a waste of money.

It’s a little ironic that in my past marathons, I seemed to have some bad injury luck right before or even on race day. This time, I started out with the injury. Again, I attempted to defer my entry but these mean-spirited event organizers once again rebuked my request. Alas, I decided to just forge ahead and do the best I could do.

As a result of the lower back pain (an MRI showed a herniated disc), I had to take a much less rigorous course of training. To that end, I paced myself much slower than I usually did in my training. This was all by design as I experienced the most pain when trying to push myself to faster speeds. Although the pain would eventually (mostly) subside, I went into race day with less confidence than usual because I had not really pushed myself in terms of speed over the course of very long distances.

With that being said, I still felt it was entirely possible for me to achieve my goal. My intent was to try to run slower than I had in previous races so I could preserve some energy in the end.

I think one of the hardest parts about this marathon was being alone. In the past, I had my wife and family and even some friends around in Boston because everyone lives locally. In Chicago, it was really just up to me to work my way around and handle everything I needed to handle, like race day logistics and so on. One highlight was that my sister-in-law lives in Chicago, so we got to hang out and have dinner the night before and she gave me a ride to the airport after the race as well.

A few days before the race, I had written a blog about my late friend and former wrestling coach, Steve Ward. The words he would say before every wrestling match – “You’re ready” – had started to really mean something to me. What I realized was that our lives are really just about being ready to accept whatever fate you are dealt. You need to be open and prepared to deal with any outcome. Through this lens, I had started caring less about these arbitrary goals I had set for myself and more about just enjoying the moment, doing the best I can, and being proud of my effort.

The first few miles of the race did not go to plan. Predictably, I came out of the gate a little too strong. Fortunately, I recognized this and dialed things back. For the next ten miles or so, I was consistently running in the neighborhood of 7’45”-8’00” splits. The goal was to run an 8’00” pace for the marathon, so getting into this groove was a good thing. For the next few miles, I was able to maintain around that 8’00” marker and was even considering whether this might be the time to really push things. Then, quite suddenly, the wheels really came off.

In retrospect, it’s really hard to pinpoint exactly what happened. Running long distance is tough and in the matter of seconds, your entire demeanor can change. I think what became particularly hard were two things: my stomach and cramps. I am a heavy sweater, so even despite taking water or gatorade at every mile marker and salt tablets, I was probably down 5-7 pounds of sheer water weight. I reached a point where the nausea made it really hard to put anything in my body, and so even at around Mile 14.5 where I was able to grab a gatorade and a power bar from a friend, I could only have a few bites before discarding it and a few sips of the gatorade. At a certain point, your stomach can only stomach so much and it’s hard to move without feeling sick.

In subsequent miles (let’s say Mile 18 or so), I actually got vicious cramps in my hamstrings. These are the kind where I actually experienced muscle contractions and sharp pain that forced me to the sideline to sip on gatorade until I could shake it off. I actually experienced similar contractions in my calf muscles after the race ended as well. In between, I was able to manage it and get it under control, but I had to significantly reduce my pace for fear of over-exerting myself as I desperately tried to improve my hydration.

For the last 10 miles of the race, the combination of the dehydration, nausea, and cramping had me seriously considering giving up. But prior to the race I had FaceTimed with my wife and daughter, who had “made” me a little sign for the race. I think as a father I have a different perspective on these things, in that maybe it is one thing to let myself down, but something else entirely to let someone else down. Obviously my wife and daughter would love and support me whether I finished or not. But all along the way I had envisioned a special moment where I could FaceTime when crossing the finish line, and so the idea of not being able to do that made me upset. I think in moments of despair I found myself resorting to this thought, and thinking about Steve Ward and what he might say to me after writing a blog about him and then quitting in a race.

In the end, I finished with a 3’49”. It’s not nearly as good as what I was hoping to accomplish. But it’s also my second best time, and a time a lot of people would be quite happy with. All things considered, I’m pleased. And the reason I am pleased is because I know I did everything I possibly could. I trained as much as was humanly possible given my circumstances in life and mentally I pushed myself as hard as I could go on race day. It’s not easy doing these things when you are fighting through pain before the race even begins, let alone the pain you fight through when the going gets really tough.

With Chicago now knocked off the list, I am left thinking about what the future may hold for me. My immediate instinct was to say that running that marathon was really brutal and I don’t know why I should subject myself to that type of misery ever again. I especially don’t know what I need to prove to myself or anyone by hitting this arbitrary metric I set for myself. So that’s not really what any of it is about at this point.

If I were to run again, it would probably be to try to knock off the six majors. This means I would need to do New York, Berlin, London, and Tokyo. Will that actually happen? I doubt it. These things are grueling and time-consuming, and as much as running marathons can be kind of fun, I am interested in other things. The reality is, I never thought I would ever run one marathon, let alone a half-marathon. When I ran my first 5k, it was a thing. Then a 10k. Then a half. Then a full. In life, we constantly find ourselves  capable of doing things we once thought impossible. The races are fun, but I wonder what other challenges await, and what other impossibilities may become possible.

So, what was the highlight? Obviously it was the last couple tenths of a mile where I FaceTimed with my wife and daughter. There is no greater feeling than seeing the people you love the most to boost you through an otherwise challenging time. In that moment I almost forgot entirely that I was in any sort of pain. Hearing words of encouragement from my wife and seeing my daughter giggle and smile while we crossed the finish line together made it all just seem worth it.