Throwback Race Report - 2000 Chicago Marathon debut

I don't think we're going to be seeing new race reports for awhile. So let's get some old school ones going.

This is the story of my debut marathon, Chicago 2000.

Times were different then. We survived a bug that we would thought would destroy the world; Abdi Abdirahman was a surprise Olympian. Just different man.

I was 20 and a sophomore in college. I had ran throughout high school and was decent, but not good (2:02/4:50/10:15, low 16s XC). As a freshman, I wasn't really running but remaining active. When spring hit, a couple floormates and I started to get out fairly consistently. I was going to spend the summer at home interning for the DOT, so I decided it would be a good time to train and try a marathon. And because I had no clue, I decided 3:00 sounded good as a goal.

First step - find a plan. This was 2000, so the first stop was the library, not the Internet. I didn't find anything I liked, so I turned to the wild world wide web. I sorted through a variety of plans, dismissing the ones that sounded stupid or had me running too much. Finally, one spoke to me. I can't remember the exact details. I know it was mainly time based. Easy runs, tempo runs, long runs were all in minutes. The only "distance" based runs were some 800 repeats. I know that a major selling point was that it varied the long run based on your goal time - the faster you were, the shorter the long run. My goal time resulted in adding zero minutes to the long run. Sold.

Second step - run. Summer started and I started following the plan. It wasn't too rough - I may have peaked at 50 mpw. That was maybe 5 or 10 miles higher than what I would do in a normal high school week. Sometimes I would take my watch with me (a Timex Ironman with a broken latch, so I either carried it in my hand or tied it to the drawstring in my shorts), other times I would "time" my run by looking at the clock on the microwave before and after the run. High tech stuff. This was all solo work as my old running buddies were either getting out of shape or training for college XC and blasting way too much speedwork for me.

Returning to school in the fall let me get in some more group runs and convince some people to join me for 800s on the speedblock. I also raced a tune up race - the Homecoming 5k. As Illinois HS XC races were not required to be 5k (the rules say something like 2.9-3.1 miles), this was my longest race ever. It went ok; felt like an early season race.

My long runs were usually done in a nearby state park. I would just run around the paths getting lost until my watch said I had a half hour left. Then I would try to find my car before that time ended. It usually worked pretty well. I think I maxed out at 2:40. I have zero clue how far any of these runs were.

Third step - sign up for the race. You know how you have to sign up for a major nearly a year in advance now? That was not a thing. I signed up in the end of September, not because the race was going to fill up, but because there was a price increase on Oct. 1. Pretty nice to know you did the training and weren't hurt and sign up as you started taper.

Fourth step - go to Chicago. I was in college, so I had minimal cash. I crashed on the dorm floor of a HS friend at UIC. Bumped into another HS friend doing the same thing; so we aimed to get to the el at the same time in the morning.

Fifth step - get to the race. We successfully managed the big city transportation and got to the start line. We saw a lady with a banana and asked her where she got it - her response was to clutch it tightly and declare "I brought it from home and it is for my boyfriend". Ok... My buddy and I line for the bathrooms, which was where we were when the gun went off. Whoops.

Sixth step - race. So I finish up and head over to the start area. I jump a barrier and am back with the 4:30 crowd. Oh well.

My race day gear was: a pair of Pegs (either 13 or 14, can't remember if sprang for the newest edition), cotton socks, the shorts I stole from my HS with my watch tied to the drawstring, and (splurge) a "dryfit" nike shirt. This was a new material, so I was pretty stoked; it had felt pretty comfortable on the couple long runs I had done in it. Also, this was my first chip timed race. I had never had to tie anything to my laces before, but it felt pretty secure.

This would be my longest race ever, and really longest run too. And my first race that was over a couple hundred runners. And my first race with adults. Despite all that, I was really calm. I clipped of a couple warmup miles in the crowd and just worked on passing people. I remember it starting to open up around mile 9. I split 1:32:14 on the first half and felt pretty good. I was taking my watch out of my shorts at the mile markers and just making sure it was a sub7. We passed a powerade gel stop - never had these before. So I grabbed a vanilla. Disgusting. In Chinatown, an old lady offered me oranges or fried chicken. I went with an orange slice.

Eventually, my pace started to creep back up towards 7 flat. Then slightly over. As I passed the 26 mile marker, my watch showed 3:00 flat. That goal was gone. I didn't know if I wanted to do Boston, but back then the time was 3:10:59, so that was in the bag. I slowed down, relaxed, and just enjoyed the crowds around the finish. It was a great feeling. I crossed in 3:02:34.

Seventh step - back to life. I found my parents who had come to cheer me on (seeing me ~5 times I think). I realized that the dry fit had chafed my nipples quite severely. I took the train back to UIC and got in my car to drive back down to Champaign. I went to a physics study group because we had a midterm on Tuesday. Monday morning, I could barely get down the five steps out of my building.

Then I got fat and didn't race again for like 10 years.