Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A Starting Point...At The Finish Line

It's over. I completed the Chicago Marathon in 3:36:48. Happy that I finished strong having never run that distance before. A little disappointed also. I felt a sub 3:30 was certainly possible but I made a critical mistake prior to the start of the race: I stood to far towards the back of the pack. I knew this might be a problem but I assumed there would be open running lanes that would allow me to move up quickly. Nope. People were running shoulder-to-shoulder and I exhausted a ton of energy criss crossing from one side of the road to the other trying to pass. Whenever an open curb presented itself (like in the Lincoln Park area), I raced up on the curb and passed dozens of people before jumping back into the stream at the next obstruction. I did not anticipate the running pack would be this dense. I bet I passed well over 20,000 people along my race. I was never able to recover my time enough to challenge 3:30. Next time, I'll know better. Still, I'm very pleased to have finished with a sense that I could do even better. That is a nice feeling and one to carry into the next marathon. So, at my finish line, I found a starting point on what to improve on for the next one.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome job on your debut marathon.

Shall we do that one again? I'm most definitely in for next year. :)

I know you and Mike want to tackle Bayshore this coming May. I may have to consider that, although after looking at the results, I'd be lucky to NOT be dead last in my age division.

Yikes!

KimsRunning said...

You ran your first marathon in 3:36:48?????? Wow! I'm so jealous. Mine was almost exactly 2hours longer than yours....LOL...but I am not ashamed! I had the best time and met so many wonderful people along the way. My next one will be taken quite a bit more seriously! I hope. I tend to act like a dog in a car with it's head out the window taking in all the sights, sounds and smells when I run! Haha!!