My Chicago Marathon: The (Long) Road to Redemption
By Alisha Olsen
I’ve never been able to do a marathon race report. I think for two reasons, one being that I’ve never been able to focus on just the race itself, I can’t help but recount the months of blood, sweat and tears that went before, for me marathon running is truly about the journey not the destination. Secondly, I’m not that good at remembering what actually happened kilometre by kilometre, I think my brain goes into protection mode and doesn’t allow me to relive it all. That must be why I keep signing up for more.
The road to my Chicago Marathon 2018 actually begins in Berlin 2016, so you may want to make yourself a cuppa and get comfortable (or just skip to the Chicago Marathon Recap).
Berlin Marathon 2016 Recap
I never did a race report for Berlin. I sat down on a number of occasions to put pen to paper (or fingers to keypad) but just froze. I couldn’t get the words out. It’s only now that I’ve had my redemption that I can face looking back. Going into Berlin I was fit and fast. I had a clean training cycle behind me, no injuries and some impressive running. My father passed away 6 weeks prior to the race, and there were a couple of weeks with a few missed sessions, but having something to work towards gave me a reason to get up each day. I planned on dedicating the race to him so it was an emotionally charged time.
My Berlin experience can be summed up in two words, hot and crowded. At the 5km drinks station I came to a complete stop in the middle of the road, without even wanting to get a drink. “This is worse than New York”, I said to no one in particular. “This is worse than London!”, replied the guy in front of me. We finally got shuffling again and I tried not to spend any energy on being annoyed. At 7km someone stood on the back of my shoe and it came off. I felt like I was in a scene from The Lion King, trying to scoop up my shoe before the stampede of wildebeest swallowed me up. I hopped off course onto a median strip and with sweaty, shaky hands tried to undo the double knot so I could get my shoe back on. Re-joining the race, I again tried to not let the incident take any energy from me. I took a gel and ran on. The heat grew, as did the crowds, and I started aiming for the jets of water shooting from fire engines parked along the course. Due to the heat I developed reflux and the gel at 7km was the last thing I was able to keep down apart from water for the rest of the race. At 30km my body hit the wall hard as I completely ran out of energy. My legs felt weird and I looked down to see my quads spasming. I walked large sections of the race until 38km, where I had friends waiting to cheer me on, and then somehow dragged my poor, depleted body over the finish line in 4 hours and 24 minutes. It was a huge PB from my first marathon, but the race was so traumatic, and I felt so shattered, that I found a shady tree to crawl under and sobbed for an hour. I had wanted a perfect race to honour my Dad, but that’s not the way of the marathon, and I was devastated that I hadn’t enjoyed any of the race and had walked so much of it.
In the pain cave in Berlin
Ultra-marathon and Operations
2017 was going to be my year for redemption. The first half of the year was dedicated to my first ultra-marathon, a 56km jaunt along the Welsh coastline in which I had more fun than I think is natural running for 7 hours and 26 minutes. My marathon was planned for October, but almost as soon as I started my training cycle I started having stomach issues that would either force me to take big breaks in the middle of a session or cancel it completely. Being stubborn, and a little bit stupid, I thought it would pass and just kept trying to grind my way through it. I had a half-marathon planned for August as a tune-up race, but when I had to stop at 6km for the bathroom and then walk most of the race I knew with a sinking feeling that my October marathon wasn’t going to happen. Instead I had the joy of a small, investigative operation and a month of no running. I got to run again in November and December as the operation provided a temporary fix, but after the first week in January 2018 I was back to where I was before, if not worse, and again had to stop running altogether.
At this stage I found out that I had been successful in the ballot for the Chicago Marathon in October 2018, which gave me something to aim for and focus on. Another, much bigger, operation followed in March and I had four weeks of complete recovery before attempting to run again. I had to take things slow, and work with my body as it adjusted and recovered after surgery, but I was able to put in a solid six months of training in the lead up to Chicago. It often felt like I was starting from scratch, but I also knew that my body would remember how to do this crazy thing that I was asking of it.
So that finally brings us to Chicago. And as much as I wanted redemption from Berlin, I was also filled with gratitude and pride that I was able to get to the starting line. Whatever happened in the race, I was determined to focus on the joy at running a marathon again.
Chicago Marathon 2018 Recap
Walking to the start was unreal. The dark and damp streets of Chicago filled with caped (or poncho-ed, but caped sounds better) ghosts descending upon the start line at Grant Park. The city’s grid-like layout allowed me to see my fellow comrades all moving in the same direction as I passed each intersecting street. I walked down a road that was the 3km drinks station on the course, and Taylor Swift was pumping out of some speakers as the volunteers were setting up the thousands of cups of Gatorade and water that would quench our thirst in a couple of hours’ time. I walked past the ESPN windows as the anchors sat behind a desk with cameras trained on them. The male anchor saw me looking in and gave me a wave and a thumbs up with a big smile. Taylor Swift and a good luck from a good-looking random stranger, the signs were good!
Making my way to the start with a few thousand others
I made it through the security queue, the portaloo line, the bag drop line, and made it into my starting corral with time to spare. Some people had dumped their top layers and were shivering in the wind but I kept my long sleeve top and poncho on to stay comfortable. I struck up a conversation with a Chicagoan native who had run the race 8 times before. She repeated what I had learned the night before from other locals, that I wouldn’t be able to rely on my watch as the buildings interfere with the GPS. I then spotted someone with a Brixham Harriers singlet. Knowing that harriers is a term for runners in the UK I found out that Brixham is in Devon, and this lady used to live in West Sussex, where I spent 6 months running in 2017. As we shuffled towards the start line she thanked me for our conversation and said when the race got hard she would imagine she was running on her beloved South Downs. This was the most relaxed I’d ever been at the start of a big race, and I firmly believe that incorporating fun, small races into my training helped me overcome my previously paralysing race nerves.
It started to really rain as we approached the start line and I was glad I had kept my layers on until the last minute. Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle and then we were off. I was told about the great crowds in Chicago, but to be honest I was not expecting them to be better than New York. There were lots of people, cow bells, signs, kids giving high-fives, whistles and screaming, but there was a lack of the bands that made up every corner in New York. But it was still incredible and really easy to smile and wave and basically feel like a rock star.
It was raining but also very humid, so I knew I would have to be careful not to get dehydrated (a big issue for a heavy sweater like me). From my walk to the start line I had seen that the drinks stations were set up with Gatorade first and then water, and knew this would be repeated through the race, so at 3km I stayed in the middle of the road for the first block and then hung right halfway through the water station, made eye-contact with a volunteer and pointed at them, grabbed my cup, and kept moving. I read lots of articles about the Chicago marathon including this tip, and this was definitely the smoothest I have ever been able to navigate drinks stations.
Everyone was right about the GPS, unless I was miraculously pulling sub-4 minute kilometres at the start of a marathon (spoiler alert, I was not). My pacing strategy was out the window and I knew I’d just have to keep an eye on elapsed time at the 5km markers. I took a gel early on and gave ridiculous waves to every race photographer I saw. At 10km it really started to bucket down, so heavy that my clothes felt like they weighed a tonne and it was all I could to do try to avoid the really deep puddles, unsuccessfully. The 4 hour pacing group caught up to me at this stage, so I ran with them for a few kilometres before I let them disappear into the distance. The company was nice but I wasn’t really aiming for that pace, and didn’t want to go too hard this early in the race. Instead I focused on following the blue line as closely as possible, knowing that I was running in the same footsteps as the great Mo Farah earlier that morning. At each 5km marker I made sure I was just under the time of a 6 minute average pace. I kept taking water and gels and shot bloks as per my plan and was really happy that I was actually fuelling to plan for the first time in a race. I passed the halfway point in 2 hours and 4 minutes. It wasn’t feeling really easy, in fact it started to feel like a bit of an effort 10kms ago, but I also knew that I knew how to continue at this level.
Awkward waves and buckets of water
At 25kms my stomach really started to let me know that something wasn’t right. All along the beginning of the race there were portaloos lining the course, but now there were none in sight. I spent the next couple of kilometres searching in vain, before deciding I would just have to ease off the pace a bit and hope I’d be ok. By 30kms I was really feeling it. I took some painkillers and started walking through my drinks stations. I had made myself a deal that I wouldn’t walk in this race (apart from drinks stations) like I had in Berlin. It got hard but unbelievably the crowd got even bigger and more vocal, and there was a cacophony of noise from all the bands that had now appeared on each street corner. I focused on the ridiculous street party that I was taking part in, that I was just happy to be running again, and tried to push out the discomfort.
Posing in Chinatown
Another local tip was about the race photographer at Chinatown at 33km, so I pulled out a cheesy running pose and revelled in the ever-growing crowds and noise, punctuated by heavy drumming and some dragon dancers. I’d been told that there is a quiet section after Chinatown but I never experienced it. I started looking for the skyscrapers to indicate that I was heading back towards the city and the finish line, but the clouds were hanging low and obscuring my view. I knew that there was a right hand turn onto the biggest incline of the course, which was in the last kilometre (there are some sick race directors!). I’d been prepared for ‘Mount Roosevelt’, as the locals call it, but it didn’t feel too bad after pounding the (not so flat) streets of the northern beaches. I heard a guy call out to his mate, “no one overtakes us from here”, and I promptly passed them. After breaching the hill I could see markers ahead saying 400m to go, 300m to go, 200m to go. It was time to dig deep and finish strong. Looking at my watch I knew I was coming in for a PB, and I was determined not to let the clock tick over another minute. I crossed the line in 4 hours and 15 minutes, a tidy 9 minute PB from Berlin, but most important of all I had thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Finishing strong and soaking up the moment
I’m proud of a lot from this race, and funnily enough the time is just the outcome. I’m proud that I was flexible and adapted throughout the race (with my GPS and stomach issues) and maintained a better attitude to things I can’t control than I have previously. I’m proud that I nailed my fuelling and hydration. I’m proud that I was only 7 minutes slower in the second half than the first (in New York and Berlin I was 14 minutes slower). I’m proud that I didn’t walk when the going got tough. And most of all I’m proud that I got to the start line in the first place, and that I made sure I had a bloody good time out there.
Chicago was a wonderful, well-organised, energetic, crazy street party. New York was always my favourite race because of the crowds and that it was my first marathon, but Chicago, my redemption race, may be my new favourite!
A pretty happy marathoner
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