Race Report – Chicago Marathon

It’s funny to me how things never go as planned.  For the last 11 months or so, I’ve been training for the Chicago marathon.  I’ve completed well over 800 miles of running and a few hundred more on a bike.  I’ve cross trained with kettlebells and ropes, and lost 90 pounds in the process.  On the Thursday before the race, my sister asked me if I was nervous,  I just laughed a little and said “nope”;  I was ready.  Then I broke my right pinky toe.

This is the second time I’ve had a stupid little pinky toe break this year.  The first time was on the way to the warrior dash, which I didn’t have the chance to compete in as the break was pretty nasty and I couldn’t even take a few steps.  The good news was that this break was a lot less severe, but still a painful one!  On Friday morning, I woke up with a horribly swollen, very black and blue toe/foot.  I wasn’t sure how to do it, but I knew that I was going to finish the marathon.

Over the next couple of days, I iced my foot as much as possible, and purchased three brand new pairs of running shoes to help minimize the impact of running on my forefoot/toe.  For a guy that has run 26.2 miles in a pair of VFFs, and pretty much hates cushy supportive shoes, it’s funny how quickly I turned to take advantage of the cushion with my injury.  I picked up a pair of Nike LunarGlide 2′s, some Newton Racers and a pair of New Balance something or others that are going to be returned (I just couldn’t handle the heel lift…)

On Saturday, my family and I headed downtown to our hotel as a heat wave settled over Chicago.  We checked into the W, I slipped on my Newtons and we walked around the loop for a while to find a quick dinner.  I was trying out the shoes to see how they would perform, and if my toe/forefoot could handle them.  I was fairly impressed with them, but still concerned about the “lugs” under the forefoot considering that I had never run a single mile in a pair of Newtons. We grabbed dinner at Subway (the loop is dead on Saturday night), and headed back to turn in early in prep for the race.

On Sunday morning, I woke up a little later than planned, but with plenty of time to get to the race.  After quickly getting ready and taking care of a few things for my wife and son, it was time to try the shoes and make a final determination.  I slipped on the Newtons and ran around the room.  They felt good, they definitely transfered the force away from my toe area and into the rear of the forefoot.  Those lugs were still concerning to me, so I transfered into the Nike LunarGlides and did a quick back and forth jog.  These things are like running on a sponge, they are ridiculously cushy, and quite similar in form to the Zoom Streak XCs that trained in midweek.  While these didn’t pull all of the force away from my toe, they distributed the force along the midfoot/forefoot a little more evenly.  I switched back and forth a a few more times, finally deciding on the Nikes.

I finished packing up my bag, and headed out for a mile or so walk/jog to the starting area of the race.  It was a nice way to warm up a touch and get used to the screaming pain from my foot.

After checking my bag at the Balbo Hospitality tent, I worked my way up through the crowd as the race was starting.  My initial plan was to head out with the 4:30 pace team, then ditch them at the half way point for a 4:25 or so finish.  I wasn’t able to make it up to the 4:30 pace team, and that turned out to be just fine.

The race started out nicely, at a very easy 11:00 or so pace for the first mile, to mile and a half as things spread out a bit.  I didn’t have any problem with that pace, as my heart rate was already hammering near 170 bpm and figured that it wouldn’t be a problem at all to just “settle in”.  I don’t know what caused my HR to be as high as it was, I expected the adrenaline rush of the big race to cause a spike, but this was just insane.  I was basically 5-8 beats per minute away from my lactic threshold and I hadn’t done anything yet!  I’m pretty sure that the ibuprofen I had been taking over the past few days to aid in the minimization of swelling played a big part… but this just seemed excessive.

Anyhow, after turning north on LaSalle, I stopped for a moment to say hi to my lovely wife and little boy who were cheering me on during the race.  I let them know that things were working well with the Nike’s and that I would see them in a while at the 1/2 way point of the marathon.  After a few seconds chatting, I was off again and feeling pretty good.

I noticed that my form was a little different, but I figured with some solid mental focus, I could overcome any issues that would create and get this done. My pace continued to lag, but I wasn’t too worried about it yet as I figured I could make it up later in the race.

Somewhere around mile 5 to 6 or so, my right groin and hamstring started to bother me.

My little guy, cheering on Daddy

The nagging pain in my leg continued for a while, and I was starting to play mental games with myself.  Thankfully, my wife came through again with a picture message of our little guy holding a sign saying “Go Ryan Go.”  That pretty much solidified my commitment to finish this thing, even if it takes forever.  Around mile 8, I sent my wife a text letting her know that any time goals were off; I was going to finish, that was the only goal now.  I had to slow down a walk a little bit, my leg was really starting to hurt and I didn’t want to pull a muscle.  I guess the good news was that my foot didn’t hurt anymore.

For the next few miles, I did a run/walk combo with the run really just being a slow jog.  Ever the optimist, I met with my wife a bit before the 1/2 mark and said that I was going to try to come in sub 5, but that I wasn’t sure how likely that would be given the fact that my groin and hamstring were really bothering me and I had already broken down into a jog/walk.  I wasn’t tired at all, but I was going to protect my body to ensure that I could run another race.  We switched out my fuel bottle, and I said goodbye to the family.

For the next 13.1 miles, I averaged around 14:40 or so per mile.  It took forever to finish the back half of this race.  I could really only muster a 5 minute or so jog, then I had to walk for a while as the pain in my leg subsided.  The good news was that my heart rate was coming down, the bad news is that at this point in the race I was supposed to be going hard and pushing my heart rate up!  As I continued to push my way through the race, the walking became more of a fast hobble as I was beginning to develop a fairly pronounced limp due to the ever increasing muscle pain/fatigue in my right leg.

We travelled through the Chicago neighborhoods and the amazing folks of the Windy City were out in force to cheer us on.  The crowds are just fantastic, and they make the race a joy to participate in.  With temps pushing 85 and the humidity lifting the event alert level to Red, I cannot say enough about the wonderful people who turned on the water hose and created a mini rainstorm just for the runners.  The folks who volunteered at the aid stations were great, and provided plenty of liquids for the participants.  Given the heat, hydration was a critical factor.  I consumed quite a bit more water than expected, the good news was that I had plenty of fuel and plenty of electrolytes to ensure that everything was as safe as possible.

I continued to text my wife providing optimistic updates of my finish, while letting her know that I was actually slowing down, but hoping to speed up!  She found a spot for lunch and to sit for a while. At 28 weeks pregnant, I cannot say enough about how she was a wonderful mother and wife taking care of not only her marathoning husband, but a 2 year old bundle of energy all day, in the city (not her favorite place to be alone) and in the ever increasing heat.

Around mile 21 or so as we turned from Halstead to Cermak, the gentleman in front of me slowed down dramatically, I side stepped to pass… about 5 seconds later I heard the crowd swell with questions of “are you okay?”  The gentleman had passed out, thankfully the medical aid team was there very quickly to help him out.  A marathon is no joke, and hydration in any endurance event is critical.  When it heats up, hydration is even more critical.  I relied on water, Perpetuem, Endurolytes and Hammer Gel to stay ahead of the fatigue.  Thankfully, these products served me very well during a very long Chicago Marathon.

Finally, after 5 hours and 48 minutes, I crossed the finish line.  The race took MUCH longer than I was hoping, but I finished; broken toe and all.

Here are my splits:

After the race, I headed back to the hospitality tent, changed out of my racing gear and had a nice massage.  It’s funny, the injury slowed me down so much that I wasn’t really all that tired.  After going 26.2 miles, I expected to just be spent.  I burned a ton of calories and definitely needed to recharge, but my training had provided such great cardio conditioning, that the run wasn’t really a big deal.  I met up with my family shortly after the massage was done, we stopped for an ice cream cone at Baskin Robbins and then packed up the car and headed home.

Finished!

I was scheduled to travel to California on Monday morning, so I jumped in an ice bath to make sure that my muscles had the best chance of recovery as quickly as possible, then ate 1/2 a large pizza and some wings.  The evening was fairly uneventful as my wife and I just relaxed after putting the little guy down for the night.

I awoke early the next morning to meet some co-workers at 5:00am in Naperville… my foot was very unhappy with me, and I could definitely tell that I ran/hobbled my way through a marathon the day before.  Over the course of the week, my toe has started to heal up nicely, and the pain in my leg has pretty much gone away. I’m still limping around as the toe and muscle/ligament structure of my forefoot still hurt quite a bit.  I expect that everything will heal up shortly and that I’ll drop a major PR on the Chicago marathon the next time I race this one.

I can proudly say that with more that 45,000 participants, I was one of the 36,159 finishers on 10/10/2010.