The 2010 Bank of America Chicago Marathon: My wrap-up post.

This Sunday morning, I'm still in bed, enjoying the silence. Two Sundays ago, I ran a marathon. My first marathon.

My dear friend Chuck and I, along with 36,159 other finishers, ran a 26.2 mile loop around the glittering city of Chicago.

With Chuck in the start corral, blissfully unaware of our impending fate.

It seems physically impossible at this point that 26.2 miles actually came out of me just 14 days ago, but they did. Sometimes triumphantly, but mostly in a greatly labored, painstaking fashion. Despite following my training schedule almost exactly to the letter, running 310 miles over 12 weeks, peaking at 21.4 miles -- allow me to be the first to say that running a marathon is difficult, difficult, lemon difficult.

I was planning on being overprepared, training on the hills of Prospect Park in 95+ degrees and crazy humidity all summer. Chicago is famous for being an 'easy' beginner marathon, known for a fast, flat course and relatively cool temperatures. I had hit overtraining points at various instances in my training schedule, experiencing dead legs, frustration, and declining motivation. But I had rested it out, recovered and finished my schedule strong, running my last 10-miler on a mountain in Aspen. Strong legs, strong lungs. I felt ready.

October 10, 2010: my personal day of atonement. The marathon started off brilliantly - 60 degrees, a breezy beautiful day in Chicago. Chuck and I laughed at the people who stopped to walk as we easily peeled off the first 10 miles, waving at our DFCB comrades at the 6.5.

It got harder, and much hotter, from there. I remember looking longingly at the 13.1 mile marker, remembering how fun it was to run the Phoenix RnR half and realizing that I was going to have to double that distance before I could rest today. Oof.

By 15 miles, Chuck and I both realized that the wheels were falling off. It was a mental game from there on out.

I honestly don't know how we got through the rest of it, but we did. Playing the alphabet game along the way definitely helped. Seeing my wonderful parents at the 17-mile marker gave me a crucial boost. Having my amazing boyfriend cruise on the sidewalk across from us on a bike in the final miles was more or less necessary. Also, having one of my best friends struggling alongside me was a HUGE help - we've both said we didn't know how we would have finished without the other.

But we did. Finish, that is. That was all I had set out to do - finish, preferably without walking. Aside from walking through the water/aid stations and two bathroom stops (one with an agonizingly frustrating 20-minute wait), I ran the whole. Damn. Thing. The wimpy girl who could never once run the mile in high school without walking, the clumsy girl who was always picked last for every team, ever, the bookish girl whose 4.0 was marred by A-minuses in gym - I ran a marathon, in five hours and 45 minutes.

And that is pretty cool.

That may have been my last marathon - the jury's still out.  The whole thing was really hard on my body, my knees - it's a rough undertaking, to train for something like this. Really gratifying in the end, though. I'm so glad that I was able to participate, thrilled that my body allowed me to be part of such an incredible, life-altering event.

It took me a long time to write this wrap-up post, partly because it's planning season at work and things have been a little nutty, and partly because it took me that long to come to terms with what I had really accomplished. I missed my goal time by more than an hour. My runner friends were tweeting about their terrible finish times, people who had beat me by more than two hours. I was mortified. It took me this long to realize that I didn't need to be embarrassed, that my incredibly slow time didn't make me a failure.

It makes me a marathoner.

A hug from my runner father, post-race.

Fancy hardware.

My three key marathon take-aways:

1. Unless you're an amazing natural athlete, and even then, do NOT disregard your training schedule. A marathon is a big freaking deal. Your body deserves to be prepared for it.

2. Support system, seriously. I don't know how I would have finished the thing without Chuck, Clay and my parents supporting me the whole way. Also, be sure to write your name on your arms. Random people cheer for you the whole way and it's completely amazing. And entirely necessary, in my case.

3. Be proud. Even if your time is a completely mortifying five hours and 45 minutes, be proud. You've done something that the majority of people will never be able to do, and that's pretty remarkable.

Next, I seriously gotta nail that triathlon.

Data-love and training optimization.

This week, I bit the bullet and signed my life away on the 2010 Chicago Marathon.

As promised by all my seasoned marathoner buddies, running a half only makes you want to run a full. I wish it was called something other than a half-marathon... it almost feels like half an accomplishment. So ridiculous, considering three years ago, I couldn't run a mile. Anyhow, I'll be running my brains out on October 10, and you all will be subject to my training updates along the way. I apologize in advance. I'm crazy.

I've hated and successfully avoided running my whole life. Until recently! So, why the crazy?

I'm no Feltron, but a good portion of my recent success in running can be linked directly back to the start of my dailymile membership. I know it's supposed to be a networking site, but I could care less about the social aspect (sorry dailymile). For me, it's motivating as a data catalyst.

Something about being able to map out my running stats is a real spark plug for me. And, not just because I can see the holes in my week and feel like a worthless bum when I don't run. Not because I know other people can see when I don't run. Media kids love data, right? We love to optimize? I had a near panic attack when I thought I lost my TI83+ last week. I only have this one little website, but I strive to optimize my posting schedule, tags, titles, etc., based on my Google Analytics data; I get the same rush out of optimizing my training based on dailymile data.

It's motivating to know that in the months where I ran at least 4 days a week, I was more likely to feel good or great about my runs. It's motivating to see that in the weeks where I incorporated strength training into my weekday workouts, I was able to feel great for longer runs on weekends. It's motivating to track miles I've put on my shoes and guesstimate when I'll need new ones. And, it's incredibly motivating to look back over the months and see how far I've come. It's also just plain useful information.Your body is a machine, you know? It's fun to tinker with the inputs.

Training schedules are really helpful for big runs, and I'll certainly be using one as I train for the marathon. But when you get down to it, a training schedule can't help you determine on which days of the week you should swim to get the most out of that week's miles. You can't massage a schedule and try to determine what is linking together the feeling-blah days, figure out what's bothering your knee. A schedule doesn't send you weekly newsletters to remind you to keep kicking ass. Just like every website feels a bit different and needs custom optimization, so do you and your feet. You're special. Like a snowflake. And it's really helpful, at least to me, to treat my training that way.

There are tons of sites out there like dailymile that help you add some optimization into your training. I highly recommend social fitness tracking to any of my nerd friends who could use a good kick in the pants in re: their currently pathetic data.

Plus, look at the pretty charts!

Happy training!