Chicago Marathon 2011

The marathon is over here in Chicago. The street sweepers have cleared up the empty Gatorade cups and plastic water bottles littering the ground. It’s impressive how quickly the streets were blocked off, shut down, and cleared out for the runners. A few hours later, and the streets are back to normal.

Steve and I arrived at our post near the 25-mile marker on Michigan Ave. at about 9:30 am. The elite runners were about half an hour away, but we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss them. Besides, it was a great opportunity to hang out with people in our neighborhood. We enjoyed talking to a lady who said her claim to fame was handing a cup of water to last year’s winner as he ran by the water station. She said she earned that honor because she happened to have the longest arms. Her little boy seemed just as eager for the race as she was and was excitedly pointing out all the policemen.

Leading off the marathon were the wheelchairs and hand bikes. The chair/bike riders were impressively beefy, not at all like you would expect long distance runners to look. I was surprised to see only about a dozen or so through the entire race, though.

Moses Mosop of Kenya

As the first runner came by, I was not surprised to see it was a Kenyan. His name is Moses Mosop and he was so fast, with a beautiful smooth stride. I was surprised to see him so far in the lead, though, with just the camera entourage around him. Last I knew from the news there were about eight or nine elite runners together in the lead. Moses won the marathon with a new course record time of 2:05:37. The American, Ryan Hall, came in fifth place.

Before the race started, I’d heard about the female from Russia, Liliya Shubukhova, who was vying for her third Chicago Marathon win in a row! I had forgotten to watch for her in all the excitement, but I managed to take a picture of her running by. I almost missed her, but I swear that is her leg and most of her face. She did end up winning overall female. Winning three consecutive years is a marathon record, male or female.

Liliya Shubukhova of Russia

Wanting to be closer to the big crowds and action, Steve and I made our way north on Michigan until we reached the hill leading to the finish line, which was close to the 26 mile marker on Roosevelt Road. The variety and number of runners passing by us for hours was entertaining and inspirational.

About four hours into the race came the people who really impressed me. They are the everyday, run for fun and fitness, here for the beer, not so elite, have little chance of winning crowd. My kind of people. Some were smiling. Some were grimacing. Some were limping and some were picking up speed heading up the hill for the last half mile. They are the ones I cheered and clapped for. They were running for friends, family, foster kids, stray animals, charities, cancer survivors and victims, and some were running just for themselves. I got a knot in my throat seeing their determination. When someone stumbled or slowed, I wanted to run out and help them. These people were reaching deep inside themselves to bring out the best they had in order to get across the finish line. It was so inspiring.

Finally saw a tutu halfway through the race!

For a lot of people, the marathon is about who wins. For others, it’s all about who finishes. For me, the real winners are those who start. Winning, or even finishing, the race doesn’t happen if there is no start. One single step forward is all it takes to begin. That step doesn’t even happen the day of the race. For many people it starts months in advance. First, there’s the decision to run, goal setting, then planning and training. Today, 45,000 people followed through on their decision by showing up at the starting line. Not everyone finished. I saw a few people taken away by wheel chair. The fact that not everyone finishes will not deter me from starting.

Today, a man I know (Congratulations Rob!) ran his first marathon in Portland, Oregon. During my time at Brundage Bootcamp, he was very supportive and motivational to me. I am so proud of him for running and I want to join the group of marathon runners he became a member of today. Tears came to my eyes as I considered my own purpose and reason for running the Chicago Marathon. Perhaps I will share my reason some day. But not today.

Hill near the finish.

Today, I take my first step towards finishing. I have decided to run the 2012 Chicago Marathon.

Marathon Saturday

One of the great things about Chicago is there is always something going on. This weekend, there isn’t just some thing going on, it’s an amazing thing! The 2011 Chicago Marathon may not begin until 7:30 Sunday morning, but the entire weekend is full of marathon excitement.

Helping out at McCormick Place handing out runner packets gave me marathon fever, so I decided to take a walk down to Grant Park where the run starts and finishes. I was hoping to see some interesting things/people and I wasn’t disappointed. Here’s a link to a map of Grant Park to get an idea of the layout. http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/docs/4fbe599a-f2fe-439c-92ec-9f83dccbc923_document.pdf

Being such a beautiful day, there were lots of pedestrians meandering around. Half the people I saw were wearing some sort of marathon attire, whether it was a brand new Chicago Marathon 2011 t-shirt, a previous marathon tech-shirt, or a shirt simply stating “26.2”. I was becoming envious of this marathon club. The longest race I’ve run is the Butte to Butte, in Eugene, which is a 10k, or 6.2 miles, about half of a half-marathon.

I walked from the apartment on Cullerton, down Indiana Ave. (the map doesn’t show it, but it’s one block east of Michigan and ends @ Grant Park). I took a left at Roosevelt to Michigan, turned right and walked along the park for a bit. The Finish Line was off to my right so I cut through the park to take a look. The street leading to the finish was blocked off because of all the set-up in progress, but I got close enough for a picture. Bleachers lined the chute and I could just imagine the exhausted runners pushing a little harder as they made their way to the line with the crowd cheering them on. 

Working my way around the finish, I headed east toward the lake then went north through Lower Hutchinson Field. This is a great, big open field with lots of baseball diamonds. There is somewhat of a berm around it and every so often wide sets of steps lead from the walkways down to the field. I did some extra walking in this field because there was a fence all the around it that normally isn’t there. I tried to cut across, but ended up walking the perimeter inside the fence until a found a way out, almost back where I went in. So much for trying to take a shortcut.

There were white tents set up for hospitality, medical care, gear check, sponsors, and who-knows-what-else, throughout the park, as well as a few hundred port-a-potties. These were lined up in perfect rows of about 40 in several places. Somehow, with 45,000 people running, and 1.2 million people watching, the marathon, that just doesn’t seem like enough toilets.

Finally, I made it to Buckingham Fountain, where I treated myself to an iced coffee. It was warm out there, around 80 degrees. It’s going to be fairly warm Sunday for the marathon too. Yellow banners were on display warning the runners of the moderate weather conditions for the race. If the weather gets too extreme, the race can be stopped. Also, if the wind blows too hard, any times, record or otherwise, become unofficial.

Around the fountain were gear check tents. These covered an area about the size of the local food-booth strip at the Lane County Fair. Each tent held gear for about 1,000 runners. I cut through this area to Columbus Drive where the Start Line is located. The finish was neat to see, but the Start, well, it’s hard to describe. Even with cars still driving on the road, it was easy to imagine a giant mass of people lined up, ready to run. As I approached the street, I noticed the signs marking the mile pace starting areas. The slowest pace allowed is a 15-minute mile. At that pace, however, it will take a little over six and a half hours to finish.

Walking closer to the start, I came up to my normal pace. I ran a little under 11/mi in the B2B this summer. This still would put me about three blocks from the official Start Line. Continuing north, the pace gets faster until I came to the VIP corrals. These are the sections for the runners who can really move. These people are serious and to keep them from having to climb over the backs of slower runners (like me) they have reserved starting areas that put them ahead of the rest of the pack. There is one Open (where the majority of runners start) and five Closed corrals: A thru D (A being fastest), and then the Elite. The Elite are the gods of the marathon. These are the people who actually have a chance at winning the $100,000 First Place prize. Expect them to come in around two hours. That’s a pace of sub-five per mile.

There are so many runners that it takes about 20 minutes from the time the Elite runners start to when the Open runners get to the starting line. Here is more information on the pace required for the corrals and how to qualify for them: http://www.chicagomarathon.com/CMS400Min/Chicago_Marathon/runner_information/index.aspx?id=4217

Several people were getting pics taken of themselves at the pace markers, so I had to join in. Since it’s not likely I’ll ever be assigned an Elite starting location, I decided that’s where I wanted my picture taken. A group of ladies who are running the marathon together were kind enough to offer to take my pic for me after I took theirs. They were so excited to be running! Like I said earlier, I’m jealous of this group of marathon runners. Next year, I will be one of them.

This year I will be a supportive spectator somewhere around the 21 to 25 mile mark. Here is a map of the course: http://www.chicagomarathon.com/CMS400Min/uploadedFiles/Chicago_Marathon/Runner_Information/11%20Course%20Map%2009-26-11.pdf. I live a couple blocks east of the 25-mile marker. I imagine by this time, the runners need all the encouragement they can get.

It would be wonderful to run with people I know. Half the fun of accomplishing something this big is being able to share the experience of training, and the joy of finishing. Registration opens in February. Let’s RUN together!