Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a month since the Chicago Marathon!
Chicago was a race I had always been excited about, and I had qualified for it several times over the last few years. I finally used my qualifier and signed up for the 2024 Chicago Marathon. I was excited for a marathon known to be flat and fast, and it was my second world major!
When Chicago training rolled around after the Eagle Up 50-miler, I found myself not as excited about Chicago as I had been. Things felt a little monotonous. I knew I was getting mentally burnt out, while physically, my body felt good—no aches, pains, injuries, nothing.
Feeling that mental burnout, I took time to reflect on the last few years of my running career and realized I have accomplished a lot since my last daughter was born on December 25, 2021. I have been healthy enough to complete five marathons (Boston x 2, Erie, Kiawah ((PR)), Glass City) and three ultra-marathons (LTL 50k, LTL 6 hour, Eagle Up 50 miler). This number of races over ~2.5 years may not seem like a lot to some, but it’s noteworthy for me. I practice what I preach— I fuel well, recover well, and avoid overtraining, which, to this point, has helped keep me feeling great physically.
Despite how I felt mentally, I am the person that sees my commitments through. If I commit to doing something, I do it. If I was injured, that would be a different story. But with a bit of mental burnout, I will fight the good fight here, train as best as possible, and still work hard to prepare for race day.
Overall, I would say training went okay this summer. It was definitely not my best training cycle, but certainly not close to the worst. Workouts were okay, long runs were completed, and it was definitely an average training block. I was sick for 3-4 weeks in August (I know, I waited too long to see a doctor), which ended with finding out I had bronchitis the day after the Canton Half. Not fun. But knowing I had Chicago on the books, there was no way I would show up to that race without knowing I did everything I could to have the best training cycle possible.
And I’m SO glad I did.
My husband usually comes to all of my races out of state, we always try to make a mini vacation out of it (haha, a runner’s kind of vacation!). On our way to Chicago, we made a pit stop in Elkhart, Indiana, to visit the Notre Dame campus and stadium. The campus was unique, and although I am not the biggest football fan, checking out the campus was entertaining, and the stadium area was incredible. It happened to be the homecoming game that afternoon, so we got to feel the vibes of a Saturday home game! We snagged a few pictures with touchdown Jesus and went on our way.
I was getting anxious at this point. I needed to be at the expo with my bib in my hand; I am sure you can relate! Finally, we arrived in Chicago on Saturday afternoon, and I went straight to the expo. Fortunately, we stayed in the hotel connected to the expo, Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, making things much easier upon arrival. At the expo, I met up with my athletes and some friends running the race. It was so great to see everybody there ready to roll.
I made my way back to my hotel room and laid everything out for race morning. We grabbed a very early dinner (5:30pm!) at Il Culaccino, just around the block from our hotel. Pre-race dinner is always white spaghetti, light sauce, and lots of bread! After dinner, we went to the sky deck—which I 10/10 recommend if you plan to visit Chicago for any reason. Seeing the city lights at night was incredible from such a high viewpoint. We took a rickshaw back to our hotel that was blasting music from the 90s, and it was absolutely hilarious. I was ready to settle down, had everything prepped, and was ready to go for the morning.
Race wake-up was actually easy! I woke up around 4:30 AM Central Time, so it felt like 5:30 AM Eastern Time—another bonus for running Chicago. The time change worked in my favor for an early morning wake-up! I did not feel nervous; I was excited and calm, which made the morning way more enjoyable.
I gathered everything, grabbed my bagel and gatorlyte, and headed to the lobby to meet Roger. I was excited to ride the shuttle with him, and walk to Grant Park together. We talked about our race goals and strategies on the way. Roger is always a blast and has a calm vibe to be around!
Roger and I got to Grant Park, found the PLX group photo, and then broke off quickly to the port-a-potties with Nicole and Bethany. We waited roughly 45 minutes in the port-a-potty line—that was absolutely insane! Definitely my biggest complaint of this marathon: They needed at least 1 million more port-a-potties that morning!
However, there is no better feeling than having your running buddies with you in a big city at a world major race, and you’re all meeting up and seeing each other before the big dance, it feels like home!
After we finally made it through the line, Nicole and I booked it over to our corral together and broke off. She was in corral C, and I was in E, both wave one. From here, I had about 40-ish minutes until I knew I would be starting the race. I planned to start in the back of my corral, where there was tons of space. I even sat down for a little while on the sidewalk and enjoyed some people-watching! I still cannot believe over 50,000 runners were at this race, nuts!
Soon enough, it was time to take my gel and prep for the race to start. It felt like a slow crawl walking to the start, but I talked to several runners in my corral, which was so much fun. One from California, another from Australia. Before I knew it, we were finally off and running through this fantastic city! I knew the GPS would be a mess my watch no matter what, so I was manually lapped my miles on my garmin. With the first few miles in the 8:40s, I felt fantastic, warming up, and everything felt great! I took a few videos and soaked in the energy of the course. The sheer volume of the crowds lining the streets was unlike anything I had experienced!
Speaking of the volume of the crowd, I wore my Shokz headphones for the whole race, as I tend to do these days. I had a podcast lined up and a playlist, and I honestly couldn’t even hear it—the crowds were on fire! I probably listened to two songs, the rest was all crowd roaring and cowbell sounds for 26.2 miles!
I picked up pace for several miles, which was so easy to do with the roaring crowd! I took gels every 20-30 minutes and used Gatorade and my salt tabs along the course.
At one point, I thought I had miscalculated my gels and was short one gel (turns out the “missing” gel was in my fuel belt the whole time!). I decided to grab a Maurten caffeinated gel on the course— which I have never tried before (lol, nothing new on race day, right?) And WOW, it was disgusting! I anticipated it to be flavorless and bitter due to the caffeine content. However, I was not expecting whatever it was that I tasted. I dry heaved three times in a row and threw the gel as hard as I could to the side of the course. No offense to the Maurten brand or those who love this product; it is absolutely not for me!
Other than this experience, I felt solid throughout the rest of the race. My pace slowed a bit near mile 20-21, as I started to feel a mental block. Knowing the race is so close to being over but knowing you still have just under an hour left to run can feel a little daunting (for me).
At one point, we were passing other runners across the street from us, and I loved that part of the race! However, I looked over and noticed they were at mile 24, and mentally got ahead of the mileage in my mind and got a little too excited too soon! I realized I still had a few miles until I saw that sign; my brain took over until I hit mile 25. Everything felt hard, I was ready to be done. But I never stopped, not even through the water stops, I refill my handheld as I go.
Fast forward to 1.2ish miles to go, my mental block disappeared, and my body said “LET’S GOOOOO!!”. Coming down the last stretch before “the hill,” I was holding a 6:45 pace and on cloud 9. I felt strong and excited to be part of this day and this fantastic race, and I knew I would come in under 3:40, which was my goal for the day!
Finally, passing through the finish line and hitting the brakes is theee best feeling ever after 26+ miles of effort! 3:37:41. With the training block I had, this was a win.
I’ve run Boston three times, and I thought, “Could Chicago really come close to my Boston experiences?”
If I’m being honest, I think Chicago was right up there with Boston in every way! I enjoyed the turns on the course more than the straight shot in Boston. The crowd support on this day was a little better than I’ve experienced three times in Boston! But let’s remember my three Boston Marathons had pretty crappy weather for spectating— the 2018 hurricane, the 2023 rainy/drizzle, and the 2024 summer day. I think it’s much easier for spectators to be all over the course in Chicago, versus Boston you have to post up, or lean into the trains to help get you to different points along the course.
Something unexpected about Chicago was the number of spectators darting in front of me, as well as other runners in the ENTIRE race! I counted 17 times that a spectator ran in front of me to cross the street, yikes! I did not expect that. You cannot cross the race course in Boston, so I was shocked that this happened to all of us the entire race!
Post-race, my husband and I walked back to our hotel, roughly two miles away. I hopped in the shower, had a protein shake and deep-dish pizza, and got ready for our architecture boat tour, which was honestly incredible. I recommend doing that if you’re in Chicago! All of the walking, even the stairs, sounded awful but actually felt okay, and it helped me recover tremendously.
After that, we grabbed food, took an Uber to Wrigley Field, and then made our way to “the Bean” before meeting Bethany, Ben, and Roger for dinner.
There’s nothing better than sitting down with your friends who also ran the race and hearing all about their race recaps! It’s one of my favorite parts of the experience—the post-race meet-ups and hearing all about it!
All in all, Chicago was amazing—it’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed in a marathon. I forgot how much I love going into a new race and not knowing every nook, cranny, detail, or turn on the course. I left the city feeling recharged and excited for a clean slate ahead. I have no races on the books (until I end up signing up for Loop the Lake 50k, lol), aside from maybe the usual turkey trot on Thanksgiving morning.
If you made it this far, you totally rock. Thanks for reading!
