I had registered for this race in 2019. I was training well but got sick just a few weeks before the race and I had to drop out of it. They allowed me to extend the registration for the next year. But the 2020 race was washed out because of the pandemic!
While I worked from home in 2020, I had become a slob. I ran very little and less frequently. But something happened around Jan/Feb 2021, I got back into a good training rhythm and started to feel good about my runs…so I decided to take that 2019 registration and run. My original plan was to run Chicago with a few friends, but they had other plans. And I was a lone-solider. As the race neared, I was starting to feel well prepared.
Unlike my usual lazy self, I had booked my flights and hotel early on. The hotels in Chicago are notoriously expensive around this time. Just a month before the race, I read a nasty review of the hotel that I had booked and I had to cancel it. By this time, most good hotels were sold out. So I started looking for AirBnB and I was nervous about booking a “private room” in a house. It was in the Hyde-Park neighborhood. The pictures looked good, the neighborhood seemed nice, so I went ahead and booked it. On top of all of this, my wife had to travel to India at the same time. But I knew that I could count on my friends to watch my two babies and a hyperactive dog! So I decided to make this trip as short as possible. I flew out of Oakland on an early morning flight and was planning to fly back right after the race.
The first step was the BIB pickup at McCormick Place. It’s a huge place (convention center), I guess, it is normal in Chicago Style. I’m too familiar with the usual drama at the bib-pick-ups — typical American consumerism on display (Yeah, you need those $25 pair of running-socks at a 10% discount, and sure you need the “tub of lube”, just for the race). I thought I’ll be in and out in an hour. But I was shocked to see a very long line that was not moving at all. I guessed COVID screening etc. might be taking longer than usual. It was only partly true. I started to get the sense of, how BIG this race was, only after the line started moving. We made looping and curving lines through the lobbies and through a MASSIVE structure that looked like a warehouse. The whole affair took 2 hours, even without hunting for freebies at the event! By now, I was very tired, given I was up since 3:30 AM PST, and wanted to just crash. I didn’t feel like eating either, so I took a Lyft and went straight to my Airbnb.
The neighborhood looked good, but I saw a bunch of teenagers/kids hanging around and the smell of weed was in the air. I decided to ignore it and went to my house. The house was very clean, so that was a relief. I guessed 3 bedrooms in the house and hoped that housemates would be sane people. I settled down there and thought of taking a nap, but couldn’t sleep. Then I heard someone opening the main door and entering the house. I came out of my room to check. I saw a slim, tall african-man. He was sporting a red jacket with “Kenya” written on the back. He told me that he was here for the race as well. I was super happy to find this running buddy in the house. After exchanging pleasantries and running stats, we decided to carbo-loading dinner together. I found George to be a very nice gentleman and when he said, he is a “recreational runner”, I knew that he was being too modest. While he told me that he was aiming for a sub-4 (which is a HUGE thing in itself for me), he finished the race in 3:24!
We walked to Nella, for dinner, the place looked swanky and modern. It was full so the hostess sat us by the bar. That day, a very beautiful lady and the general manager of the place worked as a bartender. Both of us ordered our pasta. It took more than an hour for food to arrive. I don’t do very well if I didn’t get a good night's sleep and had stayed hungry for longer. This is exactly what was happening to me. My pasta was bad, I ate a little bit and then we walked out. On the way home, we decided to walk to nearby Walgreens to grab something for breakfast. And my stomach had decided to go on full-on revolt. I had to dash out of the store, trying to not throw up in there. I barely managed to not make a mess in the store. Back inside, I picked up a few Tums and a couple of Lara's bars for breakfast and went back to the room. George and the cashier in the Walgreens were very gracious in helping me.
George and I walked back to the house and I headed for the bed. But I could not sleep, stayed up till midnight. And that’s when my mind started to play tricks on me... “Would I be able to run after throwing up and not sleeping well for two days in a row before the race?” I was even started to convince myself that, “It might be wiser to call-off the race than attempting and fainting on the course”. Luckily, I dozed off after midnight, but woke up by 3 am, I drank a lot of water, some electrolyte (yeah, the freebies from the bib-up), and took a few bites of Lara’s bar. After that, I was feeling much better, way better than the previous night. So I decided — “The Race Is On!”
At around 5 AM or so, George came down. He was in the first wave and had to reach the start line earlier than me. I wished George good luck and sent him off to the start line. Then I saw another gentleman, Sachin, in the house, and I assumed him to be another runner. But he told me he was just visiting Chicago, his daughter went to school there. To my surprise, he was Marathi speaking person, the same as me. I was blown away by his skills and experience. He had learned the Russian language in high school and won a gold medal. He had studied engineering in Russia worked there and then in Germany (and yes, learned German as well). After coming back to the US, he had done MBA from Booths. I wondered if it were not for this “private room” in ABnB, I would not have met George or Sachin.
Sachin offered to drop me at the start line. But I decided to take a Lyft, which was a good decision. Road closures around the start line had made a huge mess of traffic around the Grant Park area. That traffic situation turned my cab driver mad and angry! After a 30–40 mins ride, we reached the destination. I apologized to the cab driver, for the traffic mess caused by the race. And I was thinking that these big races are such wasteful affairs, they generate huge piles of trash and create inconvenience to a whole lot of people.
Wait at the start line was at least an hour. But the festive mood was in the air, people were laughing, clicking selfies, stretching, I loved it. The weather predictions were mixed, it was supposed to get hot and then rain after 2 pm. Although it was hot and humid, there were enough clouds in the sky to protect us from the sun. I didn’t have to wear my sunglasses for the entire race. And we also got super short-duration drizzles while waiting and during the race, which was very pleasant.
As I started, I was feeling really strong and knew that I might hit that sub-5 that I had done for all of my previous races. I really felt in the groove and was enjoying the run. I did not even think or paid attention to pace/timing etc. Sometime around mile-20 or so, I saw 4:30 pacer overtaking me. I don’t enjoy running with the pacers, I feel it kills the fun out of the race (at least for me), so it was pretty clear that I won’t be doing 4:30. Few miles later, 4:45 pacer overtook me. My body was more than tired by this time. But it was in the normal realm of getting tired after mile-20, and I was not hitting “the wall”. I walked, jogged, ran, and walked again. My body would involuntarily go into walk-mode and then I reminded myself: “It's just a left foot forward the after right. Look you were at a dark place yesterday night and you are almost finishing this race ”. In the end, I managed to get it done at 5:08. I don’t know why all the races make runners run a little longer than 26.2? Chicago marathon made us run 26.80, per my Garmin GPS watch.
This was the slowest race I ran so far! But I still felt really good about it, considering the previous night! After the finish, I was less tired compared to all of my previous races. I even walked ~3 miles to grab the spicy dinner that I was yearning for.
So, what did I gain by putting my body through this pain? First, I got two new friends — George from Nairobi and Sachin from Atlanta. Second, miles 20+ re-enforced my belief (newly acquired, albeit) “Things are not as hard as they seem, and most of the times, one foot-after-other takes care of things”. Last but not the least, and way more precious than the medal that I got, was the note my little daughter had posted on my bedroom door! She always does this whenever I’m traveling back home… I always look forward to these lovely notes!
I don’t know whether I would run any more full marathons, but trail running is something I might take up. But who knows, my running buddies might trick me into running yet another… till that adios!
