This blog post was started back in September, and finished after the race in October.

Marathon #3 – A major. Not sure how major it will be for me. Training is slow, but I am feeling good. I ran 14.70 miles on Sunday, stretched and took a cool shower to semi-ice the legs and overall I am good, the soreness is not as bad anymore.

Why a major everyone asks, why Chicago? I have decided that marathons are really just a good way to see new cities. We get an excuse to travel and have a weekend away, and then we feel great because we completed a major accomplishment. My goal is to beat my last marathon time, I would love to get between 4:20-4:30 but as I have realized on my long runs, I take breaks and my pace slows after about mile 10, so this is something I need to work on.  I am continuing the training and will run my only long run of 20 miles in 2 weeks, then start tapering. Only about 4 weeks until the race. Here we go!

Well, here I am a week after the race. I got in all my long runs, got through all the training, but in the end, no PR, but definitely a marathon that will go down as one of my favorites. The city of Chicago is awesome, so much to see and learn and wonderful food to eat. The race itself was super packed. There were a total of 45,000 runners registered for the race, which means there is no stretching out, there are no long open spots, its people, people and then some more people all around you. Which is really fun, the energy is high and the support was amazing, people on every corner lined up 3-4 lines deep. But because of all this support, so much to see, lots of water to drink, and lots of potty stops. That’s my main problem on the marathon distance runs, I see the stop every 2-3 miles and well, if I have to go I usually stop. Luckily, I felt great the whole time I was running, sure my back ached and my feet were tired but I  did not kill myself, I felt like I could keep going, I had energy left in my tank to pick up the speed at the end and run that first, last and final hill that they place the finish line on top of.

Overall, the race was a lot of fun and even though I had my pre-race jitters (as I  always do) and I although during training and while I was getting up at 5am to get ready, I thought maybe this would be my last race, when I finally got running I had a great time and I also realized I am not giving up marathons.  I will do more, but I think one a year is probably a good number for me.

In the end my time was not in that 4:20-4:30 range, but actually ended up being 4:51, which is not horrible, but its not a PR and with the course the way it is, nice and flat, it would be a race you could do quickly if you didn’t stop. I imagine the guy that won the race, in 2:05 didn’t stop to pee.