I wish I would have written this Sunday night right after the race with everything still fresh, but hopefully this will do. For a full treatise of the marathon training, you can visit the “marathon” label link on my blog.
I loaded up the night before the race on some Chicago-style deep dish pizza. I did my best to get to bed early, but I think my school sleep schedule just wasn’t allowing for it. I took some mild sedatives (Tylenol PM) and didn’t move around much after 9pm, but I just couldn’t really get tired. I wasn’t quite feeling any nervousness, just a general feeling of anxiety for the race to start if that makes any sense. Luckily, the previous two days I was able to sleep in, so the fact that I couldn’t fall asleep until about 1:30am and was planning on getting up at 5:30am wasn’t as bad as it could have been. At least not being tired allowed me to catch the last of the Rays-Red Sox game.
During the short night’s rest, I still woke up a couple of times, and then finally got up and began making my race preparations in the darkened hotel room. I ate light - just a banana, cereal, and finished off a liter of water that I started before going to bed.
Our hotel was a little less than a half mile from the start of the race. I departed for the start at 6:30am, met up with a couple of other runners and saw more as I made my way over to Michigan Avenue. The day could not have started off any more pleasantly. What were just a few runners at the hotel turned into hundreds, and then thousands as I approached the starting point.
Sunrise greeted me with pink and orange hues while I crossed over the Chicago River and looked over to Lake Michigan. Temperature was a cool, but pleasant 68 degrees. It’s a little hard sometimes to wrap your mind around the number of participants in this year’s marathon – 45,000 runners. The best way to grasp it, for me at least, is to imagine a sold-out night at Anaheim Stadium. It was amazing to think that so many people would be exerting themselves in the same task of traversing 26.2 miles.
I should have probably gotten out even a little bit earlier than I did. I dropped my bag off, and went to use the restroom, which took more than 20 minutes. I ended up getting over to the starting corrals at 7:30am, only 30 minutes before the start of the race. The problem with that was that I couldn’t get up to my goal marathon pace group of 3:30-3:45, instead making my way up to only the 4:30 pace time. There were just too many people.
If you’ve never run any kind of race before, it’s really a unique experience. I’ve played competitive sports all growing up, but it’s an entirely different feeling when that many people have a common goal, which isn’t to beat each other, but to get from start to finish. Everyone pulls for each other like you wouldn’t believe, with the higher the distance, the higher the sense of community.
The race began right at 8:00am, starting and ending in Grant Park right next to Lake Michigan. I wish I had a picture of the start from this race year’s race, but the image that is affixed in my mind is going through a tunnel and seeing the Chicago Marathon banner on the bridge above, and just thousands of people cheering.
Because I started out with people running at a slower marathon pace, I had to really fight my way up throughout the entire race. It’s really hard to navigate through thousands of other runners. Lesson learned. My first split was slow, but then again, it might have helped me out to not jump out too quickly with the rush of adrenaline that comes from running a first marathon. Although, for me personally, I’ve never had any trouble pacing myself to start with so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. In any case, my first 5k split was right at 30 minutes.
I don’t know if this will be the case for future marathons, but really the adrenaline and all of the support carried me for at least the first 15 miles. I was feeling pretty good to start with, but I did have some tightness in my right calf. Eventually that feeling went away, only to resurface in my left calf. I didn’t have any real opportunity to stretch or warm-up before the race so I was warming up as I was running. Probably not a good strategy.
I cannot even express the amount of support and how valuable it was to me throughout the race. It really is several hours of people yelling nothing but encouraging things to you the entire time that you’re running. It is so amazing.
This is going to be totally unfamiliar to some and way too drawn out, but do any of you remember Ghostbusters 2? Underneath New York there was a sewer system full of slime that fed off the emotions of the people. The scientists figure this out, and that it was fueling the return of some 16th century tyrant that was stuck in a painting. Eventually they figure out that if positively energized that slime can bring inanimate objects to life and be a force for good. My favorite scene is when they’re in the Statue of Liberty and coating the whole thing with the slime while playing Jackie Wilson’s Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher.
I loaded up the night before the race on some Chicago-style deep dish pizza. I did my best to get to bed early, but I think my school sleep schedule just wasn’t allowing for it. I took some mild sedatives (Tylenol PM) and didn’t move around much after 9pm, but I just couldn’t really get tired. I wasn’t quite feeling any nervousness, just a general feeling of anxiety for the race to start if that makes any sense. Luckily, the previous two days I was able to sleep in, so the fact that I couldn’t fall asleep until about 1:30am and was planning on getting up at 5:30am wasn’t as bad as it could have been. At least not being tired allowed me to catch the last of the Rays-Red Sox game.
During the short night’s rest, I still woke up a couple of times, and then finally got up and began making my race preparations in the darkened hotel room. I ate light - just a banana, cereal, and finished off a liter of water that I started before going to bed.
Our hotel was a little less than a half mile from the start of the race. I departed for the start at 6:30am, met up with a couple of other runners and saw more as I made my way over to Michigan Avenue. The day could not have started off any more pleasantly. What were just a few runners at the hotel turned into hundreds, and then thousands as I approached the starting point.
Sunrise greeted me with pink and orange hues while I crossed over the Chicago River and looked over to Lake Michigan. Temperature was a cool, but pleasant 68 degrees. It’s a little hard sometimes to wrap your mind around the number of participants in this year’s marathon – 45,000 runners. The best way to grasp it, for me at least, is to imagine a sold-out night at Anaheim Stadium. It was amazing to think that so many people would be exerting themselves in the same task of traversing 26.2 miles.
I should have probably gotten out even a little bit earlier than I did. I dropped my bag off, and went to use the restroom, which took more than 20 minutes. I ended up getting over to the starting corrals at 7:30am, only 30 minutes before the start of the race. The problem with that was that I couldn’t get up to my goal marathon pace group of 3:30-3:45, instead making my way up to only the 4:30 pace time. There were just too many people.
If you’ve never run any kind of race before, it’s really a unique experience. I’ve played competitive sports all growing up, but it’s an entirely different feeling when that many people have a common goal, which isn’t to beat each other, but to get from start to finish. Everyone pulls for each other like you wouldn’t believe, with the higher the distance, the higher the sense of community.
The race began right at 8:00am, starting and ending in Grant Park right next to Lake Michigan. I wish I had a picture of the start from this race year’s race, but the image that is affixed in my mind is going through a tunnel and seeing the Chicago Marathon banner on the bridge above, and just thousands of people cheering.
Because I started out with people running at a slower marathon pace, I had to really fight my way up throughout the entire race. It’s really hard to navigate through thousands of other runners. Lesson learned. My first split was slow, but then again, it might have helped me out to not jump out too quickly with the rush of adrenaline that comes from running a first marathon. Although, for me personally, I’ve never had any trouble pacing myself to start with so maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. In any case, my first 5k split was right at 30 minutes.
I don’t know if this will be the case for future marathons, but really the adrenaline and all of the support carried me for at least the first 15 miles. I was feeling pretty good to start with, but I did have some tightness in my right calf. Eventually that feeling went away, only to resurface in my left calf. I didn’t have any real opportunity to stretch or warm-up before the race so I was warming up as I was running. Probably not a good strategy.I cannot even express the amount of support and how valuable it was to me throughout the race. It really is several hours of people yelling nothing but encouraging things to you the entire time that you’re running. It is so amazing.
This is going to be totally unfamiliar to some and way too drawn out, but do any of you remember Ghostbusters 2? Underneath New York there was a sewer system full of slime that fed off the emotions of the people. The scientists figure this out, and that it was fueling the return of some 16th century tyrant that was stuck in a painting. Eventually they figure out that if positively energized that slime can bring inanimate objects to life and be a force for good. My favorite scene is when they’re in the Statue of Liberty and coating the whole thing with the slime while playing Jackie Wilson’s Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher.
Ladies and Gents, I am that slime and the volunteers, crowd, and all of the support were like that song for me. I know it sounds dumb, but it’s absolutely true. I cannot overstate the amount of positive energy that came from everyone involved. From the LGBT Cheerleading Squad to the various high school marching bands that were playing throughout the race, everything that everyone did/said meant the world to me.
Some people brought out their bands to perform. We ran through 29 different neighborhoods, and it was palpable the unique culture and identity of each one. I ran past a reggae band complete with steel drums. Rock bands, blues/jazz bands, and mariachis played for us throughout. One guy even had playing over some amps a military cadence. Even the smells of the different foods emanating from the kitchens was unique to each culture and neighborhood that I passed through.
As I started to move up to the faster runners, I began to have an easier time getting splits that felt more comfortable for me. The second 5k time was 26 minutes, and then the next three 5k splits were all right around 24 minutes. I covered the first half in 1:50, which felt pretty decent. When I crossed the halfway point, Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer was blaring, and the best part was before getting there I had thought that would be the song that I would want playing and the line I wanted to hear most was “Whoa! We’re halfway there!” but I thought the odds of that happening were very slim. As it turned out, it worked out perfectly. There were dozens of little things like that that really kept me in good spirits and helped me keep on keepin’ on.
When I saw my half marathon time, I thought that hitting 3:30 was within my grasp. I was feeling strong and I really thought I’d have the energy to finish the marathon off at a decent pace. That was until, I reached 2:24 in the race, right between mile 17 and 18. The tightness in my calf was getting to be too much so I was starting to pull over to stretch. I stepped with my left foot, twitch, then right foot, back to left and then I felt a popping sensation in my calf.
I couldn’t believe it. I stretched for a minute or two, walked another minute or so, and wasn’t sure how to proceed. I had a little more than 8 miles to cover from that point and figured that if I walked quickly I could still finish the race before the marathon would close. It would have put me right around 4:30 for my total time.
A friend of mine the week prior had asked me if there was any kind of injury that would keep me from running the marathon, and I responded that it would have to depend on how bad the injury was. She said that it hurt so bad it made me cry. I actually thought of this conversation with her and it made me laugh. I started to jog again, and I knew that I could deal with the pain knowing it was only going to last less than 2 more hours. It didn’t quite hurt so much that I wanted to cry, but it was nagging me throughout the rest of the run.
My 5k splits immediately thereafter slowed to 26 minutes, then to 27 minutes, and then to 28 minutes. Other than the calf, I was feeling fine other than the fact that I had been running for more than 3 hours. The course runs mostly north to south, and is largely shaded for the first 23-24 miles. I didn’t know this until today, but it did heat up to 85 degrees by 11:00am, and the last couple of miles are completely unshaded.
After having last year’s experience where the race had to shut down, the Chicago marathon support was bulked up to include more drinking stations and more misting stations. I probably ran through 4-5 full hose soakings in the last several miles, and drank a gallon of Gatorade.
Everyone, including the runners, is cheery throughout the first part of the race. It starts getting really tough when you’ve passed your own farthest length of distance running (mine was 22 miles), and you’ve crossed into that uncharted territory. Everyone is slow and everyone is trudging along. What really made a big difference for me was hearing all the support from everyone those last few miles. Again, little things become big factors in giving you the extra energy you need to complete the race. Another one of those things for me was hearing AC/DC’s TNT. I don’t know what it was about hearing the opening intro “Oi”s that did it for me, because that song hasn’t gotten me pumped up probably since I was in junior high, but it totally got me going again.
Throughout the race I was constantly keeping track of my mile times, but that got harder towards the end because they didn’t use as many mile markers. Instead, a lot of kilometer markers tracked your progress on the course, but I was in no mood to calculate in my head how many miles 39k and 41k were. So when I finally saw the 24 mile marker, I was pretty excited. I figured that it couldn’t have been much more than 20 minutes of running, and what is that to me at that point in the race? Turns out, a lot.
People were yelling more than ever towards the end, but they were a little more sparse from miles 22-24. Some people were yelling things like “only 2 miles to go!” which would have been helpful under most circumstances, but not when my calf is aching and the bones in my feet are so sensitive it feels like I’m running barefoot. So when I passed a big black guy yelling “only 1.8 miles more to go! You can do it!” it was probably the most motivating thing to hear for me in the entire race. I knew I was on my way.
I crossed the 25 mile marker. Than the 1 mile to go marker. At this point in the race, the crowd is bigger than it had been at any other point, leaving a pathway of no wider than 10-12 feet. I came to the last .2 miles, saw a right turn onto red carpet and I finally knew I was going to finish. I made my way up a subtle incline with bleachers flanking my left and right. I made one final left turn and saw the finish line.
There could not have been a more welcome site in all my life. I’ve thought a lot about the kind of pose I would strike at the finish line. Would it be the typical arms raised in exultation? I even thought about striking the Safety Dance pose from the 80’s song with the left arm up, right arm down, but decided on just an airplane-type finish, which felt subtle but not generic.
I didn’t experience any of the kinds of cramps I had felt after other long runs, meaning I was well fueled for the race. I did have to stop a couple of times on the last couple of miles to stretch out my calf again because there were a couple of times where the feeling of extreme tightness was coming back on. I would have liked to finish stronger, but I really felt like the whole muscle would tear apart if I tried to push it too much.
With the race over, I tried to thank every person I could in the most sincere way possible, looking into everyone’s eyes and saying “thank you so much.” I couldn’t say much more because I was just so worn out. They had great accommodations for the runners afterwards including, fruit, water, shiny plastic sheets to reflect the sun, bagels, ice, and fruit smoothies.
From the point that I strained my calf to the end of the race, I was feeling really emotional. I cannot express the amount of gratitude I was feeling for everyone that was in the race, those who lined the streets in support, and those who gave their time to make it such an amazing experience. I cannot say enough about how grateful I am to have my best friend and his wife come out in support of my effort.
This is going to sound a little cheesy, maybe a lot, and I did actually think this during the race, but I really think the marathon is a perfect metaphor for life. I expressed most of these thoughts in a talk I gave in sacrament meeting before coming up to Utah so I won’t get into all of it here, but there was something really special to me about the support I was feeling from everyone and how grateful I was to take part in such a neat experience and to be able to finish it.
They estimated that more than 1.5 million people come out just to watch the marathon. That means that for every runner there were 33 people pulling for just that one person to finish. While most people probably had someone specific that they were cheering for, I know that they were all cheering and pulling for me too. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it’s the same way in our everyday lives. While there are those obvious people who are in your corner and you know that they’re always there, there are literally dozens of others who are right behind them, pulling every bit as much for your success in all that you do.
From 2 Kings 6:15-17 - “And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
And he answered, Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
I really think that this just happened to be one of those experiences where I had my eyes opened and literally saw the kind of support that was there to encourage me through to the end. I know that kind of heavenly help is there every step of the way, whether it’s the friends and family that we can actually see, or help from beyond the veil and God’s hand moving those pieces in our behalf, it is there and it is real. I know it.
One thing I love about the marathon is how dramatic and literal the achievement is of crossing the finish line. You’ve more than likely spent months in preparation and you literally cross a line that marks the completion of your goal. When I first saw the Nike signs posted around the city saying “We believe Sunday is just a victory lap” I thought it was kind of lame, but after having the experience of actually running the race, knowing full well that my weeks and months of training were finally over, that marketing tagline suddenly felt so much more poignant.
I can’t thank you all enough for all of your encouraging words and the support that you’ve given me. It literally means the world to me.
I finished the Chicago Marathon in 3:43:13. I’m already thinking that I want to run one of these every year, so if you want to join me I would be so excited to train with you and help you out in any way that I can.
I can’t believe you’re still here. Thanks for reading this far.
Some people brought out their bands to perform. We ran through 29 different neighborhoods, and it was palpable the unique culture and identity of each one. I ran past a reggae band complete with steel drums. Rock bands, blues/jazz bands, and mariachis played for us throughout. One guy even had playing over some amps a military cadence. Even the smells of the different foods emanating from the kitchens was unique to each culture and neighborhood that I passed through.
As I started to move up to the faster runners, I began to have an easier time getting splits that felt more comfortable for me. The second 5k time was 26 minutes, and then the next three 5k splits were all right around 24 minutes. I covered the first half in 1:50, which felt pretty decent. When I crossed the halfway point, Bon Jovi’s Living On A Prayer was blaring, and the best part was before getting there I had thought that would be the song that I would want playing and the line I wanted to hear most was “Whoa! We’re halfway there!” but I thought the odds of that happening were very slim. As it turned out, it worked out perfectly. There were dozens of little things like that that really kept me in good spirits and helped me keep on keepin’ on.
When I saw my half marathon time, I thought that hitting 3:30 was within my grasp. I was feeling strong and I really thought I’d have the energy to finish the marathon off at a decent pace. That was until, I reached 2:24 in the race, right between mile 17 and 18. The tightness in my calf was getting to be too much so I was starting to pull over to stretch. I stepped with my left foot, twitch, then right foot, back to left and then I felt a popping sensation in my calf.
I couldn’t believe it. I stretched for a minute or two, walked another minute or so, and wasn’t sure how to proceed. I had a little more than 8 miles to cover from that point and figured that if I walked quickly I could still finish the race before the marathon would close. It would have put me right around 4:30 for my total time.
A friend of mine the week prior had asked me if there was any kind of injury that would keep me from running the marathon, and I responded that it would have to depend on how bad the injury was. She said that it hurt so bad it made me cry. I actually thought of this conversation with her and it made me laugh. I started to jog again, and I knew that I could deal with the pain knowing it was only going to last less than 2 more hours. It didn’t quite hurt so much that I wanted to cry, but it was nagging me throughout the rest of the run.
My 5k splits immediately thereafter slowed to 26 minutes, then to 27 minutes, and then to 28 minutes. Other than the calf, I was feeling fine other than the fact that I had been running for more than 3 hours. The course runs mostly north to south, and is largely shaded for the first 23-24 miles. I didn’t know this until today, but it did heat up to 85 degrees by 11:00am, and the last couple of miles are completely unshaded.
After having last year’s experience where the race had to shut down, the Chicago marathon support was bulked up to include more drinking stations and more misting stations. I probably ran through 4-5 full hose soakings in the last several miles, and drank a gallon of Gatorade.
Everyone, including the runners, is cheery throughout the first part of the race. It starts getting really tough when you’ve passed your own farthest length of distance running (mine was 22 miles), and you’ve crossed into that uncharted territory. Everyone is slow and everyone is trudging along. What really made a big difference for me was hearing all the support from everyone those last few miles. Again, little things become big factors in giving you the extra energy you need to complete the race. Another one of those things for me was hearing AC/DC’s TNT. I don’t know what it was about hearing the opening intro “Oi”s that did it for me, because that song hasn’t gotten me pumped up probably since I was in junior high, but it totally got me going again.
Throughout the race I was constantly keeping track of my mile times, but that got harder towards the end because they didn’t use as many mile markers. Instead, a lot of kilometer markers tracked your progress on the course, but I was in no mood to calculate in my head how many miles 39k and 41k were. So when I finally saw the 24 mile marker, I was pretty excited. I figured that it couldn’t have been much more than 20 minutes of running, and what is that to me at that point in the race? Turns out, a lot.
People were yelling more than ever towards the end, but they were a little more sparse from miles 22-24. Some people were yelling things like “only 2 miles to go!” which would have been helpful under most circumstances, but not when my calf is aching and the bones in my feet are so sensitive it feels like I’m running barefoot. So when I passed a big black guy yelling “only 1.8 miles more to go! You can do it!” it was probably the most motivating thing to hear for me in the entire race. I knew I was on my way.
I crossed the 25 mile marker. Than the 1 mile to go marker. At this point in the race, the crowd is bigger than it had been at any other point, leaving a pathway of no wider than 10-12 feet. I came to the last .2 miles, saw a right turn onto red carpet and I finally knew I was going to finish. I made my way up a subtle incline with bleachers flanking my left and right. I made one final left turn and saw the finish line.
There could not have been a more welcome site in all my life. I’ve thought a lot about the kind of pose I would strike at the finish line. Would it be the typical arms raised in exultation? I even thought about striking the Safety Dance pose from the 80’s song with the left arm up, right arm down, but decided on just an airplane-type finish, which felt subtle but not generic.
I didn’t experience any of the kinds of cramps I had felt after other long runs, meaning I was well fueled for the race. I did have to stop a couple of times on the last couple of miles to stretch out my calf again because there were a couple of times where the feeling of extreme tightness was coming back on. I would have liked to finish stronger, but I really felt like the whole muscle would tear apart if I tried to push it too much.
With the race over, I tried to thank every person I could in the most sincere way possible, looking into everyone’s eyes and saying “thank you so much.” I couldn’t say much more because I was just so worn out. They had great accommodations for the runners afterwards including, fruit, water, shiny plastic sheets to reflect the sun, bagels, ice, and fruit smoothies.
From the point that I strained my calf to the end of the race, I was feeling really emotional. I cannot express the amount of gratitude I was feeling for everyone that was in the race, those who lined the streets in support, and those who gave their time to make it such an amazing experience. I cannot say enough about how grateful I am to have my best friend and his wife come out in support of my effort.
This is going to sound a little cheesy, maybe a lot, and I did actually think this during the race, but I really think the marathon is a perfect metaphor for life. I expressed most of these thoughts in a talk I gave in sacrament meeting before coming up to Utah so I won’t get into all of it here, but there was something really special to me about the support I was feeling from everyone and how grateful I was to take part in such a neat experience and to be able to finish it.
They estimated that more than 1.5 million people come out just to watch the marathon. That means that for every runner there were 33 people pulling for just that one person to finish. While most people probably had someone specific that they were cheering for, I know that they were all cheering and pulling for me too. And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that it’s the same way in our everyday lives. While there are those obvious people who are in your corner and you know that they’re always there, there are literally dozens of others who are right behind them, pulling every bit as much for your success in all that you do.
From 2 Kings 6:15-17 - “And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?
And he answered, Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.
And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.”
I really think that this just happened to be one of those experiences where I had my eyes opened and literally saw the kind of support that was there to encourage me through to the end. I know that kind of heavenly help is there every step of the way, whether it’s the friends and family that we can actually see, or help from beyond the veil and God’s hand moving those pieces in our behalf, it is there and it is real. I know it.
One thing I love about the marathon is how dramatic and literal the achievement is of crossing the finish line. You’ve more than likely spent months in preparation and you literally cross a line that marks the completion of your goal. When I first saw the Nike signs posted around the city saying “We believe Sunday is just a victory lap” I thought it was kind of lame, but after having the experience of actually running the race, knowing full well that my weeks and months of training were finally over, that marketing tagline suddenly felt so much more poignant.
I can’t thank you all enough for all of your encouraging words and the support that you’ve given me. It literally means the world to me.
I finished the Chicago Marathon in 3:43:13. I’m already thinking that I want to run one of these every year, so if you want to join me I would be so excited to train with you and help you out in any way that I can.
I can’t believe you’re still here. Thanks for reading this far.
6 comments:
congrats on your accomplishment! that is awesome. and I can't believe you did 3:43 w/ the hurt calf. I like the metaphor to life, not that cheesy.
You are awesome.
Congrats! Welcome to the very exclusive club! Isn't it amazing that after all of the pain and suffering and time spent preparing for and running a marathon that many of us choose to do it again and again and again? So which one will it be next year?
Silva, you're my hero. That is sooo cool! Congrats! That's a great time even with your calf injury. You should feel really good about yourself.
They had beer at the end, too. And runners did drink of it -- what the f?
Silva, you're awesome, bro! One more tally for great life achievements.
Way to go Christopher!!! I love the Ghostbusters analogy and all of your observations along the way. It made your experience come alive...almost enough to make me want to run one...ALMOST!
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