How I ran the marathon - Part 1

Yes, hard to believe isn't it? If someone had brought up this possibility a few years ago, I would have laughed it off and questioned his/her sanity. But on Oct 22nd, I successfully ran and completed the Chicago marathon. Please don't ask me what my timing was. Baguth bad! My excuse is that I was carrying an injury, and the race time was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to finish it and get the damned medal.

Here is how the race unfolded...

Oct 21st dinner (eve of marathon) : Accepting the gracious invitation of G and ~ET~, we (Spicetooth, Funkaboy and I) made our way to their place in downtown. Stopped at McCormick's place to pick up the raceday stuff (t-shirt, bib, timing chip etc.) and went with the guys to Dinner at Pegasus, a classy restaurant in Greektown.

Oct 21st midnight: Been trying to sleep for an hour, but the incessant noise and partying in the next room was keeping me awake. Jay as usual was in his elements, getting bitch ass drunk and raising hell. The efforts of everyone else in calming him down was to no avail. Finally, I had to tell him off and they called it a night. Or did they? The horror stories about what happened later that night were recounted to me later, and they still come back to haunt me in my dreams! They are blog posts for another day.

Oct 22nd 2AM: I've never been able to sleep if I knew I had to get up early for something important, like catching a flight, diwali or exams. So ofcourse I lay awake. Add to that the noise that the toilet flush was making. For some reason, it wouldn't stop. The wastage of water bothered me as much as the noise.

Raceday 5:20AM: Was actually relieved to get up and get going. A quick shower and other race day preparations followed. You don't want to know my routine. Let's just say it required applying 'glide' to unmentionable parts of the body to reduce friction and chaffing and putting band aid on my nipples and ... ok, I'll stop it.

Raceday 6:30AM: We were dropped off at the Charity village near Millennium park, where Spicetooth and I made our way to the ASHA tent. The previous night had rained cats and dogs. The lawns were slushy and the whole area was a mess. And it was friggin' cold. 38F with a scheduled 45F high. That's 4C. With the windchill near the lake, it was definitely feeling like subzero. Hands were getting chilled, and I was terrified to take off my track pants (had shorts underneath). Caught up with some running buddies, did some stretching and took some photos.

Raceday 8AM: The race got underway. Was planning to run with another guy at the same slow pace, but lost him in the crowd even at the start. But the atmosphere was electric. People were pumped up. Music was blaring. And the wind was chilling us to our bones. With more than 40,000 people running the marathon, it took around 25 mins for us to even reach the starting point. It was funny to think that the Kenyans would have already completed 5 miles by the time we started :) The crowd was cheering us on loudly, and I had goose bumps. Never felt anything like that. And then, I was off on my first marathon...

Look for Part 2 of this post where I describe the actual run in more detail.