THE 2018 Chicago Marathon: Part 1
The 2018 Chicago Marathon occurred on October 7th, 2018. But in reality for me, it really started just about a year earlier on October 1st, 2017. It was the 2017 Lakefront Marathon. Summer training had gone really well. Tons of splits within the desired ranges. The M Tempo workouts were spot on. After 1922 days and 8511 training miles, I was ready to achieve a BQ standard and in addition break 3 hours. But it didn't happen for me. Something wasn't right on race day and things just never clicked. I ended up with a still PR of 3:14:05. So I was disappointed with not achieving a sub-3, but had still garnered a PR in the process. It wasn't too long after that race that
@CheapRunnerMike had reached out and had suggested running the Chicago Marathon. If I was in, then Mike would run it as well. The goal was to both run under the 3 hour mark and with the appropriate training in a year's time I felt a sub 2:55 was reasonable.
Winter 2018 training for Dopey went about as well as any training cycle to date. I was in peak physical shape coming into the Dopey Challenge. I was ecstatic with the results with a new 5k PR, 10k PR, HM PR, and only about 2 min from a M PR. It was arguably my best race sequence. But right after returning to running in January, it was clear something was wrong. Eventually it was determined to be a stress fracture. Time off, McMillan Core Routine, Indoor Biking, and a slow return to running was the spring training cycle. Finally in late July, I ran a training run that at least put me on the same level as pre-Dopey. But come early August, another injury this time to my ankle. An undetermined diagnosis of tendonitis led to some more time off, more biking, and another slow return to running. But by the time Chicago came up, my fitness was not where I wanted to be a year ago, and I was still dealing with an ankle/shin injury. So while nearly 365 days earlier I had dreams of another BQ attempt, because of the rollercoaster of training experiences over the last year I was relegated to a survive the Chicago Marathon goal.
Thursday (10/4/18)
The prep for the Chicago Marathon itself started on Thursday. Because of the traveling and goal for this to serve as a family vacation as well, I decided to do the Western Australian Carb Loading procedure early. So I consumed 8 packets of Maurten Drink Mix 320 (632 g carbs), eggs/oatmeal (97 g carbs), chicken sandwich and pasta leftovers (100g carbs), and pasta (75g carbs) equals a total of 905 grams carbs. For my assumed body weight of 75kg, that means I consumed about 12 g carbs/kg bw in reality. The beauty of the Maurten carb load is it was extremely easy and didn't feel challenging at all with the reduced water burden.
Friday (10/5/18)
We started our drive from WI to Chicago at 10:00am. It was mostly uneventful and we arrived in Chicago around 1:30pm. Parking was a bit tough to figure out at the McCormick Expo center, but we eventually figured it out. We headed into the expo and found
@roxymama,
@ZellyB, and
@Chris-Mo. Nervousness was abound. Mostly everyone was concerned about the weather and more so the shakeout run on Saturday morning at 6:30am. We split after a few moments of chatting and headed in different directions. Checked out the Nike gear, the runDisney medals, and ate a small lunch (pizza and banana). After some time walking around the expo, we made our way back to the car to head to the hotel.
We were staying at the Chicago Athletic Association right off Michigan Ave and right next to the Chicago Marathon start line. Just an FYI for anyone staying there in the future, the valet parking for the CAA is not off of Michigan Ave, it's off W Madison St. When it comes to doing laps around the hotel, it added quite a bit of extra time. But we figured it out eventually (3rd times the charm)! It was a very trendy hotel. Nice views and a nice clean room.
We settled into the hotel room, and then we headed out towards dinner. We first hit up the
Disney store (obvi) and did some shopping. Then it was off to Rainforest Cafe. Steph thought G might enjoy all the animals and such. Not quite. The "thunder" noises in the jungle freaked her out. The food was "meh" as well. So overall, everything about the trip to Rainforest Cafe was not a repeat for us. Well expect for the t-shirt I saw in the store. "I'm into Fitness. In to fit-en-nis taco in my mouth!". It was pretty funny. We headed back to the hotel and called it a night.
Saturday (10/6/18)
Saturday morning at 6:30am was going to be the DIS meet up at shakeout run on the Lakefront trail. Mother nature didn't like that plan and totally through it threw a loop. Lightning was a problem and was forecasted to occur right at 6:30-7:00am. So we unfortunately had to cancel. It was such a bummer as this was our best chance for everyone to meet up. Once the weather cleared, the three of us headed over to Wildberry Pancakes. Great choice! Seemed like we had perfect timing too because minutes after we arrived, so did everyone else in the city. Wait times jumped dramatically right after us. I had some delicious pancakes and oatmeal.
After breakfast we headed over to Stan's Doughnuts. I decided to hold back and only get 4 doughnuts (LOL). I got a PB/Banana doughnut, PB doughnut, apple fritter, and apple cinnamon doughnut. Lots of great choices. As we were heading out of Stan's we ran into
@cburnett11 on his shakeout run. It was nice to chat even though we didn't get a long opportunity. We decided to take the doughnuts back to the hotel and then make our way to the aquarium.
It was only a 1.5 mile walk to the aquarium so we decided to do that instead of some other transportation.
Arrived at the aquarium not long after it opened and was able to walk right inside with no line. It was a great experience. The giant Japanese spider crabs were insane! Like I've never seen a crab so large and so darn creepy. They had penguins, beluga whales, dolphins, crabs, sharks, etc. etc. etc. It was a nicely spent several hours to the morning. When we left, it was a sigh of relief because the line to get in the aquarium looked like it was now an hour long. So we timed this arrival really well again!
We made our way from the aquarium over to Sienna Tavern. Steph wanted to try this restaurant because it was established by Fabio from Top Chef. So we arrived and got seated next to a really weird group of people. On man, hey there
@roxymama! LOL, what are the odds. I knew she was headed there for dinner, but I wasn't expecting to run into her and her family at 1:30pm. It was fun meeting her family again as well as chatting via text message during a few funny moments. We went with meatballs, gnocchi, pizza, pasta, etc. The meal was top notch and I highly recommend it for those in the Chicago area. Said bye ti
@roxymama and we got a Lyft back to the hotel. I just settled in and rested for the rest of the day preparing for the big race. After about 8 miles of walking throughout the day, I needed to take some rest.
Watched the first half of the Badger game, and then I settled in for bed around 8pm.
THE 2018 Chicago Marathon: Part 2