Race Report: Chicago Marathon ’07 - Day One

With every passing day I feel luckier and luckier that I didn’t pass out or drop out or get diverted like thousands of runners did during the marathon. I didn’t even hit empty water stations, for crying out loud. But I now know that people behind me did, and once I started hearing ambulances at the finish line, and then hearing them announce it was a ‘fun run’ (yeah, right) and then hear that the race was cancelled outright, I knew it was not going well. Later that night I saw on local TV scenes of runners in long lines buying liquids at convenience stores during the race. One runner, brandishing a bottle of Gatorade, told the news crew ‘I paid $110 and this is what I have to do’ right before taking off down the route. She was right. And many runners weren’t just sarcastic, they turned hostile, and it probably would have been a worse scene if everybody wasn’t already so damned weak from the heat. And the race organizers still deny they ran out of water (not even a ‘we’ll look into it’) despite thousands of runner testimonials about having to carry cups with them so that ocals could fill them with water from garden hoses.

The race organizers should be ashamed of themselves. Right before they’re forced to run a waterless, shadeless, hot marathon in mid-August, and then banned from running or even managing a run, for life.

Well, that’s my rant, and I probably don’t have as much of a right to that opinion as many others would, but it was a mess out there last Sunday. I’ll try to describe my happier experiences knowing full well that over 300 runners ended up in the hospital, and one didn’t even make it out alive.

Getting to Chicago

As my plane landed at Midway Airport on Friday afternoon, it banked sharply left and right, then started to land with only a few hundred feet between the plane and the runway. Suddenly, the plane lurched back up and started climbing again. The passengers all started looking at each other with worried expressions, and then the pilot comes on and tells us there was another plane that ‘was being a little slow taking off’ on the runway we were about to land on. Hmm. That’s great, ‘Tragic Plane Crash Cancels Marathon Pasta Party’ and other similar headlines flash in front of my eyes. Everybody looked at each other and just waited for the second landing attempt, which went much better. Of course, all I’m thinking about is having ‘DNF’ (Did Not Finish) after my name in the marathon finisher list. No, I’m not thinking about human tragedy or disaster grief or anybody else, just whether or not my race statistics are going to be embarrassing because I ‘DNF’d due to an airplane crash. I quickly chalk this up to Marathon Taper Disorder (MTD symptoms: restless leg syndrome, weather forecast obsession, mood swings, etc.) that has dogged me for ten days.

Saturday - The Expo
So it’s in the southern part of Chicago, and I need to take the Chicago Transit Authority Red Line to Chinatown, the nearest stop to McCormick Plaza or Place, whatever the hell they call it (see? I’m getting cranky already). I quickly discover that Chicago’s mass transit has some rather sucky qualities. Like the stations are lit by greenish neon lights that turn them into sets out of some teen torture flick. And most disturbing of all, there are plenty of slowdowns on the tracks, so at any moment you could go from 50 to 2 MPH and sit in the tunnel for a little while, or just coast along. The Chicagoans I saw riding the CTA seemed rather used to the erratic speed, and had an air of resignation about not getting anywhere on time, whatever that is. I’m not trying to come down too hard on the CTA, let me tell you, the New York Transit system is nothing to write home about either, but when you’re timing a slow, undependable trip to the expo you begin to have doubts about your far more important trip to the actual race in the morning. So I decided I would have to taxi on down the several miles to the start the next day if the good ol’ Red Line didn’t fulfill expectations. And then the conductors started picking and choosing which stops they were going to hit, and I ended up switching trains twice even though I was on a direct line. Great.

Then I get to Chinatown where I immediately meet running pal R.B. and R.B.’s Patient Spouse. Off we go to the expo on a Partridge Family-approved marathon shuttle school bus, and the damn convention center is the size of an airport. You could’ve parked several space shuttles and the mother ship in there, and still had room for somebody sitting in a booth selling glow-in-the-dark sports bras. We’re talking BIG, and R.B. agrees with me that we have reached Runner Heaven.

All the major shoe companies are there. Staffed with clean, chipper sales people and stocked with overpriced gear. And people in booths from all those marathons you hear about but never go to, you know who they are. And then we become Sample Whores and start snacking down on bite-size pieces of energy bars and drinks served in plastic shot glasses. If you throw a leg of lamb into the Amazon river, and see piranhas attack, you get an idea of what it’s like to see a bunch of runners with the MTDs at a Clif Bar booth. And if you don’t pull your hand back fast enough… well, it ain’t pretty.

So we get our numbers, and the little old ladies are always so nice, aren’t they, and then we get the goody bags which is more bag than goody, but that’s OK because my plane didn’t crash yesterday. Yeah! And then old running pal Bambi and the Official Bambi Posse arrive and we meet and assault the expo with everything we’ve got. Official marathon jacket: $125 plus tax. It’s a mustard color, and heavy, so forget it, because the thought of buying something for the wintertime is surreal when it’s still 85 degrees outside. Funny, the singlets are almost gone...

Well, the rest of the day was even nicer, despite a 30-40 minute wait for the shuttle bus to get us the hell out of there. A quick lunch was followed by a trip to the crowded Art Institute, which is rather worth a visit if you find yourself in Chicago. Famous paintings live there, and it was a fine way to spend the afternoon before heading out to dinner at a carb-loading pastatorium. Of course, the night before a big race is when you’ll find hapless runners nervously scanning menus for non-threatening entrees (once again, a symptom of the MTDs), and that night was no exception. After a quick trip back to the hotel (of course, the train was faster because I wasn’t in a hurry), I settled in for some mindless rest in front of bad Saturday night TV. I actually got some R n' R, and managed to get some good sleep too even though my body was an hour off due to one hour of jet lag.

I’ll post more soon, this time about race day… but so far, so good.

Next up: Satan Races in Hell!