I had a great time with my two girlfriends, Carolyn and Juanita. It was a girl's trip this time and our first time to go to Chicago. We got there on Friday and I started to worry about the weather on marathon day because it was showing to be the warmest day of the week. I don't run well in warm weather and hoped that it would change.
The girls and I had a great trip. We ate, walked a ton and shopped till we dropped! The night before the marathon we were tired, so decided to eat at our hotel since they had a marathon special going on. This is what I ate for dinner.
I was worried about having tried legs on Saturday after running 3 miles in the morning and then walking all over Chicago shopping. But, somehow it didn't slow me down during my marathon.
I've been communicating Ann Marie through Facebook who is Erin's friend. She also ran the marathon and it's her 3rd time doing it. She told me to sign up online to register for the hospitality room by her running club who rented a room in the Congress Plaza Hotel. This only cost me $25 and I was able to keep my check-in bag with them and they had people in charge of it. They also had lots of food/water and clean restrooms with no line! The best part, it was inside and after the marathon you got a free 15 minute lower body massage and they weren't allowed to accept tips!! My friends were allowed to meet me there afterwards too. We meet around 6:15 in a gorgeous room called the "Gold Room" where I think was used as a theatre of some sort back in the day. Ann was super nice and introduced me to all her friends. We all walked together to our own corrals and hugged each other and wished everyone good luck. That is the one thing I know about runners; we may not know each other, but we understand and support each other no matter what level you are at.
My goal was to go for a 3:30 time and beat my 3:31:46 time from my Boston Marathon back in April. I got up as close as I could to the 3:30 pacers. My start time was 7:30, but by the time I got start line it shows I started at 7:36 a.m. Chicago is known as the Windy City and I just hoped it wouldn't be bad running in it. It was 55 degrees and they predicted it to be 65 degrees by 11:00 a.m. I decided to wear long sleeves with shorts. I'm always cold and worried about the wind making me more cold once I got sweaty. As we took off, the wind wasn't bad and there were a lot of turns all over the city that the big buildings blocked it off.
I caught up with the 3:30 pacers at mile 8. Then, about mile 9, I started to feel some sort of pull on my left foot. I never felt that before and wondered if I was going too fast. I backed off and lost them. There was some girl that was also wearing long sleeves and long pants on and I remember her standing close to me at the start. I wondered is she was from Texas too, what Chicago people might think this weather as warm, but us in Texas it's perfect running weather. She was also wearing a bib on her back showing "3:30" on her back. I guess that meant that was her goal pace and I tried staying up with her. I would pass her and then she would pass me. My foot pain was gone after praying about it and paying attention to my form. At about mile 13, I saw the 3:30 pacers again and passed them up and never saw them again. I felt fine and didn't feel like I was going that fast, so I just listened to my body and kept going. The girl was still running a little ahead of me at this time. Mile 20 came and my right hamstring started to feel like it wanted to cramp up. I didn't want to stop cause I knew that if I did, it would really cramp up and hard to get going again. So, I ate more gu blocks and drank my coconut water. I also drank a couple of sips of Gatorade that volunteers were passing out. I would kick my right leg up higher to try and stretch it out while running when I felt a cramp coming on. By mile 22, I started seeing guys with bibs on their back showing "3:25" and thought wow..could I be able to keep up these guys? Why not? I told myself and thought if I did, that would mean I could qualify for NYC Marathon. The qualifying time for NYC in my age group is 3:26:00 and that would be the ultimate dream come true. And to say, I just didn't get a free pass to run that marathon, but I actually QUALIFIED to run that marathon! Qualification time for NYC is a lot faster than Boston (3:45 for my age group) and probably because it's the biggest marathon in the world!
Oh I felt hopeful and it was on then. I was going to try my best to beat that time and keep going, pain or no pain. At mile 24 I passed that girl and never saw her again. There was a small hill at mile 25, but once I got over it we turned left and I could finally see the finish line. I tired to pick up my pace even more, but my legs were done. This was the longest sprint ever and hard to believe that I was able to keep up a fast pace the whole way. My finish time was 3:24:09 and I was in tears when I crossed the finish line. I did it!! I was able to finish strong and my legs didn't let me down. I thanked the good Lord for getting me through this and very happy to have qualified for New York City Marathon 2016!! It so surreal and I'm still in shock!
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