Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Chicago Marathon Trip - quick summary

We did everything I said we were going to do (Chicago Board of Trade, fancy dinner, The Lion King, and a Chicago River Architecture Tour). It was all fantastic.

The race went pretty well. I didn’t know it would be so much work to be a spectator! I was picturing more sitting around, but we were on our feet for 4 hours straight walking around Chicago and seeing Thomas at various points of the race. I desperately need new tennis shoes, so my feet are still hurting a week later. During this four hours of walking, I saw him for approximately 10 seconds four different times. Doesn’t really sound worth it, but I suppose it was. Each time we saw him I got really excited. His mom got some good pictures of him running.

The big bummer about the race is that it was HOT. By the end of the race, the official race conditions were “adverse” and runners were dropping left and right. Thomas said for the last 2-3 miles, he stopped at every aid station, drank 2 cups of Gatorade, ate a banana piece, and poured a cup of water over his head. It’s a good thing, too, because a lot of people collapsed on the final stretch. It was terrible to watch. Since I’ve never watched a marathon before, I don’t know if more people went down than normal, but I assume so.

Thomas' goal was to finish under 4 hours. He came in at 4:09:39 and decided that was pretty dang good, considering how hot it was. Now he wants to run another marathon in the spring…

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