Even though my identity in my 20's was completely built around being a cyclist, I never took much joy in the usual cyclist practice of bashing runners. The truth is, I envied them. I had just turned 9 years old when Frank Shorter won the Olympic Marathon and I was instantly enamored with it. I tried so hard to be a runner. I was doing 60-mile weeks at age 12. But, genetics had other plans. By the time I was in High School, it was obvious that I simply was not put together like the really good runners. I could be good, but I'd never be really good and greatness was completely out of the question. I looked for sports more suited to my body type and found cycling. I didn't get great at cycling, but I did get really good. While it wasn't enough to live on, I had a license and a contract that said I was a professional athlete. I thought that was cool. Still, I wished I had been a runner. So, when I retired from cycling, I decided to run a marathon.
I think I can be excused some hubris. Cycling is an endurance sport that uses predominantly legs, heart, and lungs. In the winter, I'd run to stay in shape and 10-15 miles runs were common. Anytime I'd enter a local race, I'd do pretty well. My 5K PR is a solid 16:20. I've heard about "hitting the wall", but I've also ridden dozens of cycling races that were five hours or longer and know how to manage effort. It seems like it won't take more than a few long runs to put a marathon effort together. My longest run prior to this is 15 miles. I extend that with a training runs of 18, 20, and 22 at around 8:30 per mile. I'm tired at the end, but not crushed. I decide that three and a half hours (8-minute miles) is a reasonable target. In retrospect, it probably was, but the devil is in the details.In the intervening 25 years, I've observed a lot of details. I've also got pretty good at estimating my finish time. I have three workouts I use for that.
The first is the classic "Yasso 800s" named for Bart Yasso who originally published the relationship in Runner's World. It couldn't be simpler. Run 10x800m as fast as you can given that they all have to be roughly the same time (within a second or two). Your average time in minutes:seconds is the hours:minutes for your marathon. Like many others, I've found this predicts just a bit fast, so I always add five minutes. In August, I knock out ten at 2:54. That points to a 2:59 for this year's effort at Chicago.
The second is a baseline race; some race that I ran before another marathon where both the race and the marathon were good efforts. I then scale the time difference. I run the Big River 10 in September and finish third in 66:20. That's 20 seconds slower than three years ago when I won it outright and then ran a 2:58 at Milwaukee. Scaling that delta to a three hour effort again points to 2:59.
The final is "The Duck". It's a 3-mile tempo loop around Mallard Lake that I run pretty regularly so I have a long history of Duck times converted to performances in races. It takes a bit more discipline to get this one right because tempo is not "all out". I run this in late September and get a prediction of 3:01. Close enough; it appears I should be trying for a sub-3, but not much more than that.
These are all part of the larger 18-week training cycle leading up to the marathon which averages 90 miles a week, 35-40 of those going towards two or three quality workouts and the rest base (which, for me these days, is simply running to and from work).
My fiance, Kate, drives with me to Chicago. She's supportive, but makes no bones about the fact that she's really just happy to spend a night in a downtown Chicago hotel and go to a fancy restaurant. Check and check, though it taxes every bit of restraint in our waiter to not roll his eyes when we order a bottle of White Zinfandel. We walk back to the hotel in the darkness along the riverfront. There are moments so perfect you replay in your mind the rest of your life. This is one of them.My wife, Kate, drives with me to Chicago. She's supportive, but makes no bones about the fact that she's really just happy to spend a night in a downtown Chicago hotel and go to a fancy restaurant. As I've found these things go better if we save the latter for after the race, I've booked two nights and made reservations Sunday at a place that doesn't have a White Zin on the wine list. We get an early dinner at Gino's East and call it a night.
I grew up just outside New York City and have spent almost all my adult life within a day trip of Chicago. It's interesting to observe how Chicago has both embraced and resented the "Second City" label it picked up when it passed Philadelphia in the 1890 census. The good folks of Cook County don't want to be New Yorkers, but they sure don't mind beating them. In 1993, Chicago is locked in a battle with the New York Road Runners Club to host the world's largest marathon and logistics are lagging the hype. This is before multiple waves, start corrals, or chip timing were a thing. You basically show up in the vicinity of the start line and wait for the gun to go off. As such, lining up next to the sign that has 3:30 on it means starting with a bunch of runners who have little hope of finishing under five hours. It takes eight minutes to get to the start line and another twelve to reach mile one. At 20 minutes per mile, this is going to take a really long time.To get into the "A" corral at Chicago in 2018 as a guy means running a 2:50 (the standard is a bit more lax for women, presumably so the sub-elites have some chance of seeing each other). My 2:59:40 qualifier puts me in the B corral. It turns out that I could have petitioned to be moved up to the A corral at the number pickup the day before, but I'm not sure how anyone was supposed to know that. Anyway, with fewer than a thousand runners in the A corral, I'm still close enough to the front that I plan on gauging my effort by gun time rather than chip. Unfortunately, start procedures are still one of the few things Chicago doesn't do as well as Boston or New York. When the gun fires, we're held up by tape while the elites and then the A-corral head off. I guess this is to relieve congestion on the course, but it also means that there will be a significant difference between my gun and chip time. After about a minute they start releasing us, but the tape gets all wrapped around everybody. Nobody goes down but, in the confusion, I forget to check the time on the clock as I cross the line. I don't wear a watch, so I'll just have to assume that it was around a minute. There's not really much I can do with that information anyway. I get to the first mile at 8:05 and figure I'm probably just on the high end of the 6:50-7:00 I was targeting. Better slow than fast for mile one. I relax into the pace.
Miles two and three are closer to 10 minutes each. The road is jammed from curb to curb, but I've spent the last 15 years learning how to move up inside a pack of cyclists and find the same techniques work pretty well in running. Shortly after mile three, I find I have enough room to run my pace, but there's still the question of what pace that should be. A 3:30 isn't looking very likely, but I'd still like to be "comfortably" under 4 hours. I settle into a 7:00 pace and hold it for the next 10 miles, hitting the half in around 1:50. That's close enough to my original goal that I decide to get off the gas as my legs are starting to feel the effort. This doesn't alarm me in the least as big pushes early in the race are pretty common in cycling. Usually, it just takes a few minutes of soft pedaling to right matters. I'm about to find out that running doesn't work that way.As I head towards the northern end of the course, two things concern me. One is that I keep forgetting the seconds from my previous mile split (was that 38 seconds from last mile or two miles ago?). I don't look at the minutes because I'm never off by that much. It seems like I'm holding things in the 6:45-6:50 range, but I worry I might be inadvertently crediting myself for an extra 10-15 seconds due to a missed split. Maybe there is some merit to wearing a watch in a marathon after all. The larger concern is that the pace feels just a bit firm. Not enough that I want to give up on it, but enough that it might get really ugly later in the race. At eight miles, the course turns south and suddenly everything feels easy. Apparently, we've been running into the wind.
I hit the half at 89:35 on the clock. ON THE CLOCK! I'm actually ahead of 3-hour gun pace! I look up the road and, sure enough, there's the 3-hour pace group for the A Corral. If I can stay near them the rest of the way, I'm golden.
Aside from spinning easy for a few miles, one thing I'd be doing to help bounce back from a hard start in a bike race would be grabbing something to eat. Unfortunately, I don't have anything on me and the aid stations only offer drinks. My easier pace brings up mile 15 in just under 2:10, but the legs aren't coming back. I'm going to have to dial it back even more.I've tucked a couple gels in my waistband and pull one out and eat it. I've already thrown in two 6:40 miles just before the half. I had figured I could insert three such surges over the course of the race without destroying my legs for the final 10K. I put in one more to try to catch the back of the 3-hour group. I get to within 10 seconds at mile 15. I could try one more hard mile to close the gap, but I feel like I'm right on the edge and decide to go back to high 6:40's.
Things are not going well. My legs aren't coming back at all. In fact, they are completely going away. My stride is reduced to a shuffle. By 18, I'm barely holding 11 minutes/mile. At 20, I can see the finish line, but there's still a three mile out and back along the lake to go. The entirety of my clothing is a singlet, shorts, socks, and shoes. That was chilly, but fine at the 35-degree start but the temperature has dropped rather than warmed. It's now well below freezing and there's a howling wind off the lake. At least it's not sleeting. Oh, now it is.The race organization describes the conditions for the 2018 race as "moderate". I guess I'd agree with that assessment. The temperature has been steady in the low 60's all run and there's been complete cloud cover. It was actually foggy prior to the start. That much humidity would normally be a problem, but we got a nice light rain for the second hour which mitigated fluid loss. I don't feel like I'm any lower than usual going into the final hour.
Just before 18, I make my biggest mistake of the race when I take an energy bar (I thought it was a gel) from an aid station. There's no getting solid food down at this point in the race so I should have just tossed it off. Instead, I try to jam it in my waistband. It turns out that getting things into the waistband pocket while running is a bit awkward. By the time I'm done, I notice that the people I was running with are about five seconds ahead of me. That doesn't sound like much, but it means that I'm now 15 seconds behind the three hour pace group. Even a fourth 6:40 surge won't catch them now. That means I'll not have the protection of a group when we turn back into the wind at mile 23.
I usually pace myself so that I expect to lose about 10 seconds per mile over the last 10K; I've found that results in a faster overall time than even splits. I hit 20 miles at 2:16:30 gun time. If I'm right about having a full minute in hand, that makes the sub-3 pretty much a done deal short of an injury or a complete meltdown (both are possible, of course). Sevens from here will make hitting the finish before the gun clock rolls over a squeaker. I decide every mile I can hold 6:50 is one more in the bank if I fade more than usual.
One of my favorite running authors, Alan Lawrence, writes that "There are few experiences worse than a marathon gone bad. The symptoms reported are those of terminal illness. Many real deaths are probably easier." As my pace continues to degrade, I find myself in complete agreement. I am determined not to walk. My stride is barely the length of my foot, but I manage a microscopic hop from one step to the next.
Coming back from the turnaround, Lake Shore Drive rises to become an elevated highway. It's not much of a climb, but it results in a pathetic 17-minute mile. It would be faster to walk, but I want to be able to say I ran the whole way, even if it is a rather generous definition of running.I don't hold on to 6:50 for long. I'm just under seven through 23, then give up a few more seconds as the course turns into the wind for the grind north to the finish. Most of the people around me have been dropped from the 3-hour group ahead and are struggling so the drafting opportunities are limited. The sense of urgency is palpable. Breaking three is pretty much the biggest prize out there for non-elite runners and we are right on the edge. In one of the things that makes running wonderfully unique among competitive endeavors, we spur each other on as best we can. The clock is the common enemy and we have no weapon to disrupt its advance, but we are united in our defiance.
By mile 24, The sleet has turned to snow and I can't even see the far end of Navy Pier. I tell myself I simply have to find a way to get the last 2.2 miles done in under half an hour. I can't take much more of this.Mile 24 comes with 2:44:45 on the clock. I tell myself I simply have to find a way to get the last 2.2 miles done in under a quarter hour. A sub-3 on the gun clock is too good to pass up.
Since I'm on the elevated section of the highway, the finish is literally in sight, even though it's going to take a while to get there. It's enough to return a tiny amount of bounce in my step and I do finish out the race in about half an hour. I cross the line four hours and thirty four minutes after the gun. I didn't notice the seconds and I never bothered to look them up after results were posted.I push for a few strides which results in a searing pain as one of my abdominals tears. I've never done that in a run before, but figure it can't be good. Surging to the line is not a happening thing today. I back off to 7:10 pace and the pain subsides. The one hill on the course comes right at 26 miles and that adds a few more seconds to my run in.
I hit the line with 3:00:35 on the clock, which I'm pretty sure gives me a sub-3, but I spend the next few minutes trying to get my phone out of my waistband so I can confirm that from the website. The site is obviously getting hammered right now and it takes a while to tell me that I've finished in 2:59:20, good for sixth place in my age group. It's my first (and likely to be only) top-10 in a World Major.
I shuffle through the finish area in a daze. Maybe someone put a medal around my neck; if they did, it's no longer in my possession. At the far end, I meet Kate who spent the morning perusing shops on Michigan Avenue until the weather got nasty. She says her feet are sore. I have no response that wouldn't result in cancelling the wedding, so I let it go.The finish area is a happy place filled with runners that broke three, many for the first time. I collect my medal along with a rather generous (by big city marathon standards, anyway) amount of free food. I also get a text from Kate, who has been abandoned several miles away by an Uber driver who couldn't figure out how to get around the road closings. She says her feet are sore. This time, I have to laugh.
