Chicago Marathon - at least I overtook Captain America and Superman!

 It turns out that Jeff, or John or whatever his name was may have been right!  Back in El Burgo Ranero a well meaning man gave me a lecture on why walking the Camino was not suitable training for a marathon.  He happily carried on explaining what I should be doing even when we had established that I had run 50+ marathons in the past and that he had never run a marathon.  I always knew today would be hard work - or should I say harder work than normal, but the opportunity to walk the Camino had to be taken and I would just have to do my best!

We’ve had a lovely couple of days in Chicano.  A city I’ve never been to before,  We have had wonderful weather which has made a huge difference - walking around in grey drizzle would have been a different story.  As it was, we have eaten lunch and dinner sitting outside in glorious sunshine.  We braved the subway and buses to get around the city if we didn’t fancy walking and had a couple of days of being tourists before getting an early night on Saturday.  Jet lag meant that I was easily able to fall asleep before 9pm and I woke up before the alarm went off at 5am!

This marathon started early.  London, Berlin and Boston started at 10am (if I recall correctly),  Chicago starts at 7.30am!  Thankfully our hotel was near the start, so we joined the throng of runners making their way to Grant Park for the start.  The park was busy!  I guess London has three start areas, Boston has buses to the start that mean you arrive just in time, Berlin (I think) had bigger gaps between the starting waves, but Chicago has 3 waves starting at half hour intervals so the park was very busy.  It was a little difficult so see where I needed to go due to the throngs of people, and Husbando and I needed to drop our bags in different places before making our way to our different start areas.  

It was pleasantly warm at the start.  So much so that I didn’t need the extra layer I’d brought with me so I dumped it in a charity bin as I entered my starting pen.  Then it was just a case of waiting for the start - while listening to the conversations going on around me and trying to work out what my ‘race plan’ should be.  

I thought I might do a run/walk thing, where I would run 9mins and walk for 1min but that I would run the first 5km in order to get out of the congestion at the start.  After the singing of the national anthem and the start of the first wave it was our turn to go.  For once in my life I didn’t go off too fast, I knew that this was going to be a tough day, so didn’t want to cause myself more discomfort than absolutely necessary.  I got to 5k, crossing some of Chicago’s iconic moveable bridges (some of which we had seen raising and lowering the previous day) and had a little chat with myself about the ‘race plan.’  I was feeling OK and by that I mean my shins hurt but not unbearably so, so I would carry on running to 10k and reassess.  

The aid stations were frequent, 20 of them on the course, all with Gatorade, water and toilets which was just as well as I needed 2 loo stops on the way (jet lag is not helpful when it comes to pre race prep).  Before we’d left the hotel in the morning the local news had run a piece on replacing Chicago’s lead water pipes.  Apparently millions of homes and businesses still have lead piping and there is a drive to get them replaced.  I drank the water at the aid stations - crossing my fingers that it was bottled water and that it wouldn’t make me more mad than I already am!  

At 10k I thought that I’d carry on to the halfway mark before walking. We were running mainly on city streets, with the exception of a lovely interlude running through Lincoln Park, but the support from the locals was amazing and constant.  Plus each neighbourhood seemed to have quite a distinct character - in Chinatown  the dragons came out to cheer us all on.  

Halfway in and after 2hrs 8mins of running, I thought that, as I have another marathon in two weeks, I would treat this as my last long run.  According to Rundot  my last long run should be 2hrs 45mins.  I was going to add 5minutes to that to allow for the toilet stops.  In the event I ran a bit longer  - to the 30k marker before admitting to myself that my shins were no longer ‘just a bit achey’ but actually ‘properly painful’ now!  

I ran walked the rest of the way. More running than walking, but I was no the only walker - I haven’t seen that many walkers in a road marathon before.  Maybe it was because I was nearer the back of the pack than normal, maybe the surprisingly warm conditions were sapping everyone’s energy (when we got a headwind it was almost a relief as it cooled everyone down), but it felt as though about half the people around me were walking.

The mile and kilometre markers were not as obvious as the ones at London - and I missed several.  What I did like was the fact that rather than a 25mile marker and a 28 mile marker there was a ‘1 mile to go’ marker.  This was followed by an 800m (2 laps round the track) marker and from 400m there was a marker every 100m.  There was also the only ‘hill’ of the course between 400 and 300m!

I crossed the line about an hour slower than I had hopped for when I booked this marathon, and about an hour faster than I thought I was probably on for when I started out in the morning,  I also decided that marathons are stupid and swore, loudly, when I remembered the marathon I have in two weeks and the fact that I have booked Paris marathon for April!  

The crowded conditions continued after the finish, but the volunteers were amazing.  We were given our medals, a bottle of water (cute, reusable, metal bottle), space blankets and proceeded down a line of refreshments.  Beer (none of your Berlin alcohol free stuff here), banana, apple, Stan’s Donut, biscuits, Maurten bar and probably something else that I’ve forgotten about.

In the sunshine, Grant Park felt like one massive post race party (there was an official finish party but I didn’t go), with runners using their space blankets to sit on while they relaxed after their endeavours.  I hobbled to the gear check tent to grab my bag and then on to meet Husbando, who had finished much earlier than me and was waiting in the Hare AC pop up post race lounge.  We then hobbled back to the hotel for showers before going out (we walked there - don’t ask me why!) for the best burger I have had in a very long time at Small Cheval - I also don’t want to know why the place is called Small Horse!   Oh, and then, because we could, we had ice cream!

So that is the fourth of the six ‘Marathon Majors’ completed,  I am not sure that I really want to do the last two.  Tokyo is a nightmare to get into and a very long way to go if I can’t get extended time off work (which is tricky as a teacher).  And I am not a huge fan of New York.  We shall see.  

Home!

What a trip!  

When we were all told that our school was closing and that we would therefore be losing our jobs I joked about ‘doing the Camino.’  I’d had a few friends who had done this in the past and I’d taken a vague interest in their Facebook and Strava posts. I’d dismissed the idea because of shared dorm rooms and the fact that walking isn’t something that I do!  I still wasn’t entirely sure that it was something I wanted to do, but I didn’t know what I did want to do.  I loved my job - my colleagues were amazing and I love being with young people and, after so many years, feel that I am just about getting the hang of this teaching lark.  I can’t imagine a future that doesn’t involve teaching but I would be the first to admit that I was exhuasted and stuck in a bit of a rut.  

I needed a break.  Luckily science teachers are in short supply and I was able to secure another role within a couple of weeks of being told we were being made redundant.  And I was able to negotiate a January, rather than a September start. That done, I needed to find something to do with the time and so, before I could change my mind and definitely before I did any research, I booked a one way ticket to Biarritz for the end of August and decided to do the Camino Frances.

I really wasn’t sure what to expect.  I wasn’t sure that I would ‘enjoy’ the experience. I knew that, barring injury, I would finish it even if I was not having fun!  I thought, if I am totally honest, I would find it tedious and repetitive and I was really not looking forward to shared dorms.  

What I got was the most amazing experience.  It was the first time in decades where I didn’t need to take anyone else’s point of view into consideration.  If I made mistakes then the only person who it affected was me (and I was also the only person who had to know!)  I could set my own agenda, if I wanted to eat ice cream for lunch then no one was going to judge me.  

I walked with some amazing people - those who saved me from my one ‘down’ day where I was about to fall into a well of self pity because I wasn’t going back to school that day.  Despite all my former colleagues posting about all the minor stresses and irritations of their new jobs I just wanted to be part of it! The company that day pulled me out of my introspection and turned my day around.  The people who I thought I would never see again, but who turned up again later and became my ‘Camino family’ and who I consider myself honoured to have spent time with.  And many others who I walked with for anything from a few minutes to a whole day.  What an honour to walk with a professor a medieval history and talk about the history of the area (and gout - we talked about gout too)!  All of them enriched my experience.  

I spent a lot of time on my own.  Early on I had a message from one friend asking if I wasn’t worried/scared walking on my own and I can honestly say that I wasn’t.  Another friend was, I think, worried that I might be lonely.  I replied that I was often alone, but never lonely.  I needed the time alone.  I loved my early mornings when I wouldn’t see anyone for hours.  I had company every evening.  Communal meals took away the need to think about what to eat and meant that I met people from all over the world.  And if I did need company I could always find someone to talk to. 

The simplicity of the routine was soothing.  Get up, walk, shower, wash laundry, eat, sleep, repeat.  Add in a stop for breakfast (and sometimes second breakfast) and maybe a bit of sightseeing thrown in for good measure.  Life was simple, but full. The fact that everything I needed for the journey was on my back took away a lot of complexity - no decisions about what to wear, no real decisions about what to do either, just plenty of time to look at the view, smell the pretty flowers and live in the moment. 

I did not expect to make friends. I have laughed and cried and walked and had drinks with so many wonderful people.  Their stories will travel with me and they will continue to inspire me. The kindness of people I met was wonderful to behold. 

I am glad that I did the two extra Caminos (to Finistera and Muxia) as I was not ready to come home when I arrived in Santiago.  Those four extra days which included two of the wettest days I have ever experienced, meant that, but the time I got to Santiago for a second time I was ready to come home.  I am sure that there will be more Caminos in my future.  Although having 30+ days in a single block might be a challenge I will be investigating doing stages or one of the shorter routes.  I may even do some longer walks in the UK - although accommodation is not as easy (or as cheap)!

Thank you to everyone who has sent me messages of encouragement, I’ve had a wonderful time and it has been lovely to share just a glimpse of it with you all via this blog (and the 1000+ photos on Facebook).  Huge thanks for my family for not minding too much about me leaving you for so long (and especially to Husbando whose birthday I missed and my youngest who started university and had to make her own way there).  

Until next time!