Chicago 2006 - In Leah's Eyes

On Friday night after watching the brilliant movie 'Stick It' (by the makers of 'Bring It On') Jason and I went to bed at about 9:30. I knew there was no point in getting to bed any earlier because I wouldn't have fallen asleep anyways. I tossed and turned for about an hour, but I didn't wake up at all during the night which was great. We woke up at 5:00 (hit snooze), so we woke up at about 5:15 or so. I was a bit tired and really crabby because of the weather. All of a sudden I hear music blasting in our apartment :

Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight .....

(I am sure our neighbors love us)

Jason made a wake up music list....so after dancing around to Eye of the Tiger we started getting ready. Usually I'll put my number on at the race, but I knew that my hands were going to be so cold that there would be no point. So we got all that taken care of at the apartment. Our parents were at our place at about 6am. We all had breakfast and some coffee and then headed on downtown. My dad took Jason and I to the start and Jason's parents went with Sue to where our spectators would be meeting up.

We got of out the car a bit early and walked the last few blocks to the race. All of a sudden my nerves just melted away. All those people down there, everyone was cold and no matter what happened it would all be over soon. I stopped worrying about my time and how we would finish and where we would finish. I was just going to run and make decisions while I was in the race.

We hit the porta potties a couple times and then headed into the corrals. I had planned on warming up with about .75 miles or so, but it was so crowded and it was getting close to go time and so we just said forget it. We took a place that was right next to the 3:50 pace group. I thought this was a good place to start and we could always move up if we felt good or drop back and still make it under4 hours.

As we were standing there all of a sudden someone said, "I think I might know you". We turned around and immediatly recognized Josh. It was really fun seeing someone that we read all about and it made the final 25 minutes before the race start fly by. We did do the layers thing, but I was wishing I had on long sleeves under my t-shirt. We threw away our cheap sweat pants and sweat shirt and were left with our short, tshirt, long sleeve tshirt, gloves and ear band (hat for Jason).

All of a sudden we were on it slowly creeping forward. And then we were running through the start. As usual an amazing feeling. The people running and the people spectating, unreal. This year however I wasn't immediatly going, "Oh my god we have to run really far now" I just ran and looked around at all the happenings around me. All of a sudden we were nearing state and grand where we knew our spectators would be and then we saw the red dots on sticks and smiled for the cameras and we were on our way. We knew we would see spectators again at mile 3.5ish. Our first three miles looked like :

Mile 1-2 (missed mile 1 marker) : 17:48
Mile 3 : 8:38

We saw our spectators soon after this and dropped off our gloves and head coverings and headed on to the north side.

Mile 4: 8:20
Mile 5: 8:21

We stopped for gatorade here and walked a few steps and moved on. Jason and I talked about how effortless the miles were this year. How much we loved our training plan because never in my life would I had thought that miles sub 9 would be "easy" I told Jason if we could keep with the 8:20's I could possibly make Boston if I made up some time from the first 3 miles.

Mile 6: 8:35
Mile 7: 8:30

Well now I would have more time to make up. At this point I didn't think it was out of question, but I knew that it probably was. We started keeping our eyes open for our spectators and there they were! Red dots, go Jason go leah......and we were on it.

Mile 8 : 8:21

We hear someone say "Go Jason" and a few strides too late we realize it was our friend Meghan from Fermi Lab. We continued down Broadway and I love this part of the race because we used to live here. Love the aid station and the cowboy dancers. We passed our old bar and our favorite bartender was outside. We yelled at him and it took him a couple seconds to register who we were (not surprising as when we were friends with him we weren't exactly in running shape :-) ) and cheered us on.

Running up Broadway and onto Clark was awesome as it was last year. A shout out to all the spectators who came out and cheered even though the weather was less than ideal, it's so wonderful having so much crowd support. I was feeling really good at this point and just crusin' through the miles.

Mile 9 : 8:20
Mile 10 : 8:27

Somewhere around here someone had music BLASTING out of their apartment and the song was Sweet Home Chicago which was so fun to hear. We got gatorade at the mile 10 aid station which was on par with our gatorade every 5 mile plan.

Mile 11 : 8:29
Mile 12: 8:29

We knew or spectators were going to be at the corner turning west and yep, there were the red circle, smile wave high five and make the turn. I knew at this point a 3:40 was out of the question. I was feeling really good with the 8:30 miles and knew I wasn't going to have enough to make up the lost time or run much faster.

Mile 13 : 8:28

This part of the race last year was horrible for me. You just go out west and more west and more west, you look south and see people that have already made the turn around and yet you keep going west. I was mentally prepared for this though and so it wasn't so bad.

Mile 14 : 8:29

At this point Jason says, well we are nothing if not consistant.

I did have to stop and tie my shoe, I don't know why I didn't double knot the laces....but I didn't change it here either and would have to stop again in the miles 20 whatever to retie it again.

Mile 15 : 8:38 (shoe lace)
Mile 16 : 8:36 (gatorade)

We saw our spectating crew at about 16.5 which was awesome. It's so bland during this part of the race that it's fun to have something to look forward to. In the video I am saying : "I'm still smiling" (it's really short....but a movie none the less)



Mile 17 : 8:30

Around this point I was noticing that Jason was running behind me instead of next to me. It's not that odd because as we move around people he usually is behind me as we slip between people. I also noticed that my knees were starting to hurt a bit. We stopped to stretch for about 10 seconds.

Mile 18 : 8:49

Now I look back and Jason is farther behind me than I realized. His face has a bad look on it and he says his quads are killing him and for me to go ahead. I ask if he's sure, he says he is....so I go on. We did make this deal before the race. Even though we do all our training together we realize that the race is each our own and so we decided before the race if something were to happen to one of us the other will go ahead. That doesn't mean I wasn't lonely from then on however.

Mile 19 : 8:32
Mile 20 : 8:45

The sun came out at this point and so I took off my outer long sleeve shirt to get rid of some weight and so that I could have my number showing so I could get some pictures taken of me during the race.

Mile 21 : 8:37

I see our spectators at China town and I tell them that Jason is behind me and to wait for him. I was so worried that something really bad had happened, but I told myself that he's so tough and he'll be fine and just to make it through the last 5 miles. So I put my head down and tried to not think about how my knees were hurting and to just get through the last part of the race. I made my new goal at this point to have all the miles be under 9 minutes :

Mile 22 : 8:50
Mile 23 : 8:42
Mile 24 : 8:56
Mile 25 : 8:54

The picture on the right is going up the final hill.....you can't always look pretty.

Mile 26.2 : 10:31 (8:45 pace)

Finishing time : 3:45:41

I am so happy with this finish. I PR'd by about 35 minutes which is HUGE. I love the Pfitz program and will be sticking with that from now on I am guessing. I felt so strong during the race and until the last few, the miles just flew by. I couldn't have done any better than this as I pretty much had nothing left at the end. I'm glad I realized early on that Boston was out of reach and didn't let it ruin my race. What I do know though is I will be able to qualify for Boston next year as I have confidence that I CAN run the kind of miles that is required for a BQ time. With more training I know I'll be there.

I love this running life that I lead. It's my everything. (After My Jason of course).

Congrats to all the Chicago marathon finishers. More to come on the RBF meetup which was a total BLAST. Also stay tuned for Jason's race report.
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Because I can't find graphs in any program that are remotely useful I made my own. Here's my pace per mile comparing it to my average pace. A little fast in the beginning/middle and obviously creeping up towards the end. I do like that my last 3 miles got faster to keep me under that 9 min mark.