These days it looks like I’m mostly following where my sons live/work/study to run marathons! My older son Niles started working in Chicago last year after graduation. When I looked into potentially running Chicago Marathon, I was pleasantly surprised that my BQ qualification time window was still valid and I was able to secure a guaranteed entry! Niles totally surprised my wife & I by also getting into Chicago to raise money for Movember, a charity he’d worked with before. From zero to first marathon in 4 months is a pretty impressive feat! Here’s our Strava activity:

Training Days

Niles loosely followed a 4-month couch-to-marathon program, with me kinda acting as a coach. He had a couple of other friends Adam & Dan also running the marathon. And then I found out Rohit, who ran a blistering 2:51 at Boston last year was also running. More the merrier! When my wife and I visited Niles a few months ago, we ran a 13-miler, which was the longest he’d run! Of course we got torrential rain dumped on us along Lake Michigan at our turn around point. Then a month or so ago, he visited home and we got to run his longest run ever, an 18-miler along the Bay Trail.

Expo Day

My wife & I and our younger son Navin all descended into Chicago on Thursday – even took a river cruise. On Expo Day, all of us with Adam, Dan & Rohit headed out to the Expo to pick up our bibs. The excitement was definitely palpable. While Boston field size was 38,000 runners, I was shocked to find out Chicago was 50,000 runners! That’s a lot of people in the city for the weekend.

Grabbed some Thai food after the expo and later that evening, my wife & I, with Navin even managed to catch a pre-season Bulls game that night. In bed by 10pm, though. As it always goes, not much sleep the night before any race, further made worse by loud cars (drag racing?) zipping around River North with police sirens trailing them. 🥱

Chicago Marathon – Race Day!

We were all gonna start together (well, Rohit was in the almost-semi-elite corral, looking to set a marathon PR) but then run our own race. I was gonna hang with Niles the whole way. That was the plan. Met up with Adam, Dan & Niles in the morning and we walked together to Gate 2, corral H. The weather couldn’t have been better. Just two days prior it was 80 degrees, but 52-64 cloudy, on race day.

We waited around packed in the corral until at 8am it was open and we started to inch our way forward. Must’ve taken us a good 15 minutes before we could start running. Dan was shooting a sub-4:00 on his debut and Adam was just gonna play by ear. The Chicago marathon course is extremely spectator friendly as it loops around the North towards Lincoln Park, the West near Little Italy and then the South around Douglas. Later that evening, we would learn that Adam’s Dad would’ve walked 9-miles, just going from intersection to intersection!

My wife & Navin were going to see us at various points in the early miles. We missed them at mile 1, but caught them near mile 3 holding fun signs to cheer Niles on. Adam briefly stepped off to see his Dad at mile 1 and at that time we weren’t sure what his plans were. Dan took off on his sub-4:00 target, so it was just Niles & I enjoying the early miles, the gorgeous weather and the Chicago skyline.

An hour’ish into the run, I saw an alert from the marathon app that Rohit just crossed the half way mark in around 1:28. Looks like he might actually get a PR. I thought the gel station was right around mile 10, but turns out it was still a few miles away. We found the Movember charity station along the charity stations near mile 13 and stopped to say hi.

Another alert that Adam had just crossed the halfway point too! Turns out he wasn’t too far behind us. Rest of the run we’d be passing each other with alternating run/walk cycles. Some of the next few miles were a bit of a blur. Run for a while, walk a bit, chat about the things we were seeing all around us, salt pills to preempt the cramp, electrolytes, water, loving the crowd energy. Lots of biofreeze to calm down the legs. When we got to mile 19, we realized this was the furthest Niles had run. Somewhere here Rohit crossed the finish line in 2:48 with a new PR! Some point later got notified that Dan finished too, in 4:03!!!

By this time my wife & Navin were making their way to the spectator stadium, just 200m from the finish line. Less than a 10K to go. There was one last U-turn and we decided to run a bit more than walking. Saw two incredibly inspiring runners. One with two prosthetic legs and another with just one leg, but “running” on crutches. So many causes, so many reasons, all the joy, all the struggles in why folks run the distance. And it’s not always for a PR. Mile 24, then 25. I started shouting LFG, encouraging folks around me that it was just 4 laps around the track to the finish. The energy from the spectators was very palpable. We ran the last mile and got to the finish line in 5:03 (or something). What an accomplishment for everyone! Zero to a marathon in four months. Lots to be incredibly proud of.

So proud and happy for Adam, Dan & Niles for going the distance and finishing strong. And Rohit for his new marathon PR! As it turns out, Niles and I get to do this all over again, in Tokyo! My 3rd majors and his second. Looking forward to it!