Afternoon Run

WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE ON THE TRACK

naw too icy

9x3’

Training:
With how well last fall’s marathon went, sub-3:30 was the ‘sexiest’ next goal that seemed achievable with a better base and a structured plan that involved more than just easy mileage. I decided to give Pfitz’s 18/55 (length in weeks/peak mileage) a shot after seeing how much time people shaved off of their PB’s following just one build. Long story short - training was … less than optimal. Too many skipped runs, workouts bailed, lack of recovery, the list goes on. By the time race day came, 18/55 had turned into 16/45 at best, with ~70% of the total mileage I should have hit. Despite it all, I hit new PB’s in distances from the 5k to HM, which indicated low 3:30’s and MAYBE a sub-3:30 was possible if all the stars aligned on race day. Last year’s build didn’t feel great but I slaughtered my goal by 8 minutes. Why not one more time?

Expo:
We arrived in Chicago early Saturday morning with the homie, @Jonathan and we took the subway directly to the expo to grab our race kits and all the freebies we kept hearing about. Heard a Nike popup was giving away new runners if you swapped with non-nike’s you were wearing?!? Sad I missed out on that. Anyway, once we entered is when it hit me how massive this race was compared to any local race I’ve ever participated in. Normally I’m a grab bib ‘n go kinda guy but we must have spent more than 2 hours visiting every booth and making sure we didn’t miss anything. And that easily could have doubled in time if we actually cared to shop for new gear. I was honestly a little underwhelmed with the giveaways after listening to podcasts and reading reddit posts mentioning things like leaving with “enough protein bars to last a year”. Either I’m blind or all the good stuff was taken by everyone who came on Thurs/Fri cause I don’t think I left with a single bar lmao. Complaining about the lack of free shit is insane though and overall it was still a fantastic expo! I wish I could say the rest of the day was spent resting our legs for the big day, but with how far our hotel was from literally anything and our stubbornness to not rely on public transportation, we each accumulated close to 30k steps by end of day. RIP

Pre-race:
Like many, I typically don’t sleep well prior to a race due to all the nerves and excitement. Last marathon, I probably had 4 hours CUMULATIVE over the last 2 nights. And after an almost sleepless Friday night, I was worried about it happening again. Maybe it was from all the walking, but I slept like a baby and I woke up feeling refreshed with one less excuse to blame a poor performance on. But never fear - I always surprise myself with new ways to self-sabotage ;)

Nothing new on race day.

Words of wisdom most runners have heard before and for good reason. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In my defense, a lot of things were fucking broken in training, and I figured I had more to gain and less to lose by trying something new. I frequently suffered from side stitches during any sort of uptempo work and I could never really figure out what I was doing wrong. Good days and bad days seemed to come at random no matter how much or how little I hydrated, the type of fuel I used (or rather what flavour of GU 🤮), the timing of fuel, etc. So I bought 6 Maurtens at the expo lol. I was already in line for free samples of their energy bar and spent 5 minutes with a sales rep as he explained all the products they were selling so I almost felt obligated to make the purchase. I also opted to not bring my handheld bottle with how many aid stations there were on the course.

Next came the most crucial part - breakfast and the ensuing poop. I decided to not follow through with my original plan, which was to get to the corral early and bring food to eat there. The hotel (shout out Chicago South Loop Hotel) was kind enough to start their breakfast extra early for all those racing and I may have gone a little overboard. Coffee, bagel, doughnuts, OJ, more coffee! I know I had at least one other thing but I’m typing this on a plane more than 3 weeks later so cut me some slack pls. My usual pre-race meal is a banana and some toast so if you’re keeping track this is race-day new thing #3.

I couldn’t poop. This was quickly turning into my worst nightmare as thoughts of me going viral looking like I just ran tough mudder instead of Chicago filled my head. But I kept on pushing (lol). At this point I was willing to get to the corral as late as possible and even start in a later one to buy an additional 30 mins or so. Warmup who? But my perseverance paid off and I screamed with joy. I left the hotel pleased with my effort but not 100% satisfied as I knew I had more in me (lol)

[actual racing report here]

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Gerard Juan

Chicago Marathon 2024

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Afternoon Run

WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE ON THE TRACK

naw too icy

Afternoon Run

9x3’

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