Today is the Chicago Marathon, and it brings back great memories from my running of the race, which was on 10-10-10.
First, was the amazing time I had visiting Chicago with my family for the weekend. Even though two years have passed, and other family vacations have been taken, I still clearly remember the boat rides on the Chicago River, visiting Sears Tower (or whatever they call it now), finding and enjoying Chinatown, and sampling two of the deep dish pizza spots around town.
Second, in the lead-up to the Chicago Marathon, I blogged for 28 (yes that’s 28) straight days leading to the race – see the last post here, which contains a link to all 28 of the postings.
Third, which I never actually blogged about, was the amazing race expo. It was far better than any race expo I’ve ever been to, including for New York City Marathon, and that is where I discovered the magazine Marathon & Beyond, and the Yurbud headphones. I think the reason why I liked it so much better than the NYC Marathon expo is that it was not dominated by large booths from large name brand vendors. It had many more smaller booths from people with interesting products.
Fourth, and finally, was the the race itself, which I also never completed my blog post about. It is still in my drafts, and this is as far as I got:
10-10-10. When I first realized very early in the year that the Chicago Marathon would be on 10-10-10, I immediately decided to run the race. It fit my plans perfectly because I had decided last year that I would stop running NYC Marathon (I’ve done 7 of them) and focus on other states in the fall. It seemed like the right special thing to do on a special day.
Despite the obstacles of the day (namely high temperatures and unrelenting sun), the Chicago Marathon lived up to everything I expected from it. I had a great weekend, really enjoyed visiting the city, and the race was one of the best marathon experiences I’ve ever had. It was a lot of fun to compare the Chicago experience to New York.
Things I loved about the Chicago Marathon:
- Orderly start – Placement in the ‘open’ corral was by the honor system. I found that most people did line up in the right place. There were not too many slow people to get around in the early miles. In fact, it was more orderly than NYRR races used to be with no corral system, and even still better than the current NYRR corral system where it seems they never reset your ‘fastest’ time.
- Downtown start – It was so much fun to run the early miles downtown with so many people watching and cheering from the sidelines. You just don’t get that in NYC due to the start over the Verrazano Bridge, although that start is amazing in it’s own right.
- Water stops – each water station was at least 2 blocks long, with plenty of gatorade and plenty of water, and really enthusiastic and helpful volunteers.
- Bathroom stops – most, if not all of the water stops were well stocked with bathrooms. I held out until around mile 8 or 9, and did not have to wait at all.
