At the finish we’re all smiling because we have shiny medals, we’re done running... and they’re handing out free beer - this IS Chicago, after all!

Tags: banana man, chicago, marathon

This was Chanel’s first marathon and yesterday immediately after it was over she refused to discuss the possibility of ever doing another one. But, just as with childbirth, the memory of pain fades quickly so she’s already talking about running again next year to beat her time. So now we're planning the outfits we'll wear for the Chicago Marathon in 2009.

Wow, that was one of the biggest parties I’ve ever been to - and the most fun! I love you generous people of Chicago and I really mean that. You know how to keep me entertained for 26.2 miles so I hardly even noticed I was suffering. Well OK, I noticed - but not until the last few miles.

I’m satisfied with my time of 4:47:15 considering the heat and the fact that it’s been a few years since I’ve done this. Also, my training has been entirely about distance and almost no speed work. I’m only a little bummed that a guy wearing a banana costume beat me by about 30 minutes.

I felt good until around mile 19 and then, even with my Nike Air Zoom Elite super-cushioned shoes, the bottoms of my feet felt so bruised that each step was torture. Then in the last mile my screaming quadriceps desperately wanted to stop so I had to grit my teeth and ignore them. By that point the cheering crowds were deafening so that carried me through to the end. And this what I love about Chicago - these people stuck around and cheered just as enthusiastically for middle-of-the-pack plodders like me as they did for the elite runners who crossed the finish line over two hours before me.

Ready to run at 5:30 am!

The day started early when Chanel and I rolled out of bed at 5:30 am for a quick breakfast of coffee, oatmeal and a bagel before Marc dropped us off at the L train. The only people riding that early were other runners heading for the starting line at Grant Park where we pushed through the crowd to find our start corral. Although 45,000 people had registered to run, only 33,033 of them started the race. I think the others were scared off by the weather outlook - it was already in the 60’s as we lined up at 8:00. By 11:00 it was 84 degrees - too hot for a marathon!

Last year this marathon was a disaster with temperatures in the 90’s plus high humidity. Due to those extremes 187 runners collapsed and were taken to the hospital, one runner died, the aid stations ran out of water and the course was closed halfway through as officials were overwhelmed. As a result, this year’s event was super-organized with a surplus of water, gatorade and medical help all along the course. Water trucks were plentiful, spraying down runners and handing out ice at regular intervals while several fire hydrants were opened to throw cooling jets of water across the streets. A new color-coded flag warning system was in place so we began with a “yellow” moderate alert and halfway through it was notched up to “red” meaning temperatures were dangerously hot - a good warning for everybody to slow down. It worked - nobody died and only 61 runners went to the hospital this time.

The entire race was surreal due to the massive amount of people. There were runners as far as the eye could see, plus the residents of Chicago turned out by the thousands to line the sides of the course and cheer for all of us. I saw so many creative and entertaining posters and laughing at them helped me forget about the endless miles I needed to cover before the finish line appeared.

This has to be one of the most beautiful and interesting marathon courses around. It took us over bridges on the Chicago River a few times and through 29 distinctly different neighborhoods including the downtown skyscrapers, Old Town, Pilsen and Chinatown. There was always something interesting to see. Along the way we were treated to things like professional cheer teams with pom-poms and megaphones, Elvis impersonators, aid station volunteers dressed in hula skirts, high school marching bands, Japanese Taiko drummers, Latin percussion ensembles, garage bands playing Springsteen’s “Born to Run” with amps dialed up to 11, and a stereo blasting the theme from Chariots of Fire. The music and rhythm made the running much easier.

The best thing about the Chicago Marathon is they have no Wall! Or if they do I never noticed (maybe that means I’m not trying hard enough?). More good news - I won’t be losing any toenails.

Post-marathon toenails still intact!

Our support team, consisting of Chanel's husband and sister and a couple of other friends, met us in the park after we finished to ply us with bananas and water (they also crowned us with the tiaras we'd picked up the day before at the Expo from the Disney Princess Half-Marathon booth).

Afterwards we stumbled back to the train to ride home where we opened a bottle of champagne. Needless to say, it was a short celebration before we passed out after a big day.

My assigned post, along with two other volunteers, was a busy intersection on the running route of the triathlon in downtown Carpinteria. Our instructions were to simply cheer on the runners and we were specifically told that we were not to direct traffic. But it quickly became apparent that if we didn’t take matters into our own hands somebody would get hurt or killed so the three of us marched out into the intersection and for about three hours did our best traffic cop impersonations.

I don’t know who planned this route but it was definitely a Bad Situation. Carpinteria is a fairly sleepy little beach town but with 900 triathlon participants things felt busy. At one point cyclist were still completing their course down Carpinteria Avenue while the first runners headed outbound on their 10K. Then the runners returned along the same route, turned the tight corner at our intersection, colliding with cyclists and late outbound runners while the whole lot of them were dodging the enormous car traffic that was pulled in by the two Sunday services at a large nearby church.

It would have been a good idea to have police officers to handle the traffic, to re-route runners or cars and to have, at the very least, some orange traffic cones to define the runner’s lane and alert drivers to what was going on. Without these it was chaos. Thank goodness I’d been issued an orange safety vest because it gave me a small measure of authority (and visibility) while I stood in the street holding back long lines of car traffic to allow runners to cross the street in safety.

Keep in mind these runners had already had a bracing early morning 1.5K ocean swim, then a 40K bike ride and were at the end of their 10K run by the time they passed me for the second time. The pain was visible in their limping gait and contorted faces and more than one asked me, only half-jokingly, if I would call them a taxi. Many of them were light-headed and zoned out and at that point couldn’t comprehend our clearest instructions as we attempted to guide them around the corner into the bike lane. They were understandably confused by all the traffic and quite a few darted out in front of cars, giving me a near heart-attack. I’ll be writing a letter to the organizers of the event with suggestions on how to improve the situation for next year.

Meanwhile, it all finished well with no major mishaps and I was so inspired by all that grit and determination that I went home and knocked out a quick and easy seven miles along the waterfront.

Tags: Carpinteria, triathlon

I can hardly believe that in less than three weeks I’ll be running 26.2 miles through downtown Chicago with thousands of other crazy people. Who’s idea was this? I’m starting to wonder what’s wrong with me and I just hope I don’t hurt myself!

Then we headed through downtown which is normally quite silent and empty at that hour on a Sunday. I noticed several dog walkers, smugly thinking they were getting a jump on the day while everybody else is sleeping. I love their slack-jawed expression of surprise when they turn around to see a herd of 350 sweaty determined runners thundering toward them.

The fog was thick and cool as we ran past the Santa Barbara Mission and shortly after that the road began winding its way up and around the mountains. At around mile eight we got above the fog layer into sunshine. The views were spectacular looking back down over thick puffy clouds filling mountain valleys. To take my mind off my complaining hamstrings and hip flexors I admired the sights: the red-barked manzanita bushes, wild flowers, runners far ahead of me who looked like ants climbing the road. I imagined each tree I passed was making oxygen just for me to breathe - anything to take my mind off the fact that the road was unceasing in its upward slant and the knowledge that the finish line was still a long way off.

When I climbed across the finish line (OK, I'm exaggerating here but only a little bit - it was really steep!) I was so light-headed I forgot to stop my watch and as somebody hung a finisher's medal around my neck I just stumbled toward the refreshments. I hydrated with vitamin water, wolfed down a few snacks and then had an ice cold beer. Runner's World says drinking a beer is a good thing to do after a long run, it guards against hyponatremia. It did make me feel better. Most runners hung around for a while, cheering for other finishers and taking in the amazing view from our perch high above the clouds which was made all the more beautiful because we'd really earned it.

Shuttle vans drove up and down the mountain delivering us back to our cars at the beach. They weren't very large vehicles and ten stinky sweaty runners packed into the one I was on. The driver either had no sense of smell or he was a saint.

I talked to many people who've done this particular race several times and I don't understand why a person would want to do this more than once. Maybe the memory of pain fades quickly? Actually, it wasn't terribly painful for me, just grueling, but the experience did underscore something I already knew - I don't like running uphill! The good thing about having done this is that, provided it's not too hot, the flat-as-a-pancake Chicago Marathon course will feel like a walk in the park by comparison.

My plan for the rest of the day? I'm going to have another beer and then take a nap.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sale that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

Well, that’s what I did today, a three hour tour. Because that’s how long it takes me to run 18 miles. Not speedy but it went really well. At mile six I was hobbled by a mystery cramp in my left leg but I managed to stretch/walk it out and it helped to change my pace to a shorter quicker stride. By mile eight I settled into a comfortable groove and I was mightily surprised by how good I felt for the duration. I ate a couple of power gels along the way and made use of every water fountain on my route.

Still standing after 18 miles!

I think hydrating properly is the main reason today’s long run was so successful. Yesterday I was in the recording studio and as the sound engineer watched me gulp down my fourth tall glass of water in two hours he said, “Gosh, you’re really serious about this water thing. Doesn’t that mean you have to pee about a million times a day?” Well, yeah. But it also means every cell in my body has all the water it needs and it makes the difference between a successful long run or crumpling in a heap o’ hurt beside the curb halfway through.

These long runs are good tests for gear in preparation for the actual marathon. I wore these shoes on a beach run a few days ago and thought I’d shaken out all the sand. Not so. Somehow residual grains sifted through my socks and settled irritatingly between my toes so I had to stop in the park, remove the shoes and shake it all out. Also the tape on my toes began to unwrap and cause blisters so that had to go, too. So now I know that the actual shoes I wear for the marathon can NEVER visit the beach and I’ll need to wrap the toes in a less haphazard manner next time.

Aside from light-headedness, a few small blisters on my toes and muscle soreness in the legs I feel surprisingly good and it gives me hope that marathon day will go well!


For my next marathon a trainer showed me a simple trick. Before a long run of 10 miles or so, I wrap my second toes in athletic tape. This keeps the knuckle straighter and prevents the nail from taking such a beating. It works like a charm and it’s nice to know I don’t have to sacrifice my toenails.

Tags: running, toe nail

The right shoe

Several years ago I was sidelined for six months from training and the marathon I was shooting for due to an IT band injury caused or aggravated by running in the wrong shoes. I made a couple of mistakes the day I bought those shoes. Firstly, I based my decision on their flashy appearance (They were red, how cool is that?). Secondly, these shoes were for “fast runners” and somehow I thought that wearing them would make me faster. Ha! The red shoes were super lightweight and had almost no cushion, zero support and were meant for sprinters moving fast over short distances. The truth is I am not a sprinter and I will never run fast. My body build, physical idiosyncrasies, running style and long distances require a shoe with more structure, a stiffer sole, lateral stability and cushion to protect the joints in my feet, knees and hips for the many long hours I spend running. I found out the hard way that while running, fashion statements are not nearly as important as comfort - a truth that makes itself painfully apparent to me at around mile 12.

Tags: running, marathon, training, shoes

Tags: running, marathon training