Chicago Banco Popular Half-Marathon

Currently sitting in O’Hare Airport, DELAYED, and figure what a better time to reflect on my weekend in the windy city and most recent accomplishment. First and foremost, I am not just delayed, but I am delayed on standby – my flight was cancelled for no apparent reason – which means if I don’t get on this flight, I will be very likely stuck in the city until tomorrow. This would normally be fine, but it is extremely annoying in this case since (1) I could be still in the city enjoying its beauty and spending time with one of the many friends I neglected to see this past weekend, (2) I paid a premium to get a Sunday flight because I have a stupid client meeting tomorrow that I ABSOLUTELY must be at. I promise I will not say a single word at this meeting (especially now since my files are at home and there is no way I am going to read through the materials after I get home tonight), but somehow my presence at this meeting is necessary and I couldn’t finagle the day off.

Anyway, I am in Chicago for the half-marathon. That’s 13.1 miles of trauma to my knee; that’s 13.1 miles + 48 hours of a throbbing lower-back. Yet, it is 13.1 miles of running with people who love to run, amidst screaming supporters… 13.1 miles to clear my mind and reflect on my life and current state of affairs…and 13.1 miles, being the farthest I’ve ever run – which represents the accomplishment of a personal goal. It is nice to pull out the sharpie and cross personal-goals off my list --- even if they were just added to the list. Ha Ha!

As with anything I do (seriously), it wasn’t a mere walk in the park. An ideal run would be 70-75 degrees and clear blue skies. Variations on that are manageable – it could be a little warmer than you might expect, or cloudy, or sprinkling slightly. Whatever… Stephanie, Cindy, 20,000 faceless people, and I had the great pleasure, today, of running in a torrential downpour. I am not even sure I can or need to say much more on the subject -----It was just raining as hard as it could possibly rain. There were deep puddles, we had to walk through a muddy marsh to get to the start, I ruined my shoes (trashed) and favorite hat (we’ll see). At some point, when I was sprinting the last half-mile, three guys and I literally hydroplaned for a few steps. That was actually kind of cool, except, reflecting upon it, I am lucky not to be sitting on a broken tailbone right now.

I ran most of the race solo. I thought perhaps separation from my running partners was possible, but not less than 1 mile in. Perhaps it was my fault. Not sure. We were trying to push aggressively through the crowd. Steph made an aggressive move to the left, but the group closed quickly around her, so I made an aggressive move to the right. Her friend Cindy followed me, then started yelling “keep going, go, go, go.” I took a few steps at my new pace, and then started feeling guilty/big-brother-ish. Where’s Steph? I turned back and started running diagonally in the wrong direction. I made it to the opposite side, and then started basically running in place looking behind me. After a while of this, and not finding Steph, I decided that she might have pulled ahead. Now I had lost her friend too! I ran for a while, slower than my usual pace hoping to run into Steph, but no luck. At about mile #6, I exchanged words with Loren who mockingly told me the girls were ahead of me….So I took that as my permission to take-off.

I turned back to find Steph because you never leave your training partner. Her friend Cindy is an experienced runner. Steph and I, well, we printed the half-marathon training schedule. Beyond that, our training was one, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one hundred – utterly ridiculous. The training schedule started two/two-and-a-half months before today. The schedule proposed running three times per week, stretching, strengthening, and adding a mile weekly. Hmm. Umm. Our training schedule included running tops twice a week, and sometimes not at all, eating big meals after three-or-four-mile runs and then playing Wii. Hot. At some point last week, we decided to run some course I randomly claimed was 8-miles, and then last Friday we ran a course a friend of hers told her it was 10-miles…. And so we were ready! It is seriously my blessing that I am always able to partner with someone who is an easy-going near-slacker, but has the mental ability (or necessary stubbornness) to be able to do what needs to be done to get the job done. I have also proved that it is possible to “cram” for a physical activity. We ran our 10-mile trial run at a pace of nearly 8.5 minute miles.

Unfortunately, I did not get to run with Steph. At about mile 9 I randomly caught up with her friend. We ran together for a while, until she unleashed me.

I’d like to take this opportunity to give out some kudos. I need to give 10 kudos to my friend Loren Turner. She is a champion, for real, and a good friend. Loren got up this morning drove down our hotel on the Southside of Chicago to meet us for the race only to stand in the monsoon and cheer. To give you an idea of my kudos scale. I give Leslie, Taylor, etc. 1 or 2 kudos for posting comments to this blog. I give Leslie 5 or 6 kudos for driving from the O.C. to San Diego to pick me up for her pool party. I have no more examples because I am making all of this up because I just came up with the kudos concept while sitting here bored in the airport and probably won’t spend the time to consider passing out or keeping track of additional kudos (or will I? hee hee)…. But Loren, thank you…. I appreciate you…. Today…

Post-Script

- Got home at 2am. Nice.

- Bruised bottom of my foot (must have been the water in my shoe). A new one.

- Attended meeting. When have I ever had nothing to say?