Chicago Marathon: Chapter 5. Sunday, Oct 7, 2012

We climbed over mountains of discarded clothes, fuel packets, and other waste as we slowly sauntered our corral to the starting line. That was an ordeal in and of itself. A long line of volunteers holding a yellow line to create some semblence of order before we were finally cut loose.

As I sat waiting in the cold for an hour, I was able to listen, chat, listen more with volunteers that were marathon runners themselves, to the other runners, etc. I wasn’t in the corral with the charity runners, these guys and gals were for real, trained on their own and were looking to make their PR or to beat the folks around them. Not many of them were doing it for the warm fuzzy feeling of support, but for serious competitive prowess. Not a bad group to be around when starting off. I realized that most were aiming for the dead center of the road, as it tends to slope toward the curb, as most city streets do… And I took full advantage of this engineering.

During my 20 mile training run on the lake front trail, I developed a strong injury to my left foot as it was constantly hitting the pavement slightly higher than the right foot. It could have been a stress fracture or just a sprained ankle or any myriad of undiagnosed silliness that most would look at a 26 mile run and call it quits. I am just that right brand of crazy to say “lets see how far I can deal with the pain.” but joyously, as we started off the starting line pads, I hugged the left curb (what would have been oncoming traffic) and my left foot felt no pain AT ALL. This was a relative miracle considering that two days ago standing in a music rehearsal proved too strenuous. I was so excited that I flew past whole blocks of runners. My pace group was set for a 5:10 finish, (~11:49 min mile) which by the time I got to the first 5k mark, I realized I was a full 8 minutes under my pace group. I found out later I had an average of a 9:52 minute mile for the first 3.1 miles.
Which also proved to be cause for concern. I started forcing myself to take small walk breaks as I didn’t want to burn out too early, but the absurd hope of catching up with corral E was still in my sub conscience. I was also just so excited to finally get to run and try to warm myself up. I was a certified ice block by the time we finally got to the starting line, so finally getting to DO something about was so wonderful. I was also in my mind knowing that TWV would be near the 4.5 mile mark. Sadly, they had all packed up and moved on by the time I reached that point. A brief blow to my momentum and positive thinking.

It was nice to see Leslie’s folks, who were busily trying to get across to see her at a later mark. I shouted a quick “nice to see you” and then got back to business as usual. And I was happily surprised how relatively painless that business had become.

Chicago Marathon: Chapter 4. Sunday, Oct 7, 2012

So I woke up at the squeaky oh-lordy-oclock in the morning, luckily put on all the clothes I laid out for myself with bib pinned and toe tag attached and left to hit the blue line train. After a nerve wracking 15 minute wait, the train arrived in just enough time for me to reach the Team World Vision tent by the 5:45 am call.

All of my personal items in the check bag and handed in, Rusty was at the mike conducting the HUGE crowd of runners, most getting ready for their first ever marathon. It was a roaring sound of a force to be reckoned with. For a clip of it, click here

We did a quick pep rally and prayer before advancing to the starting line, the whole time, my panic growing as I look around and realize EVERYONE (1600 people) has red bibs but me… All of them are in the first wave. My entire training team. I realized that I would be running this thing alone. Panicky tears backed up into my eyes as the dread kicked in. Leslie patted my back as everyone shuffled out of the tent, into the cold toward the corrals. Evidently TWV was in the charity corral E (first wave), but I somehow got stuck in corral L (second wave). I did see one guy with another grey and he said he was going to try to sneak into the E corral… I am horrible at lying, if you know me, I am the worst at being inconspicuous. As we got to the corrals, I got separated from my clan w Missio Dei TWV, and the corral leaders led me back to corral L, which of course is empty since while wave one was scheduled to take off at 7:15, but wave two wasn’t to take off for another hour.

It is easy to resent to unfairness of the situation, but as I looked back at my training, over 75% of it was alone, running with a cell phone in hand to let a few good friends spot me and keep tabs of me incase my night run or epic long runs would go array. I took out my cell phone and started texting Lucky and Ariel and Stephanie… They became my sole allies, my pit crew, in this grand endeavor. Even my parents weren’t going to be there. The isolation was growing.

I start thinking out ideas…
maybe I can sprint the first miles and catch up to the team? Pass thousands of runners and get with the team? I have a long time, in the cold, to calculate a plan… And try not to kill myself in the process.

Chicago Marathon: Chapter 3. Saturday, Oct 6, 2012

The Adrinka (west African region) symbol for Survival. I have had it in my “when I get the $$ and courage to get a tattoo” file for quite a bit of this past year. I think it will happen sometime soon…

So I get out of the expo and make my way to the shuttles, which will conveniently take me to the Team World Vision dinner and rally. I am carrying my tote full of materials for this “runner’s world” that I fell into, and kinda amazed that I somehow fit in with them. When I mentioned I am doing the marathon, many folks say “oh, I am not a runner.” A year ago, I wasn’t either. This wasn’t something I had in my upbringing. Anyways, I hadn’t even run this thing yet, but there was this complicite and a knowing that tomorrow is a big day whether it was the first time or the twentienth time.

We arrive at the UIC forum and I am suddenly rushed into a current, a throng of folks all moving in the same direction. Over 1500 runners and family members, a full house, were converging from all over the states to have a dinner and rally together for those kids in Africa. To bring back to WHY we were doing this tomorrow.

The guy who runs the Chicago branch of TWV is probably one of the coolest, and most personable, guys I have ever met. And his name is Rusty, I mean… Come on. He looks like someone I would see in my classes in high school or college who actually genuinely gave a damn. He chatted with me, and I am sure most of the other 1700 runners, many times throughout the weekend and every time, he was genuinely THERE. A friend of mine gave me a quote that roughly paraphrased says that the most important person is the one you are with at the moment. And that quote came to mind every time I encountered Rusty. I actually realized that Rusty was at my 20 mile run three weeks ago and gave the warmest reception over his bullhorn: “Lets give it up for Genesee, coming all the way from KENOooooSHA, WI (Leslie must have shared that part), nailed that 20 mile! You ran further than your commute this morning! “. That last part was an exaggeration, but at that point, who cares? Anyways, he shared with us that evening some of the amazing individuals who have gone way above the mere $1310 we were expected to raise. I felt amazing for having found such amazing folks to bring me to +1700, but then was truly humbled by individuals who raised over $10,000, 20,000, heck $50,000 this year. My mind does not comprehend raising numbers like that. I was in the presence of some truly remarkable individuals. One of those individuals was a two time Olympic runner that found asylum in America after running for his life as a child in the Sudan.

And then learned of two folks who are matching EVERY donation made to TWV this year, up to 3.5 million dollars. Remarkable. Just remarkable. There are lots of people that would look at 3.5 million dollars and set themselves up with fancy cars, a nice home and retire happy… And these folks were determined to saving thousands of lives half a world away.

We also got to watch how families were living. Videos of children sifting water from a cess pool feet away from where cattle were grazing… And “fertilizing” the water. It made our lives here feel grand as excessive, even for folks that feel they live below the poverty line. see one of those videos here
And then learned that the closest water for many of these communities are 7 miles way. I did some quick math and two trips to water a day roundtrip, to merely survive, would be longer than the marathon I would attempt to conquer tomorrow. They probably don’t race for a PR or a medal, but they do it, everyday, out the sheer necessity to survive, and the water isn’t even clean. They walk all that way and return with water that makes the whole family ill.

Suddenly, that marathon route was a very really and necessary experience. An empathic gesture to those who do it EVERYDAY with no cheering crowds, no support from Gatorade or CLIF or KT Tape, no recognition of their amazing feat for survival.

I found out that night we can continue to raise funds and they will still be matched. If you want to help kids get drinkable water, please click here. It also explains where I was a year ago. It was a LONG ways from running a marathon, that’s for sure.

I took the train to Ariel’s, prepped all of my clothes, got into bed …and just laid there, trying to sleep, knowing I needed to be downtown at 5:45am and… Bowled over by everything that had just transpired and about to. So much perspective in such a short period of time.
Feeling grateful, and anxious, and scared, and joyful,
and frustrated that I couldn’t focus myself to sleep.
To sleep perchance to dream…

Chicago Marathon: Chapter two. Saturday, Oct 6, 2012

So, I get to the expo, I am alone amidst thousands of strangers and find that what was a simple “pick up and go” errand became a “but this looks cool too” event. I bought myself some much needed fuel and a pouch, kinda a glorified fanny pack, to hold stuff like my phone during the run.

I also watched the scariest video ever. There was a large group congregated at the screen, so I sauntered over and it is a video of a car driving the entire course, with notation of what mile marker and where it is in the city. At this point I have realized how much of the city I have never seen. In my short year in the city, I very rarely ventured out of Andersonville, Ravenswood or Roscoe Village. I also note that I started crying as this video of a car driving, SPED UP FOOTAG, and how LONG the video was. Tears of anxiety dropped as I really started to wonder how the next day would go. So I ventured to other areas of the expo, to try to distract me from how absolutely idiotic I was to sign up for such insanity. So I found the Wall of Insanity…


it was this amazing wall, at least 60 feet long, and the entire background is every single runner, listed in alphebetical order like the war memorials… Only we weren’t dead yet. So I found me. One of the 45,000 crazy not-yet-dead people who voluntarily signed up for this.


Last stop at the expo, I signed into what I thought would be a good pace group for me for this craziness. When I was healthy, i was at about a 10 minute mile, but 26 miles of it AND my foot was protesting from the simplest of activities? So I picked up a 5:10 pace (app. 11:47 minute mile) and really determined to keep to that… So they give me this temporary tattoo to put on my arm and it is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. It breaks down mile by mile all of the times so I could gauge myself and keep going. This thing was amazing, it was also what my gemini-multitasking brain needed when doing something so mindnumbingly boring as one activity for 5 hours straight. Now I could do math in my head and game plan as I went. A-ha!

Went to the expo to pick up my bib, toe tag, and other sundry items… It was HUGE! So overwhelming!

Thousands of people wandered the expo, most with their tell-tale baggage check bag, picking up fuel, sampling LOTS of new fuels and foods. Also learned about more marathons and other running events around the country and the world. So dangerous. I already have dreams of someday running the Tinkerbell Half Marathon and the marathon on The Great Wall of China. Awesome.