Chicago marathon race report

[Simo Leone]

I started my marathon career last year. I figured best to start on a nice flat fast course... that conveniently happens to be located in my hometown Chicago. I did my best to cobble together a marathon training plan - with the benefit of being an experienced runner - and went for it thinking "just make it to the end". Result: 3:00:45. Not bad, and faster than I thought. BQ on my first try. Alrighty then.

Fast forward to this year.

For my second marathon, I decided to keep it fast and familiar. I also set some "real goals" this time.

Primary goal:

- 3:00:00

Nice-to-haves:

- catch my high school cross country/track coach's ghost (who passed away last year, sadly). 2:57:50

- beat my uncle on the same course in 1992 (albeit he was in his 40's at the time...). 2:54:57 

Goals in hand, I assembled a plan. I was ambitious. I looked into elite training. I read several off-the-shelf plans designed for sub-3ing. Then I blended what I learned with my existing heart-rate-based approach.

I proceeded to seriously beat the shit out of myself. GGRC didn't see my face for months. Communication was mostly a series of kudos and Hans making snarky comments on Strava.

Race day. Finally. Chicago is pretty at the crack of dawn. Not pictured: a thermometer showing that it is in fact 39 degrees out, and me shivering inside a head-to-toe garbage bag moo-moo.

I was fortunate enough to qualify into corral A this year. I understood this meant that I'd be starting 1 minute after elites. Neat. I also understood this would mean I'd be running with some capable folks. The gun went off and in the ensuing 60 seconds I learned what this actually meant: by one minute they mean "within one minute, or asap" and I was surrounded by people who start their marathon at a sub-6 (!!!) pace. "Welp. I'll go with it and keep up with the herd!" I thought to myself as I put away the first 5k in 18:19. "Screw it. Let's see how long I can take this" 

As it turned out - I could take it for about 13 miles. A complete blur. I spotted my parents in the crowd as I rounded the corner into Greektown at Adams & Franklin. This prompted me to point, sprint, and scream like a madman to the delight  of the massive crowd (or horror, who knows. I'm going with delight). Oh and a half marathon PR came out of that split. I beat my previous best by nearly 4 minutes... a time which had earned me a first place finish at a half marathon just a couple months ago. I felt fantastic.

Ok... now just do that one more time, right? Not. I knew this wasn't sustainable so I switched to a "fade slow" strategy for the rest of the race. I might have just made that strategy up, but the idea is to set explicit goals only marginally slower than whatever you were doing to begin with, and tail anyone that passes you for a couple hundred meters as a form of damage control. So I lowered my standards to 6:30s (a generous allowance, I thought, from previous low 6's).

I hit that for 10km before readjusting to 6:45. I assumed I could hold that for the rest of the race.... only 12km to go.

If you've never run so hard that you fear your muscles may disobey you altogether, you've never run hard enough.

... and at 35km, I was there. "Just slam your feet into the ground. Check your form. Take all the gatorade they'll give you. Electrolytes help muscles fire." My training was kicking in - back to basics. "And just keep it under 7:00. FFS". Well I failed at that - my last splits were awful as I sputtered through the last 7km. In a last hurrah sort of moment... right around 40km I realized that unless I stopped and walked, I would also be breaking 2:50, which was a great mental boost that lasted all the way through the finish (this mental boost is not apparent in actual timing data). The last mile of the course was marked at 400m intervals. It felt like the longest mile I've ever run.

But I finished. 2:48:50. All missions accomplished. At least I got a cold beer at the end, and it even turned out to be a pretty nice day!

GGRC was well-represented in Chicago. Props also go to Rax, Matt Goldberg, Robert Wong, and Katie Wysocky who all had great races (well, except Rax who somehow Rax'd his chip between 40km and the finish. I'm sure they'll sort that out, buddy). Maria Shuckahosee was also in town cheering on her sister.

That's it for now. Only a few more upcoming races this year for me:

Nov 2 : US Half (San Francisco - not a club race)

Nov 8: Santa Barbara Half

Dev 14: GGRC Christmas Relays

I guess I should register for Boston, huh?

-Simo

[David Li]

Simo, that is unwholesomely fast. Huge congrats for a huge pr!!!

Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 14, 2014, at 12:41 AM, Simo Leone <leone...@gmail.com> wrote:

I started my marathon career last year. I figured best to start on a nice flat fast course... that conveniently happens to be located in my hometown Chicago. I did my best to cobble together a marathon training plan - with the benefit of being an experienced runner - and went for it thinking "just make it to the end". Result: 3:00:45. Not bad, and faster than I thought. BQ on my first try. Alrighty then.

Fast forward to this year.

For my second marathon, I decided to keep it fast and familiar. I also set some "real goals" this time.

Primary goal:

- 3:00:00

Nice-to-haves:

- catch my high school cross country/track coach's ghost (who passed away last year, sadly). 2:57:50

- beat my uncle on the same course in 1992 (albeit he was in his 40's at the time...). 2:54:57 

Goals in hand, I assembled a plan. I was ambitious. I looked into elite training. I read several off-the-shelf plans designed for sub-3ing. Then I blended what I learned with my existing heart-rate-based approach.

I proceeded to seriously beat the shit out of myself. GGRC didn't see my face for months. Communication was mostly a series of kudos and Hans making snarky comments on Strava.

Race day. Finally. Chicago is pretty at the crack of dawn. Not pictured: a thermometer showing that it is in fact 39 degrees out, and me shivering inside a head-to-toe garbage bag moo-moo.

<20141012_063537.jpg>

I was fortunate enough to qualify into corral A this year. I understood this meant that I'd be starting 1 minute after elites. Neat. I also understood this would mean I'd be running with some capable folks. The gun went off and in the ensuing 60 seconds I learned what this actually meant: by one minute they mean "within one minute, or asap" and I was surrounded by people who start their marathon at a sub-6 (!!!) pace. "Welp. I'll go with it and keep up with the herd!" I thought to myself as I put away the first 5k in 18:19. "Screw it. Let's see how long I can take this" 

As it turned out - I could take it for about 13 miles. A complete blur. I spotted my parents in the crowd as I rounded the corner into Greektown at Adams & Franklin. This prompted me to point, sprint, and scream like a madman to the delight  of the massive crowd (or horror, who knows. I'm going with delight). Oh and a half marathon PR came out of that split. I beat my previous best by nearly 4 minutes... a time which had earned me a first place finish at a half marathon just a couple months ago. I felt fantastic.

Ok... now just do that one more time, right? Not. I knew this wasn't sustainable so I switched to a "fade slow" strategy for the rest of the race. I might have just made that strategy up, but the idea is to set explicit goals only marginally slower than whatever you were doing to begin with, and tail anyone that passes you for a couple hundred meters as a form of damage control. So I lowered my standards to 6:30s (a generous allowance, I thought, from previous low 6's).

I hit that for 10km before readjusting to 6:45. I assumed I could hold that for the rest of the race.... only 12km to go.

If you've never run so hard that you fear your muscles may disobey you altogether, you've never run hard enough.

... and at 35km, I was there. "Just slam your feet into the ground. Check your form. Take all the gatorade they'll give you. Electrolytes help muscles fire." My training was kicking in - back to basics. "And just keep it under 7:00. FFS". Well I failed at that - my last splits were awful as I sputtered through the last 7km. In a last hurrah sort of moment... right around 40km I realized that unless I stopped and walked, I would also be breaking 2:50, which was a great mental boost that lasted all the way through the finish (this mental boost is not apparent in actual timing data). The last mile of the course was marked at 400m intervals. It felt like the longest mile I've ever run.

But I finished. 2:48:50. All missions accomplished. At least I got a cold beer at the end, and it even turned out to be a pretty nice day!

<20141012_122633.jpg>

<Screen Shot 2014-10-13 at 23.09.09 .png>

GGRC was well-represented in Chicago. Props also go to Rax, Matt Goldberg, Robert Wong, and Katie Wysocky who all had great races (well, except Rax who somehow Rax'd his chip between 40km and the finish. I'm sure they'll sort that out, buddy). Maria Shuckahosee was also in town cheering on her sister.

That's it for now. Only a few more upcoming races this year for me:

Nov 2 : US Half (San Francisco - not a club race)

Nov 8: Santa Barbara Half

Dev 14: GGRC Christmas Relays

I guess I should register for Boston, huh?

-Simo

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[Mauricio Cuervo]

WOW!  That is truly impressive Simo. Congratulations!!! Great report, and amazing results.

Way to beat your PR and even 1/2 Marathon PR! 

Mauricio

[Kathy Chou]

Holy crap Simo! You are an ANIMAL!
congrats on a blisteringly fast PR!

[Sarah Slagle]

Awesome job Simo!!!

The Healdsburg crew were all stuffing our faces with burgers reading your Facebook updates and being really impressed - way to rep GGRC and be a BA MOFO...now go get Boston! ;)

[Amanda Knudsen]

Ridiculous. Nice work, Simo!  I'm trying not to be bitter about the fact that you ran your 10k at a pace faster than I can run a single mile.  :)

Would love to see some race reports from everyone else who raced last weekend (Chicago, Dick Collins, Healdsburg, etc...).

[Robert Wong]

Insane time Simo especially the sub-1:20 first half!  Amanda ... as you wish ... race report follows :).

-- Robert

[David Raksin]

All -

My result FINALLY posted on the Chicago website: 3:31.23 - my bib chip didn't go off upon finish, so for a week they had me as someone who would get through 40K (24.8 miles) and just decide to walk off, satisfied (I could see Hans doing that if he didn't want a subpar result on the Athlinks, but not this guy!). I made the mistake of letting my buddy Aaron know I had submitted a result correction request and he woke me up Wednesday with this email that he had supposedly submitted to said results committee in my *support*:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Raksin, David #7123 - my final result doesn't show up
From: Aaron Fox
Date: Tue, October 14, 2014 3:56 am
To: off...@chicagomarathon.com, 

Hi - just to alert you that #7123 David Raksin abandoned his run just after 40k to go candy-flip in the bushes at Grant Park.

Have a good day-

--------

All that aside, some observations and thoughts with my constructive criticisms of the marathon itself at the end:

- I treated this like my first marathon, as I hadn't run one "in anger" since 2005. This was largely a psychological ploy to not benchmark myself against any of my old slack-ass performances

- I would describe my training for this as non-traditional. I threw the watch away and if I felt good on what was supposed to be a mid-distance run, I would turn it into an 18-20

- My peak mileage week was about 65 three weeks out from the race. It was probably a bit too close in, but I felt the trade off psychologically was worth it. I did 3 ~18 milers, a few 15 milers and a lot of 6 - 8 miles, with some hard stretches. I probably trained optimally for a half and I am excited to put this to test at Santa Barbara.

- As some of you know/have been party to, I've had a year of stupid accidents. The coup de gras was getting bit by a dog at the end of July, which prompted a second ER trip of the year. My other gems were bruising my left calf badly in a Party Trolley accident in May, skimming my leg sliding down a fence at Coachella and cracking two ribs falling over the back of a Cornhole set in the dark in Tahoe July 4 weekend. That one added insult to injury as Brett Larson has whooped my ass in that very game a mere few hours earlier.

- Even with the above, I didn't let myself flag in training too much and running somehow dulled some of the pain of these (kept my calf from stiffening too much and kept me from getting pneumonia after the ribs incident!)

- This was my 7th Chicago since '03 (I got the 5 finishes in last 10 years auto-entry) - I am not a Midwesterner, but my sis has lived there since '96 and it's become a bit of a quality sibling time tradition for us to both run and hang out.

- The last 2 times I ran - the infamous '07 and '11 were very warm days and I wasn't ready.

- This time, I flew in on Thursday, which was the earliest I've ever shown up for a travel marathon. Definitely advocate doing this - I had time to adjust, slept very well Thurs and Friday even as I didn't on Saturday

- I have a complaint section below if people want to see a constructive old grumpy man rant about some of Chicago's foibles, but I thought the actual race part was incredibly well handled. Great crowd, plenty of fluids and snacks, finish area was orderly. For 40K people this is impressive

- It was great to have my pal Aaron in town to run his first marathon. Even tho he was in Corrall B and I was in C and we couldn't run together. His Rookie exuberance was energizing and I was also intrigued how his 90 mile weeks would pay off (he ran a 1:34 at the Kaiser).

- See below for some of the difficulties pre-race, but once I was out there I felt really good. My first mile was characteristically too fast (7:15), but I was able to get in a rhythym even without a proper pacer (again, see below about this).

- Temp was high 40s/low 50s, but I forced myself to hydrate a lot. Consistently had a cup of Gatorade (or two) and a water at each stop. Felt a bit sloshy which necessitated a stop at halfway (and loss of 2 minutes) but the trade-off was probably worth it. I wasn't going to let lack of thirst turn into dehydration cramps (even tho I was treating this as marathon #1, I couldn't help but remember those cramps from the past)

- I focused on staying steady and calm for the first half and settled into 7:40s and crossed the half point in 1:42 feeling like I had a lot left in the tank (this was where I took my Portapotty break)

- I felt eerily good through 15 but I wasn't ready to believe that I may be able to make a push until I got to 16 at least. In retrospect, I could have made a push but didn't have the confidence to do it because I had never been at this point feeling like I could make a move.

- There were a LOT of anti-Jay Cutler marathon related signs (e.g. at Mile 5 I saw a sign "Cutler has already thrown as many INTs as you have run miles this morn!). Reminded me that I love how international the race is, but also with local falvor. I wondered if any of the Kenyans had Cutler in Fantasy and this rattled them?

- 16 - 22 is where I wish I had a pacer, because I didn't feel like my pace was flagging, but it was by 20 seconds a mile or so from the initial 16. I think I just drifted mentally a bit. That said, my only issue was some tightness in my right hip which was impacting my stride a bit. But no cramps or major pain (the two Tylenol I took before the race helped).

- At 22 I started to slow just a tad, but felt like a sub 1:30 was still a possibility. I picked it up a bit and ignored all the suffering around me. I had never experienced the feeling of passing more people than being passed by this deep into a marathon!

- From 22 on this race is really fun - one can hear the cheers getting louder and louder as you come back to Grant Park. I was able to pick up my pace the last two miles but by 25 knew that breaking 3:30 would necessitate running a 6:30 and I couldn't quite do that with the famous *Heartbreak bump* at mile 26 as you enter Grant Park.

- I will take the result. Very encouraging that I had a lot left in the tank at the end and closest I have ever been to a negative or even split (1:42/1:49 with the aforementioned two minute pit stop in the back half). Of course Katie W ran the same first half as me but negative splitted in the second half!!

-  I am now motivated to train and get down toward a 3:15. I realize that I will never be as fast at 26.2 as my 5k, 10k and halfs would suggest, but Ben and Robert's improvements were certainly inspirational. I also want to make a run at 1:30 in the half by early '15.

- Post race was a blast, gorged with Aaron (he ran a 1:39 first half, but Rookied into his 3:34), watched some football and met up with the Gang. Katie's Fleet Feet crew were a blast and we should try to do a travel race with them at some point.

- Minimal soreness except a couple of bad quads days this week and I managed two 4 milers in Chicago Wed and Thurs before flying off to Denver. Quickest recovery I've ever had, but not pushing it

- The GGRC crew put on an incredible performance all around - Simo and Robert were out of this world.

HERE ARE MY GRUMPYCAT OBSERVATIONS:

-  in no particular order:

 1) the added *security* at the Expo was basically a nuisance so that one can't pick up a friend's number and there are 2 checkpoints to get to the packets. I don't see how this made things safer, 2) I was in Corral C, for which one could be in with a 1:35 half in the past year. Assuming there were a few hundred people in this position, there should have been at least a 3:25 pacer, if not a 3:20 in this Corral. Instead, the fastest pacer in this Corral was a 3:35 and the faster pacers were all in A and B. This was problematic for people trying to run under 3:30 (my goal was low to mid 3:20s), as catching those pacers in the B Corral would come at the cost of having to sprint the first mile. 3) On race morn, there was no way to enter the park off the Lakeshore side (except the VIPs) and none of the volunteers seemed to know where to enter. Thankfully it was relatively un-cold and running half the length of Grant Park to enter was a good warmup. My pal Aaron and I barely made it into our corrals at 7:20, just bfore they were sealed off and we would have had to roll back to Corral E. The logistics of getting into the A - C corrals were not ideal, including having to sprint down to bag drop once inside the main area and then back to the Corral, 4) The gear check at the end of the race was a travesty which I don't understand how they don't hire a reasonable logistics person. Just because people drop off their gear in increments of 1,000 doesn't mean that the distribution at the end should be even! I was lucky that I was one of the early C finishers and got my gear fast, but the ~4,000 A and B people were left chilly, stiff and waiting for 3 people to give them their stuff, while a bunch of volunteers sat doing nothing - and the other corrals were on a staggered start, so wouldn't be coming in for 30+ minutes. 5) the bib chip timer was a disaster in it's first year with a new co. My issue doesn't seem to have been common (only my final time didn't read through) but a bunch of people were either given a "DQ" initially because their chips didn't go off at two consecutive mats and there were a bunch of people whose start time didn't register (they were given the Elite start time which could have been up to 20 minutes off!). While I am encouraged that my result go fixed and that others' might, it would be really frustrating to get a bunch of texts after you finish a marathon from people who saw "DQ" or a time that wasn't real and thought you were in harm. There's a real "guilty until proven innocent" feel to it and the error rate seemed very high. Simo noted to me that his Place moved by a significant amount that would be an unacceptable failure rate in almost any other endeavor for a new technology. Further to this, when I spoke live to someone at the results office they were basically blaming the Runners for having the audacity for hitting their watch OR crossing a mat with too many other people!! how dare they during a marathon! If this is a limitation of this technology, it shouldn't be deemed useful.

Rax

[David Li]

Dude, congrats on fighting through some gnarly pre-race activities and poor logistics to finish off one of the world majors! Nice work!