Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Running the Chicago Marathon

Well, I'm going to give it a try.  I'm participating in the Chicago Marathon on October 7, 2012.  That's 26.2 miles - the full marathon.  They don't offer a half marathon distance. 

My plan is to run slowly until the group spreads out a bit.  Then I'll start alternating running with walking.  I'll run 3 minutes and then walk 1 minute and continue that process for as long as possible, hopefully until mile 17 or 18.  Then I'll just hang on by running as much as necessary to try to stay under a 15 minute mile.  I have to finish in 6 hours and 30 minutes or they will pull me off the course.  I'm hoping to come in at 6 hours so I stay sufficiently ahead of the truck, but it's possible I'll be picked up and have to post a "did not finish". 

As of today, I give myself a 60% chance of finishing within legal time requirements.  At various times throughout training, I figured my chances were below 50%, so I'm feeling a bit more confident.

I've had several injury issues throughout my training.  The biggest problem was a Piriformis muscle in my hip/buttox area.  Also, several surrounding hip muscles were impacted.  Because of this, I ran very little in June and July (key months for building base mileage for the October marathon).  I finally saw a sports medicine doctor, had physical therapy, and got medical massage.  After about 8 weeks, I was able to put in longer miles without the Periformis issue.  I had to ramp up mileage pretty quickly after that sideline and so I'm not as well prepared as I had planned to be by now.

My fastest half marathon is 2 hours and 25 minutes; about an 11 minute mile.  I hope to run 13-15 minute miles for the full marathon. 

Track My Progress
If I set it up correctly, my twitter account will be auto-updated while I'm running on Sunday morning.  Updates should occur as I cross the 10K (6.2 miles), halfway (13.1 miles) and 30K (18.64 miles) checkpoints, as well as the finish line. My twitter feed is on the right side of my blog, so you can check it even if you don't have a twitter account or you don't follow me on Twitter.  Ken will also get text messages at those intervals.

Wish me luck!  If all the stars align, I will be able to put that 26.2 magnet on my car.  What an accomplishment that would/will be!