2019 Chicago Marathon Trip/Race Recap: Part 1

As I sit down and attempt to recap my experience at the 2019 Chicago Marathon, I find that I have more thoughts in my head than I can reasonably expect to convey in a single post. The build up to this race has been a defining feature of my life for 6 months, and the takeaways from it will influence me well into the future.

So, in order to try to make this post somewhat manageable, I'm going to split it into three parts. The first will cover my travel to Chicago and the day before the race. The second will feature the race itself and the day after. Then, at some future time, I will hopefully sit down and take a further dive into my thoughts and feelings on the entire process from start to finish.

I will add one warning: this is as much a journal for me as a blog for anyone else. So the level of detail may be a little much at times, especially in discussing the mundane aspects of my travel. So if you only want to read about the race, feel free to skip part 1 and wait for part 2. :)

Friday, October 11, 2019

I woke to my alarm at 5:30 am on Friday, after a little less than 6 hours of restless sleep. I've told many running buddies of mine that when it comes to races and sleep, the weeks leading up to the race are much more important than just the night before. After a poor night's sleep on both Wednesday and Thursday, I'm hoping that holds true for the 4 nights before the race as well!

After a quick shower and some breakfast, I head out to meet my mother, who has graciously offered to drive me to the airport, at around 6:10 am. Since I'm not checking any bags, it's a quick pass through security, and with about 15 minutes until boarding I grab a bagel and a muffin at Tim Horton's to snack on during the flight. I was also carrying an 800 ml water bottle with me to ensure proper pre-race hydration, so I filled that up at the water fountain and hopped on-board the flight to Toronto.

Beautiful morning drive to the airport. :)

I was hoping to catch up on some sleep during the flight, but as someone who typically needs ideal conditions to sleep I knew that that was unlikely. After a brief and futile attempt, I took out my phone for some entertainment. Thankfully, I was well-prepared, because "El Camino" (the Breaking Bad movie) had released overnight, and I had downloaded it to my Netflix account before leaving the house. As a HUGE Breaking Bad fan, I was pretty excited to watch it, and the next 2 hours flew by. The only slight hiccup was related to the 800 ml of water I took with me; for future reference, if you're flying pre-marathon and planning to hydrate well on the plane, a window seat probably isn't the best choice. My apologies to my two seatmates who I had to wake from their naps in order to go to the bathroom!

The flight arrived in Toronto right on schedule, leaving me with a little under 3 hours before boarding my flight to Chicago. I wasn't feeling like lunch after eating my bagel on the plane, so I grabbed an Iced Capp and a donut from Tim Horton's and found a place to relax for a bit. (In case it hasn't become clear yet, I'm not the person to follow when it comes to pre-race nutrition. Haha)

My Garmin watch had started to a die a few weeks prior, and the new one that I ordered had arrived the day before I left. I took some time to download the Garmin app, configure the proper settings on my watch, and pair my watch and my phone via Bluetooth. I also connected to the airport Wi-Fi and downloaded some TV episodes for the plane, and then I headed through customs with no issue and boarded the flight to Chicago.

The flight seemed like it took about 20 minutes, and the only really notable thing that happened was during the landing. About 5 minutes out, I noticed another plane flying directly parallel to us. It remained there as we approached for our landing, and the two planes touched the ground simultaneously, about 800 metres or so apart. This may be completely normal at busier airports, but it was the first time I had ever witnessed it, and I have to admit I found it to be pretty cool!

Hello over there!

It was around 2:30 pm local time when I landed, and since I was in no rush to get anywhere I took my time in determining the best transportation option to my hotel. After discovering that there were no shuttle buses available and that an Uber or Taxi would cost between $40-50, I decided to take the 'L' train. I was lucky that there were a number of other Newfoundlanders travelling to Chicago, including one who had lived there previously, and there was an email thread leading up to the race with some tips. So I knew that I didn't need to buy a ticket at the kiosk, and that the Blue line would take me within a 5-10 minute walk of my hotel. I followed the signs to the train, tapped my credit card at the turn stiles, and boarded the train. After about an hour ride, I arrived at my destination. Not bad for $5.

When I stepped off the train, I learned that fall in Chicago can be very much like fall in Newfoundland, as it was about 10 degrees and raining. Yay! Thankfully I only had about a 10-minute walk to my hotel, so the rain was only a minor inconvenience. We were staying about 3 kilometres from downtown, although the Willis Tower was on the same street as our hotel. As someone who has always loved tall buildings, I had to stop and take my first pic on the ground in Chicago, even if the rain and clouds made for a less than ideal view.

The building is bigger, but the weather looks a lot

like home!

I checked in to my hotel, and then got hit with the biggest surprise of the weekend:

Where's the second bed?

I was sharing a room with my friend Kiley, and I opened the door to discover a very small room with a single bed. Kiley had booked the room, and while he had been making jokes about me "getting the room with the bunk beds" for a couple of days, I thought they were just that! Turns out the hotel only had single bed rooms, and bunk bed rooms, and as you can plainly see, we got the former. I went down to the front desk to see if there was anything they could do, but was informed that with it being marathon weekend they were sold out, and we were out of luck unless there was a cancellation. Oh well, I guess Kiley and I will be getting cozy the night before the race!

I unpacked my stuff, and headed out for some supper. After checking with the front desk, I discovered there were only a couple of options close to the hotel. I headed to the tavern across the street, had a delicious chicken Caesar salad and a Guinness, and then stopped by the local corner store to get some Gatorade, bananas, and snacks.

As I was only in Chicago for 3 nights, and we would need to get up at around 4:00 am on Sunday for the race, I decided there was no point in acclimating to the time difference. So after relaxing in the room for a couple of hours, I headed to bed just after 8:00 pm, with the hopes of sleeping until around 4:00 am and making up for the previous two nights of poor sleep.

Saturday, October 11, 2019

My sleep did not go nearly as well as I had hoped. I was awoken just as I was drifting off by a standing 8:45 pm alarm that I had forgotten to turn off, and after waking once more, and  a generally fitful sleep due to the increased street noise, I got up for good at around 3:20 am.

The one positive thing about this is that Eliud Kipchoge was making his attempt at running a sub-2 hour marathon overnight, and so I fired up YouTube to follow along. I was able to rewind back the live feed without figuring out how he was doing, although glitchy hotel Wi-Fi caused it to jump ahead around halfway through and ruin the ending. Still, it was incredible to watch him achieve such a notable goal, and the elation he showed at the finish was very moving. Definitely the right motivation to go out and crush it myself on Sunday!

I got up a little after 6:00 am and showered and got ready, and then I attempted to book an architectural boat tour of the city. The intermittent Wi-Fi prevented me from doing that, so I decided to head out for breakfast and figured I'd book a ticket once I got there. Unfortunately, there was nothing open near our hotel for breakfast, so I headed to the 'L' train station to check out the options downtown.

A much nicer view in the morning

On the walk to the train, I realized it was much colder out than I had expected, with the temperature hovering around 3 degrees. I quickly decided that I didn't want to sit in a boat for 75 minutes in these temps the day before the race, and was grateful that the Wi-Fi had prevented my booking.

I wasn't sure where was the best spot to find food downtown, so I got off at the first stop and decided to walk around and find something. This turned out to be a terrible mistake. It turns out that downtown Chicago is a pretty dead place at 7:00 am on a Saturday morning, even with 45,000+ people in town to run a marathon. After over a half hour of walking around in the cold, I went into a hotel and asked if there was anywhere nearby where I could get a sit-down breakfast. They directed me to the nearest spot, which was still another 4 blocks away.

At least I got a better view of the tower.

I finally got to the restaurant, and was quite glad to sit in the warmth for some food. I ordered a hot chocolate and an omelet, which came with fruit and home fries, along with the option of toast or pancakes as a side. I went with the pancakes, and was pretty surprised when they showed up with two gigantic pancakes alongside my already full plate of food. I ate most of everything, left feeling sufficiently full, and hoping that fuel would prove useful on Sunday. :)

It was now closing in on 9:00 am, and I decided that I would do the one touristy thing I really wanted to do while I was in Chicago: go up to the SkyDeck of the Willis Tower. Shocking, I know. Haha  I checked the times online, and it wasn't opening until 9:30 am, but since I had nothing else to do in the meantime I headed on over.

I got there a little after 9:00 am, and was led directly to the lineup area. There was probably about 40 or so people in front of me, and after a short wait we were allowed inside to purchase our tickets and I headed up in the elevator.

It was an absolutely beautiful morning, and so the views of Chicago and Lake Michigan were gorgeous. It was great to see the whole city from that vantage point, including the start and finish areas for the marathon. 

The start and finish lines in a single pic; just need to cover

42.2 km between them!

After taking about a half hour to circle the tower and pick up a souvenir for Julia, I got in line to go out on the Ledge, which is effectively a small glass box that you get to stand in for about a minute. The wait was about 10-15 minutes, and while it wasn't exactly a jaw-dropping experience, it was worth it for the pics.

Just hanging out over Chicago

I took the elevator down at around 10:30 am, and as I was walking out I heard one of the employees telling those in line that the wait to go up was now about 3 hours. Am I ever glad I showed up at 9:00 am!

While I had had an enjoyable morning, my schedule was also now a little thrown off. Kiley was landing around 12:00 pm, and I was planning on heading to the Expo with him to pick up our race kits when he got to the hotel. That left me about 2.5 hours to get back to the hotel, have some lunch, and hopefully grab a quick nap. As I wanted to have an early supper, I decided the best thing to do was grab something small before getting the train back to the hotel.

I grabbed a bagel and a frappuccino at Starbucks, and then took the train back to the hotel. I stopped by the front desk once more to check for a bunk bed room (no luck), and then headed up for a nap. I did managed to rest for about a half hour or so, and when Kiley showed up a little after 1:00 pm we called a cab and headed to the Expo.

Neither of us wanted to spend too much time there, and thankfully the setup was such that everything was very efficient. We had a QR code on our race ticket, and when we were entering the packet pick-up area they scanned it and checked our ID. Kiley was directed to stall #4, and I was directed to stall #19. As I approached, I noticed that #19 was the only one in my area without an attendant. Just my luck, right? Wrong. It turns out that when they scanned our QR code at the entrance, the attendant at the stall was alerted that we were coming, and they had already gone to grab my packet. I guess that is how you deal with getting 47,000 runners their race kits quickly!

The one slightly annoying thing was that the race shirts were at the back of the other section of the Expo, so you had no choice but go around and walk through all the vendors. We stopped at the Gatorade booth to try some samples of the drinks and gels that would be on the course, but otherwise we just grabbed our shirts and headed for the exit fairly quickly.

Pretty cool that we get to share the course with the likes

of Jordan Hasay and Mo Farah!

On the way back to the hotel, we got our cab to stop at Target about 4 blocks away to pick up breakfast supplies for the morning. My usual pre-race/long run meal this year has been a bagel with peanut butter, so my intention was to pick up a single bagel and a single serving size of peanut butter if possible. I had no luck with either, and so not wanting to be wasteful, I decided we'd hit the Starbucks inside Target instead. I grabbed some more bananas, went through the checkout, and headed to Starbucks. Unfortunately, they had no bagels either; my pre-race breakfast isn't shaping up too well!

We walked the 4 blocks back to the hotel, and since it was around 4:00 pm when we got there we decided to head right out for supper. After chatting with the front desk, we determined that our best option for our normal pre-race pasta was about 7 blocks away. Note to self: next time, make sure there are sufficient food options very close to the hotel!

We located the restaurant without any trouble, and grabbed a nice meal of chicken fettuccine alfredo with some garlic bread, which is what I eat the night before every big race. With supper complete, we set off once more to try and secure breakfast for the next morning, as well as a few night before snacks. After striking out at 7/11, I located the nearest Starbucks on the map on my phone. We then proceeded to walk right past it, before returning and finally getting my bagel, although they had no peanut butter. Second note to self: plan better with regards to your pre-race breakfast!

With breakfast and snacks in hand, we walked back to the hotel and got there around 6:00 pm. At this point, I realized that I had over 18,000 steps in for the day, plus the hour or so standing around at the Willis Tower. Oops! I've had my phone since late-May, and I had never crossed 11,000 in a day before (I will note I don't carry my phone on runs, so those steps aren't counted). Needless to say, this was not an ideal way to spend the day before the marathon. Hopefully all those extra steps won't cause a problem during the race.

The next couple of hours were spent getting cleaned up (need the aerodynamic bald head for race day!), prepping our gear for the morning, and relaxing, before turning in shortly after 8:00 pm. After 6 long months of training, and two years waiting for redemption from my previous marathon, tomorrow is finally the big day!

Here we go!!!