It's been almost 3 weeks, but I'm still running on my marathon high and with the NYC marathon tomorrow, I wanted to write about my own race experience at lat month's Chicago Marathon.
Last year I finally qualified for Boston–after several attempts. Registration for the 2015 race wasn't until September and to be honest, I didn't need to run a marathon this fall. And I said I wouldn't. However, given some of the hiccups from last year's race, I thought I was capable of more and set out to find a race in October.
I deliberated between Chicago and Steamtown. One is a big-city, excitement-filled race that I've already run. The other was new, closer, small-town(ish) and easier to travel to. Both are flat. Since I had friends running, and I had a time qualifier and given the changing qualifications standards for big races, I figured this was a good opportunity to run Chicago again. Steamtown wasn't going anywhere and I'll probably run it someday.
Decision made. And it was now time to train.
Earlier this year, after getting a PR at the RnR DC half (1:38:42) and then another one for the Brooklyn half (1:36:08), I was off to a good start. I spent the summer building up my mileage, and doing speed workouts and tempo runs. Fortunately, this summer was better than most others from a humidity standpoint. Although I still had a few tough runs thrown in there for fun.
In September, I ran the Queens half, which was 4 weeks before Chicago. This was meant to be a test of my fitness and see what I could realistically aim for. I woke up to a cool morning and made my way to Flushing Meadows park to run with 950 other runners. And my training was paying off. I got another PR (1:35:51), placed 7th female overall, and 2nd in my age group. I was on track for Chicago.
Fast forward 4 weeks and I had arrived in Chicago. Two years ago–the last time I ran Chicago–my race didn't quite go to plan. I'm still not entirely sure what went wrong, but one of the factors could have been traveling the day before the race and running around the city (airport, hotel, expo, etc). I may have just tired myself out and I felt it in the last 8 miles of the race. This year, I arrived on Friday instead and made my way to the expo to get it out of the way (and also where I spent too much money on race gear). I had a quiet pasta dinner at the hotel and tried to get some sleep (not quite successful).
The next morning, I headed down to the finish line area in Grant Park for my standard shakeout run (approximately 3 miles). I met up with my friend and we took a few selfies at the Bean (The Cloud). After a shower, I spent the rest of the day eating, taking touristy photos, and walking around. I sorted out all my race day essentials and mentally prepared.
But there was one thing I was still debating–what pace do I aim for? Literally up to the pasta dinner the night before, I was trying to decide whether I should aim for 3:25 or 3:20 or somewhere in between.
In the weeks leading up to the race, I spent some time inputting my half marathon PR into various calculators to help me determine what I should do. One told me I could do 3:19, another 3:22. My PR was 3:31. Any of these seemed a bit ambitious. I finally decided to start out at the 3:25 pace and see what happened. This is what I trained for and figured I could speed up if I was feeling good.
Race morning arrived.
I ate my peanut butter sandwich, banana, and clif bar (I learned my lesson on ensuring I ate enough food after running the 2009 NYCM). I got dressed in my CPTC best. And walked to the race start in clear, mid-40 degree weather. Getting inside the race area took longer than expected due to the security measures. I was meeting some friends at baggage and was on time. Unfortunately I didn't see them and 5 minutes after our meeting time, I made my way to the porta potty for one last bathroom stop. I was cutting that a bit close, but I just made it into my corral (way busier and crowded from 2 years ago for sure). There was no way I was going to spot my friends, but I exchanged good luck with a fellow NYC runner that I ran into! I planted myself between the 3:20 and 3:30 pace groups and got rid of my throwaway clothes.
The horn went off.
A couple of minutes later, I crossed the starting line. At the recommendation of my friend, I turned on the manual lap lap on my garmin so my GPS wasn't screwing with me. Given the race is in a city (and we went through a tunnel), it was expected to be a bit off. I wanted to know the time for each mile and not have my watch beep too early. It took a couple of miles to determine what pace I was going and get into a groove. As my results later showed, I did go out a bit faster than I intended. I kept at it for the first 10 miles. The halfway point arrived and I hit 1:40:39. This was great. Assuming I could keep it up of course. I was on track for a 3:20 marathon.
The cheerers along the course were amazing (2nd to NYC). With an earlier race start, it's nice to see people come out and support the marathoners and the city of Chicago. I didn't know too many people out there, but got to see my friend's husband (and teammate) several times and a friend that lives in Chicago. There were some other NYC supporters and got a bunch of CPTC cheers. I also got a few "go Canada" cheers. This happens a lot since our uniform has a maple leaf on it. I was ok with it and just smiled.
I approached mile 21 and felt pretty good. I was going to hold off on speeding up for another mile or so, but decided, what the hell, go for it. I picked up my pace and picked people off for the next 5.2 miles. A couple of miles from the finish, I was confident that I would get 3:20 if I didn't slow down. But of course mile 26 was in the middle of a hill. Now, on any other day, this incline is nothing. But after running 26 miles, it's killer. I feel like Harlem Hill would be better at this point. At least that's a real hill. But I had my sights on the finish line and after turning that last corner, I made a beeline to the finish. I knew I hit 3:20, but it wasn't until after checking my watch that I saw that my time was 3:19:55! I was so happy with a 3:20 finish. So I was beyond thrilled when I saw that I broke that. I got my medal and Goose Island beer, and reunited with my friends.
I spent the rest of the day basking in my finish, celebrating with a few drinks and friends, and eventually made my way to the airport to head back to NYC.
Later this year, I'll kick off training for Boston, which I'm really excited about. Not excited about the winter training, but I'm sure I can motivate.
I'm sending fast thoughts to my sister, friends, teammates, co-workers, and everyone else running tomorrow!
Last year I finally qualified for Boston–after several attempts. Registration for the 2015 race wasn't until September and to be honest, I didn't need to run a marathon this fall. And I said I wouldn't. However, given some of the hiccups from last year's race, I thought I was capable of more and set out to find a race in October.
I deliberated between Chicago and Steamtown. One is a big-city, excitement-filled race that I've already run. The other was new, closer, small-town(ish) and easier to travel to. Both are flat. Since I had friends running, and I had a time qualifier and given the changing qualifications standards for big races, I figured this was a good opportunity to run Chicago again. Steamtown wasn't going anywhere and I'll probably run it someday.
 |
| chicago. |
Decision made. And it was now time to train.
Earlier this year, after getting a PR at the RnR DC half (1:38:42) and then another one for the Brooklyn half (1:36:08), I was off to a good start. I spent the summer building up my mileage, and doing speed workouts and tempo runs. Fortunately, this summer was better than most others from a humidity standpoint. Although I still had a few tough runs thrown in there for fun.
In September, I ran the Queens half, which was 4 weeks before Chicago. This was meant to be a test of my fitness and see what I could realistically aim for. I woke up to a cool morning and made my way to Flushing Meadows park to run with 950 other runners. And my training was paying off. I got another PR (1:35:51), placed 7th female overall, and 2nd in my age group. I was on track for Chicago.
Fast forward 4 weeks and I had arrived in Chicago. Two years ago–the last time I ran Chicago–my race didn't quite go to plan. I'm still not entirely sure what went wrong, but one of the factors could have been traveling the day before the race and running around the city (airport, hotel, expo, etc). I may have just tired myself out and I felt it in the last 8 miles of the race. This year, I arrived on Friday instead and made my way to the expo to get it out of the way (and also where I spent too much money on race gear). I had a quiet pasta dinner at the hotel and tried to get some sleep (not quite successful).
 |
| it is. |
The next morning, I headed down to the finish line area in Grant Park for my standard shakeout run (approximately 3 miles). I met up with my friend and we took a few selfies at the Bean (The Cloud). After a shower, I spent the rest of the day eating, taking touristy photos, and walking around. I sorted out all my race day essentials and mentally prepared.
But there was one thing I was still debating–what pace do I aim for? Literally up to the pasta dinner the night before, I was trying to decide whether I should aim for 3:25 or 3:20 or somewhere in between.
 |
| the bean. |
In the weeks leading up to the race, I spent some time inputting my half marathon PR into various calculators to help me determine what I should do. One told me I could do 3:19, another 3:22. My PR was 3:31. Any of these seemed a bit ambitious. I finally decided to start out at the 3:25 pace and see what happened. This is what I trained for and figured I could speed up if I was feeling good.
Race morning arrived.
 |
| lake michigan sunrise. |
I ate my peanut butter sandwich, banana, and clif bar (I learned my lesson on ensuring I ate enough food after running the 2009 NYCM). I got dressed in my CPTC best. And walked to the race start in clear, mid-40 degree weather. Getting inside the race area took longer than expected due to the security measures. I was meeting some friends at baggage and was on time. Unfortunately I didn't see them and 5 minutes after our meeting time, I made my way to the porta potty for one last bathroom stop. I was cutting that a bit close, but I just made it into my corral (way busier and crowded from 2 years ago for sure). There was no way I was going to spot my friends, but I exchanged good luck with a fellow NYC runner that I ran into! I planted myself between the 3:20 and 3:30 pace groups and got rid of my throwaway clothes.
The horn went off.
A couple of minutes later, I crossed the starting line. At the recommendation of my friend, I turned on the manual lap lap on my garmin so my GPS wasn't screwing with me. Given the race is in a city (and we went through a tunnel), it was expected to be a bit off. I wanted to know the time for each mile and not have my watch beep too early. It took a couple of miles to determine what pace I was going and get into a groove. As my results later showed, I did go out a bit faster than I intended. I kept at it for the first 10 miles. The halfway point arrived and I hit 1:40:39. This was great. Assuming I could keep it up of course. I was on track for a 3:20 marathon.
The cheerers along the course were amazing (2nd to NYC). With an earlier race start, it's nice to see people come out and support the marathoners and the city of Chicago. I didn't know too many people out there, but got to see my friend's husband (and teammate) several times and a friend that lives in Chicago. There were some other NYC supporters and got a bunch of CPTC cheers. I also got a few "go Canada" cheers. This happens a lot since our uniform has a maple leaf on it. I was ok with it and just smiled.
I approached mile 21 and felt pretty good. I was going to hold off on speeding up for another mile or so, but decided, what the hell, go for it. I picked up my pace and picked people off for the next 5.2 miles. A couple of miles from the finish, I was confident that I would get 3:20 if I didn't slow down. But of course mile 26 was in the middle of a hill. Now, on any other day, this incline is nothing. But after running 26 miles, it's killer. I feel like Harlem Hill would be better at this point. At least that's a real hill. But I had my sights on the finish line and after turning that last corner, I made a beeline to the finish. I knew I hit 3:20, but it wasn't until after checking my watch that I saw that my time was 3:19:55! I was so happy with a 3:20 finish. So I was beyond thrilled when I saw that I broke that. I got my medal and Goose Island beer, and reunited with my friends.
I spent the rest of the day basking in my finish, celebrating with a few drinks and friends, and eventually made my way to the airport to head back to NYC.
Later this year, I'll kick off training for Boston, which I'm really excited about. Not excited about the winter training, but I'm sure I can motivate.
I'm sending fast thoughts to my sister, friends, teammates, co-workers, and everyone else running tomorrow!
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