As most of you already know, it sucked. It sucked a lot. The weather forecast for Sunday was never very good, but I don’t think anybody realized just how bad it would be. The Trib and Sun-Times both have decent write-ups, but since a lot of you have emailed, here’s what happened from my perspective.
I’m not sure what the temperature was at 8:00am when the race officially started, but it was very humid, and my heart rate shot up to 175 after just one mile (usually at this point it’s around 155). I knew it was going to be a tough run, so I started taking extra walk breaks—I walked every hill, even if it was just a slight incline, plus my normal one minute walk break every 8 minutes.
I run with a 16-ounce water bottle, even during races, and I’m glad I did. The first two water stations were a mess, with some tables running out of water. I saw runners between miles 5 and 6 veering off course in Lincoln Park to splash in and drink from one of the decorative fountains. At first I smiled at the sight, but then I realized that I’d gone through most of my 16 ounces of water/Gatorade mix already. (I normally try to save my own water for later in a race, when I’m tired and might need more hydration than what the course offers). This was bad.
I slowed down to a 12-minute pace, and I did okay until I hit the West Loop around mile 14. I’d been warned that this was a “shade-impaired” part of the course. Indeed. No shade, fewer spectators, and NO water/Gatorade stations. Not one. (I learned later that there were stations there at the beginning of the race, but they ran out of water and had to pack up). I’d been able to get my water bottle refilled at an earlier aid station, but wow—I had to take a LOT more walk breaks just to keep my heart rate under 180.
Somewhere between miles 17 and 18, I heard a policewoman say that the race had been “called off.” I stopped and asked what that meant. She said that they were no longer timing the race. So I kept run/walking, but as it got hotter, I had to walk more and run less. Eventually the policemen and women got their megaphones out and started yelling, “Attention runners: Stop running and start walking. Stop running and start walking. The race is over.” I had to ask another policeman what this meant. He said we could keep walking or wait for the support buses to pick us up. Another policewoman yelled that we’d be okay if we kept walking, because they were cutting “three or four miles off the race.” I kept walking—I didn’t see the point of dropping out at mile 18 as long as I felt okay (hot as hell, but okay), and as one runner near me pointed out, who knew when the support buses might come?
More walking, more confusion. At one intersection, half the runners had turned to walk down one street, and the other half were continuing along the course. I asked another policemen what was going on. He asked if I wanted the long way or the short way—they were starting to divert people. I wanted to finish this damn race, so I chose the long way and headed toward Chinatown. There were people holding signs saying, “Race course CLOSED. Walk to next aid station 1/2 mile for buses.” There were policemen driving down the street next to the walkers saying that there were no more water or aid stations for the rest of the course. I started to hear sirens and see ambulances everywhere. The aid stations were overflowing with collapsed runners, and there were dozens of runners lying down on the sidewalks along the route. Since the water and Gatorade stations had mostly closed down by this point, we were relying on the spectators who showered us with their hoses, let us fill our water bottles from them, and even offered us their own bottles of water. I saw runners stopping into convenience stores for Gatorade. I saw street vendors handing out free popsicles. People came out of their homes with bags of ice cubes for us.
The course never closed, though, at least not while I was on it. I walked the last nine miles, up the final hill, and ran across the finish line a full hour and a half after my estimated finish time of 4:45.
And those last nine miles hurt. There’s no way I could have run them in the heat, but since I trained to run and not to walk, I now have terrible shin splints, and since I was out on the course a lot longer than I’d planned on, I’m sorer, stiffer, more sunburned, and more chafed. A bank sign said that it was 93 degrees at one point; somebody else said it had gotten up to 96; certainly the humidity never got better. The race was a huge disappointment and very unsatisfying—of course the freakish weather was nobody’s fault, but it’s hard not to think that race organizers couldn’t have made some changes in the two unseasonably warm weeks before the race. (I read today in the Trib that they arranged to serve 200,000+ more cups of water and have “cooling buses” along the route. That was the first I’d heard about cooling buses). It’s also hard not to be angry about the lack of water and Gatorade, especially because race organizers are telling news outlets that there weren’t any shortages, and that perhaps the problem was that people were taking several cups of water to drink and throw on their heads. Um, if the middle-of-the-packers aren’t getting any water at mile 5, there’s a problem. If people are throwing water on their head, it’s because they need to, not because they enjoy making the run suck for the people behind them. I only got Gatorade twice on the entire route, which was kind of frightening (you need Gatorade to restore electrolyte balance; I use a rather disgusting substance called Gu to do the same thing, but too much Gu gives me… gastrointestinal distress). The sight of people lying on the sidewalks all around me made it look like a natural disaster had hit the South Side of Chicago. I found out later that over 300 people were taken to the hospital; another couple hundred were treated on-site, with one volunteer telling me that she had to wait 45 minutes to get an IV for a runner; they apparently used all the Chicago ambulances and were calling them in from the suburbs (the ambulances I saw on the South Side were suburban).
I’m glad, of course, that I finished the race without requiring medical assistance, but I do wish it had been a better experience. I wore the words “Marathon Virgin” on my back, and everybody who passed me in the first few miles said, “It’s not always like this!” I sure hope not, because after this experience, I definitely feel like I have to do another one. Yesterday was a test of nothing but my stubbornness—certainly not a test of what I’ve been training to do for the last six months.
There were good things, too, mostly in the first half of the race. Nobody warned me that running a marathon is emotional, and there were all kinds of things that made me choke up—like any kid wearing a t-shirt or holding a sign for “mommy” or “daddy,” which made my eyes water. Other memorable things:
- the guy dressed up as a giant pair of testicles
- all the elderly men and women outside the senior citizens’ homes in Lakeview and Lincoln Park, some of whom were watching in wheelchairs. They all smiled and cheered and gave high fives.
- the bald little boy in Lakeview wearing a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society t-shirt, cheering on all the Team in Training runners.
- the Frontrunners’ water table at mile 8, run by a gay/lesbian association. They featured a group of men doing drill team dances on tables—the men were wearing camo shorts and carrying inflatable guns. One of the guys giving out water wore a pierced septum and a tutu. It was amazing.
- all the thousands of spectators in the Loop who yelled and cheered and carried signs.
- the thousands of spectators in Lakeview and Lincoln Park who sprayed us with their garden hoses.
- all the spectators who saw my name on my chest and yelled, “Go Laura! You can do it!” I choked up every single time.
- the spectators in the West Loop and South Side who cheered us on, gave us ice cubes, bought runners water with their own money, and gave out popsicles.
- the guy I walked near for the last couple miles of the race who was dressed up like Spiderman.
- all the firemen who opened up fire hydrants for us in those last few miles.
- the British contingent during “International Mile” on the South Side, which included a guy in a kilt shouting, “Well done! Well done!”
- the policewoman who stood at mile 25, yelling at the top of her ample lungs, “Don’t let them tell you the race is over! Don’t let them tell you your time doesn’t count! I SEE YOU OUT HERE! I KNOW YOU’RE OUT HERE! KEEP GOING!”
- everybody who sent me text messages throughout the race and who came to cheer me on. I might have taken the short way had I not known that y’all were waiting for me on the route. It didn’t even matter that I didn’t see some of you—just knowing you were there kept my legs moving. Y’all are awesome.
Filed under: marathon, running by admin2
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