Chicago marathon

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Chicago marathon

Well as most of you have already heard, the Chicago Marathon was extremely interesting. My running girlfriends and myself all met in Chicago last Friday (Oct. 5th) to run the Chicago Marathon. We were very excited as none of us had ever been to Chicago before. The expo was great, the pasta dinner was fantastic, but the weather was HOT! In fact, the hottest weather that Chicago had ever seem for that time of year. Marathon morning went well, with a pretty late start for a marathon (8:00am). We stayed in a hotel right across the street from the race start so we only stood in the long potty line once before the race start. Jo Dee Messina(?) sang the National Anthem and the gun sounded. With 30,000 people running it took us about 20 minutes to cross the start line. I was already sweating from just walking. When we got to mile 4 there was suppose to be water and Gatorade but they had run out. That made all of us feel kind of confused about the organization of the marathon. We continued to run and finally got some fuel aid around mile 6, but we began to hear complaints of lack of fuel ahead of us. We were doing alright, but it was very hot and humid. When we got to mile 14 we began to hear from the side of the road (which was packed with crowd support) that the race had been halted due to heat-related emergencies. We had been hearing ambulance sirens since almost the beginning of the race. We were detoured back to the race finish which was another 5 miles or so very confused, angry, frustrated. We received our medal and then we started hearing reports of 1 man dying and over 300 people being taken to the hospital for heat related emergencies. We were shocked, but also determined to earn our medal. We were right across the street from Lake Michigan which has a nice greenway to run so we headed over to complete our 26.2 miles. The rest of the day was filled with listening to different runners' experiences and venting some of our own frustration (since we had trained all summer in 100 degree weather). We topped the weekend off by enjoying some Chicago styled deep dish pizza. I loved Chicago and would love to go back just to do some sight seeing. Maybe we'll try this marathon again next year but only if the weather is cooler!
On another note...Harmony has informed Scott and I that she is expecting grand baby number 3. Very exciting. I'm on my way to spend the day with Melody. She is having a dye test done today. Fortunatly, I am on fall break and have the day off to be with her. Chicago pictures will be forthcoming.