Chicago Pffff-style

crazy cat lady

The short and sweet: great great great first marathon, no pain (no speed either but... Wink

) 5:46:01 chip time. Rockin' awesome, I'm ready to sign up for next year's.

The longer version more typical lengthy pfff version....Had a crazy weekend with my friends....tried to 'rest' and 'hydrate' and all that stuff but there was so much fub to be had. Coach would be proud to know that I was cheering for the cubs at the Cubby Bear right across the street from Wrigley all weekend (with some guy who is known all around Chicago as "woo-woo"? I don't know who he is but he says "woo woo" and he's apparently well known and on the news...anyway he was all about me and my friends....we finally took his photo, I'll post if I can, hilarious) Then Saturday afternoon I got the opportunity to meet Poky and the Poky Family and friends as well as JACKED UP and gretriever at the expo saturday, good people they are! So so nice! Great people to be my first riff raffers to meet. Dancing Banana

ALthough I'm not sure who was more horrified at our lack of work/high post count, the poky family or my friend from houston.... Wink

Anyway, despite all the shenanigans and hours of shopping at the expo and magnificent mile, I did actually feel rested going into Sunday. We got up early, convinced ourselves it was just a casual long run, no big deal and staggered out into the chilly (for us Texans) 48 degrees. We had ideal conditions. Clear, not much wind (compared to some of my other trips to Chicago Shocked

) and Sun (I too have sunburn!). I think it got up to around 70 during the day but that was still cooler and less humid than all of my training runs this summer so it was great for me. THere were some Chicagoans melting out there though....

After like 14 trips to the port-o-potty my friend and I decide that despite prior plans to start the first 2 miles together, that we should separate at the start. She aimed for sub 5 and I didn't want to slow her down, knowing that I would be back-o-the-pack-ing it in anticipation of a major tendonitis flare up and well, I'm not all that fast anyway Embarassed

I started amongst some friendly folks from West Consin and Hotlanta...we took ~20 minutes to cross the start line. I knew it would take forever but TWENTY MINUTES?? Seriously, I don't know if you can fathom 40,000 runners. I can't explain it anyway. So we get cruising along, I aimed to run the first 2 as slow as humanly possibly upon the sage advice of one AlaninTX and manage to squeeze out two 13 min-miles. It was about mile 1.5 as I was pointing out all the Texas flag shorts (there were tons, Texans were there in force!) to the girl from Atlanta that I realized one pair of people in the shorts were my training partners from Houston!!!! UNREAL that I found them amongst the 40,000. I hadn't talked to them since the 21 miler I dropped out of and didn't know how to find them so I wrote it off. Well, I joined them and we had a blast. So many cheers for "Go Texas!!" to which the 3 of us responded "WOO WOOOOOO!!!!" and would pick up our step for a while. This happened the whole time I was with them (I personally was wearing only black shorts). So cool.

What else. SO much to see...a proposal, winnie the pooh running...a 70 year old man blow past me, so many crowds I couldn't even FIND my friends among them. The crowd support was phenomenal. The city of Chicago pulled out the stops. Seriously, it was about mile 11 before I knew it. Well, it was mile 9 when someone was like "the guy won it all!" gee....

Anyway, things are going great, so much to see, my running partners' families are staggered around the course giving us orange slices, cheering us on (we only saw them because of a hideous umbrella they would wave)

Somewhere around mile 17.5 I start really fading. Not hurting, just getting tired. A nap is starting to sound really good. 9 more miles sounds a bit more than I'm capable of at this point. I start to think "um, who am I kidding here???? I've taken 3 friggin weeks off with an injury....who does that then runs a marathon?? whats the big deal with a marathon anyway? this is dumb, I'm never doing this again..." yet something in my was like "get to 20 before you drop out, you've done 19 before, just see if you can do 20" well, something mustered me through, partly my awesome running partners, partly the idea that gretriever was ahead and that once I saw him it was basically an easy 5k...anyway, I forged ahead and found a whole new attitude somewhere around mile 20. I don't know what it was but some sort of renewed sense of how rockin' awesome it all was and I really picked back up. Around 22 I fell back from my running partners but still felt good, just couldn't stay with them. Forged on to 23 where I saw Gretriever and tried to look like I was strong enough to go around again.....I think he knew better... Wink

but he walked with me as I chugged my gatorade and motivated me to keep forging on! Which I did! By 24 I was having so much fun again I was trying to mentally plan my trip back to Chicago to do this again next October and 25 on we were motivated by the faster runners who had come back to cheers us on. Cruelly, they put the only hill on the friggin course at mile 25.8.... but even still I had a strong finish, felt fabuloso! I think my new boyfriend is the guy who gave me my finisher's medal. We had a moment anyway..... Embarassed

After some security people made me stop hugging that guy....I reunited with my friend Beth, we had some celebrations as I a) finished b) finished uninjured and no pain above and beyond the usual that would be expected and c) She made her goal time!!!! After laying in some grass for a while with my cell phone getting NO signal Mad

we decided to walk back to the hotel, and about a block from the hotel I get a call from Kobyj at the finishing area who I really wanted to meet but my feet were screaming obscenities at me to just lay in my bed ASAP, so I didn't turn back to meet him. I suck. I'm so sorry we didn't meet up! Next year?

Anyway, I'm sure there is much I've left out, there's a lot that goes on in 26 miles, especially when you take almost 6 hours to cover them, but I had a blast! Dancing Banana

Thanks for all the support and encouragement, especially when the tendonitis struck in the training. I couldn't have done it without you guys.

Oh, and poky and pffff finally got to cheers

at the post race party!!! Pictures may be posted, pending development to a cdrom and approval from the committee (committee consisting of pfff and poky.... Wink

this just in: 32500 finished, I came in 30515....how fast am I??? move over runaroundsue..... Wink

hey, we're calling 5:46 'room to grow'.... Wink

Oompa Loofah

I can't begin to tell you how proud I am of you! You have accomplished what many of us can only dream of.

YOU ROCK!!! Remember, you are a hero--especially to the younger women in your family!!!! dance

Hipster Doofus

Cheryl!

I'm glad we got to meet, and I am so darn proud of you for your run. If you were burned out at 23, you certainly fooled me! And - truth be known, folks - it was more of a trot I had with her than a walk. You looked great!

Where were you and Poky at the party? Mrs g and I were there from a little after 6 to a little after 9 but we didn't recognize anyone (though I did get to talk for a moment with the women's champion).

I'm a little p.o.'d that my digital camera battery died during the race. But I will e-mail you a shot I took of your sign at 23 once I get the pictures loaded up. Also that one of everybody at the expo. Either tomorrow or Wednesday. Wink

One bit of advice. Do not post the picture of Ronnie Woo Woo - that's the guy you saw at the Cubby Bear. He wanders around Wrigley Field during the games, and would talk something like this:

Cubs - WOO! - National - WOO! - League - WOO! - Champions - WOO! - World - WOO! - Series - WOO!

This is the only known survivor of a Shelfie wiffle bat attack. I bet Mrs. Woo Woo likes to get romantic with him. Shocked

Member

Great job for a first marathon cheryl! thumbs up

I have yet to do mine...

Member

Great job pffffff thumbs up

Member

Hey, Shuryl..

WELCOME TO THE CLUB

[scroll:c9131dd160]

[/scroll:c9131dd160]

You done good. Actually, you rock! Good job and nice report.

Member

Way to go!!!! You rock, seriously. You've made me look forward to Dec. even more. I'm glad you only had the normal marathon pains, and not any pain from your injury.

Now, get to training...White Rock is in 61 days, and you run my pace! Very Happy

Member

Awesome report pfffff, and oh yeah.....

YOU ROCK!!!!!! Dancing Banana

Member

Way to go!!

Frightened Inmate #2

:leek:

Where was the axe-wielding wacko on a moped?

GREAT JOB CHERYL!

PRESIDENT

Wow, great job Cheryl!! Dancing Banana

I hope my first goes as well as yours, I'm impressed. dance

It was great to meet you guys, too bad time was short. Sad

Excelent

Welcome to the marathon club. You she be proud shurl, You have done 2 centuries and a marathon, quite an accomplishment

Pyromaniac

Great job Cheryl. Sounds like the windy city really knows how to put on a marathon.

The Pinball

way to go cheryl. it's really awesome that you found some kind of renewed strength at mile 20 when most first timers are struggling bigtime.

very inspirational. i believe you did this right, from start to fantastic finish.

thumbs up

CONGRATULATIONS MARATHONER!

Member

w00t! AWESOME JOB! I knew you could do it! I'm glad that given your fears going into this, you were able to take it all in stride, have fun, and show how strong, mentally & physically, you truly are. Congratulations, twin! You are now a

[scroll:236828fbd1] Dancing Banana

MARATHONER! Dancing Banana

[/scroll:236828fbd1]