Chicago Rock and Roll Half Marathon

A co-worker had signed up for this race and a triathlon that fell on the same day. Since the race coincided with when I was supposed to run a half marathon on my marathon training schedule it worked out well for me to take his place. I also had two friends who were running this race to raise money for PAWS.

Going into the race, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had been forced to shorten the normal 18 week marathon schedule down to 13 weeks and I made most of the adjustments to the early weeks. Just three weeks prior, I had never run more than 5 miles straight in my life so I wasn’t sure exactly how I would perform. Also, I would normally run in the afternoon so I wasn’t sure how my body would respond to the early morning race. In order to meet up with my friends to carpool to the 6 AM race, it meant waking up a 4:45am.

The co-worker that I was running for had an estimate finish time of 1h 45 minutes which put me in corral #4. I knew that it was a much more aggressive pace than I had been able to maintain in training but I hoped that the excitement of the race and the easy access to water and sports drinks would help my time. I decided to try to keep the pace with my group as long as I could and hopefully finish in under 2 hours. I figured if I started out strong, it would be easier for me to slow up as needed than to pick up the pace late in the race if I started slow. This was a mistake.

There were several challenges with starting out where I did. First off, the mental component of being passed up by so many runners was a little discouraging. I kept looking for people who didn’t look so fast only to watch them continue to pull away from me. It really reminded me that when it comes to distance running, you can’t tell someone’s speed just by looking at them. My bruised ego was a minor challenge in the scheme of things. The real trouble came as a consequence of trying to run too fast. My form suffered and my calves started to tire very quickly. Once I realized that I needed to slow down, the damage was already done and just reducing my speed wasn’t enough to allow for those muscles to recover. My form suffered because of my fatigued muscles which led to more inefficiency. Around mile 10, I had to shake off my first signs of muscle cramps and by mile 12, each step came with a struggle to keep my legs from locking up. Normally, I always finish my runs with a hard sprint but as the finish line came into sight there wasn’t much left to give. My legs muscles froze up a bit and I slowed to a walk but encouragement from another runner reminding me that we were almost there was enough to help me push on and keep running to the finish. I completed the race in 2 hours 10 minutes but I’m certain I could have done better if I had just run a consistent pace from the start. There were some longer term ramifications to running 13.1 miles with poor form. I struggled with pereoneal tendonitis in my left foot for almost two weeks after the race. Some new running shoes and a more rigorous stretching routine allowed me to recover from it while only missing out on one training run.

Aside from the challenges that came with my overly aggressive pace was the hydration/nutrition situation. I just didn’t have enough experience with longer distances to know what my body needed. I skipped the first water station to avoid the traffic jams and though I stopped to grab water at the rest of the water areas, I really just paused for a couple sips. I stuck to my game plan of taking one energy gel at 45 minutes and another at the 1:15 mark but I had planned on using the Cytomax at the water station for the rest of my calories but I don’t think I drank enough to keep my body functioning at its best.

The weather was really the only thing that worked in my favor for this race. It was overcast and unseasonably cool for most of the race with some minor showers about halfway through. The overall atmosphere of the race was nice and the bands playing throughout the course were fun. There weren’t as many spectators along the race as I expected but I supposed I wouldn’t be too motivated to get up at 6am on a Sunday to watch runners either.

Overall, I learned a lot from running the Rock and Roll Half Marathon. I learned some humility, the importance or running my race pace instead of trying to keep up with others and a lot about the benefits of proper hydration and nutrition. I also realized that I had a long way to go if I was going to make the October Wisconsin Dells marathon a reality.