10/10/10 Chicago Marathon race report pt. 2

Here's how my Sunday went down, for those of you who like details.

By 6:30am, I was at the host hotel, meeting up with Carla.  She, too, was aiming for a sub-5 hour marathon.  We walked over to gear check, met up with Carla's friend Kim, and headed to the portapotty lines around 7am.  After waiting... and waiting... and waiting in the line, we were only maybe halfway to the toilets.  The crowds were too thick for any sort of clandestine public urination, but at least we could see the corrals.  Little did we realize that the entrance to the open corral was actually several blocks away.  We finagled our way in, but we weren't able to push quite up to the 5 hour pace team.

By 8am, we'd crossed the start line.  We got into an even pace pretty quickly; the crowds were thick, but it wasn't too bad.  Our first few miles were pretty even with pace.  There was nice shade and good crowd support, and we chatted away, stopping at every water station.  I didn't mention it to Carla at first, but every mile made me more nervous about my ability to keep up our pace.  It was already a hot day and I was exhausted.  By mile 7 or 8, it was harder than it should have been to maintain that pace while talking.  I was sweaty and dehydrated.  Carla gave me a salt pill around mile 9 or 10, but I expected a quick pick-me-up and instead I was still plodding.  By 10am and the halfway point, I'd lost her for good.  I had become a liability at this point.

Carla, for the record, is a saint.  She's fun to run with, completely likable, and she carries extra salt pills.  I was sorry to watch her go, but I felt powerless to hold on.  (She went on to rock her marathon, running 5:07 with consistent splits despite the weather.)

What do you do when you realize halfway through a marathon that your race, as you planned it, is over?  I kept going.  I wanted to wear the shirt, and - worst of all - I knew that DNFing would mean that I'd have to do yet another training run.  But seriously - my race was over.  I was done mentally and mostly done physically at this point.  With the sunniest, hottest half of the race left to complete.

Watch your step.

So I plodded on.  It was slow, with as much walking as running.  I took water at every station and wished desperately that the "Event Alert System" would change to black and the race would be canceled (it got up to red but never black).  I ran through misting stations and tried not to trip over soggy, deteriorated cups or banana peels or orange peels or sponges in the middle of the road.  I took ice from police on the course and avoided ambulances (several; scary).  I tried to help a woman who was throwing up fairly aggressively and was reprimanded by her friend: "She's with me. She has help."

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I hate negative signs intended to cheer me on.  I love Chicago for its crowd support, but what about when that support is, well, unsupportive?  I got actually angry every time I'd see a sign that said something like, "Stop Lollygagging!" or, "If you can read this, you should be running faster."  Some of these signs were downright mean.  And the one saying "Morticians up ahead - look alive"?  I haven't heard reports of anyone having died this year, but that one freaked me out.

By 20, I was still able to pick it up now and then, but it was rough.  My stomach was full of fluid but my mouth was parched.  I don't remember mile 25 very well, except that I just wanted the f*&$ing thing over with, now.  I physically couldn't run.  I didn't want water.  My body wasn't cooperating and my mind had completely given up.  The only way I can explain it is that if someone had said, "Tracy, here's $10,000 for you if you can jog it in to the finish, even if slowly" I would have said, "No thanks, Imma walk this one out."  I turned onto Mt. Roosevelt and saw a medical tent (the finish line was literally in sight at this point) and considered stopping.  Instead I pushed myself forward, somehow.  I kept asking myself, "Do you know your name? Do you know what date it is?" just to test myself to make sure I wasn't completely losing it (I couldn't remember if it was Sunday or Monday - I knew it was a holiday weekend - but otherwise I was good.)

Taste: repulsive.
Powers: magical.

At 1:46pm, I crossed the finish line and immediately burst into tears.  Sobbing, hysterical, terrific tears.  Nothing like this has happened to me before - I wasn't emotional, I was just exhausted.  They weren't tears of relief; I thought I was going to die.  I got my medal and stumbled to the medical tent.

I've DNF'd a few races, but I've never, never ended up in a medical tent.  I've never even seriously considered a medical tent.  A friend saw me finish said that I looked completely unaware of my surroundings, and that at one point in the last 200m a cop darted across the course - my friend thought that the cop was on his way to see if I needed aid, I looked that bad.  Weirder still, evidently I didn't acknowledge the cop (because I didn't see him).  Yeah, I was out of it.

Twenty minutes, one wet towel, one misting station, an RN, an MD, and a Gatorade recovery drink later and I felt better.  An hour later and I actually felt good.  Like, quite good.  Perky.  Happy.  Hungry.  Not at all sore.  It was the heat that did me in.  You'd think after all the time I've spent dehydrated in the hot, Egyptian sun that I'd recognize the symptoms of heat exhaustion, but noooo.  It's a marathon; you're supposed to be sweating and have a rapid pulse.

That is a massive plate of Carson's chicken & ribs and a smiling, recovered me.

And finally, from the "that's really cool" file, check out this video of the start from Runner's World.  If you squint closely, you maybe, maybe, maybe can see me in my orange shirt and blue skirt:



Tomorrow: the Chicago Marathon recap ends with some lovely, lovely, lovely photos of me.