A Great Day in the Second City: My 2013 Chicago Marathon Race Report

Last fall, in my ninth marathon, I finally broke the elusive 3 hour mark. It was one of the happiest moments of my life, finally meeting a goal I had set for myself three years earlier. After the glow wore off, though, I found myself adrift, directionless. I decided to make sub-3 my goal for Boston in the spring just to see if I could do it again but then a hip injury took any chance of that away. After a struggling through the finish in April, all I wanted was some time off from training.

 

Spring turned into summer and still I resisted setting a schedule: it wasn't until the second week of August that I completely committed to a plan for Chicago. Although I did every workout on my calendar, I didn't feel the same level of motivation I had in previous training cycles and was unsure what my goal for October really was. I worried that the running bug had left me. Fast forward to this past weekend and even on race morning I was full of self-doubt. In spite of a full calendar of summer races, I hadn't PR'd at a single distance in 2013 and going into Chicago I wondered if my days of improvement were over.
 

A great sign at Niketown

Though I was unsure of my own prospects, there was plenty to look forward to in the Windy City. My girlfriend was also running, her fifth time doing Chicago and her tenth marathon, and hoping to BQ. Her parents were supposed to fly out to cheer and spend the weekend with us, but unfortunately on Thursday her dad had to be rushed to the hospital with what turned out to be a pulmonary embolism. It gave everyone quite a scare and though he was released over the weekend, her parents were obviously unable to join us.  This meant that as we prepared to leave our hotel room at 6 a.m. on race day, we knew that the only friends and relative who would be watching would be doing so via electronic updates.

 

Even with the enhanced security, navigating the starting area was relatively easy and by 7 a.m. we had check our bags and it was time to part ways and head to our respective corrals. I was in Corral A along with my friend Helen and her boyfriend Alex, both also from New York. They were running with a sub-3 goal which sounded good to me so we agreed to meet in the corral by the 3 hour pace group. Unfortunately, it was far more crowded than I had expected and as the clock ticked closer to the 7:30 a.m. start, I couldn’t find them. Finally, just when I’d given up hope, I spotted Helen and managed to make my way over to her and Alex before the gun went off.

 

Boston Registration: Some Thoughts

I feel like I've been waiting since April 15, from the moment it was confirmed that a bomb had gone off at the Boston Marathon finish line, for details about registration for this year's race. Yes, I had planned to run in 2014 already, but the events this year instilled in me a new sense of urgency. Well, after several months of suspense, the wait is over.

Today, the BAA announced details for this year's registration. It will open on September 9th and follow the same procedure used the last two years, i.e., fastest register first.

As most runners know, over the course of the past few years registering for Boston has become nearly as much of a challenge as qualifying. In 2009—the first year I registered for the race—it took just over two months for Boston to sell out. Prior to that the race never sold out before the spring. In 2010, the race sold out in just 8 hours, catching almost everyone—including the BAA—off-guard.

In 2011, they instituted a rolling registration process (the same one they’re still using), and in 2012, the BAA slashed qualifying times by 5 minutes across the board. Registration for the 2012 race closed after 11 days, while registration for 2013, under the stricter qualifying standards, remained open for several weeks.

This year it seems pretty clear that there will be significantly increased demand for the race. The field is usually somewhere around 25,000 with approximately 21,500 to 22,000 of those spots open to qualified runners (the rest go to charities). This year the field size has been increased to 36,000, close to the event’s record 38,708 registrants for its centennial in 1996. With around 5,000 spots going to runners from last year who were unable to finish, there will be roughly 31,000 spots left over.

Given the number of repeat runners Boston tends to have year over year, it’s likely a good number of those roughly 5,000 folks who’ve already registered would have been part of the field anyway. The point is, I think the expanded size of the field may be enough to absorb a lot of the increased interest in this year’s race. I’m sure it will sell out earlier than last year, but it seems likely that everyone with a BQ-5 or better will be able to get in and likely plenty of folks who've met their general qualifier standard.

A final thought on this post. When I ran my first BQ back in 2009, I needed a 3:10.* I managed to eke out a 3:09:55 and felt like death. I was so spent and convinced that I would never run faster that I almost didn’t register for Boston (thankfully, I did—two days before the 2010 race sold out).

Of course that pessimistic me at the finish line of the 2009 Marine Corps Marathon was wrong. I’ve trained harder for each subsequent marathon and I’ve seen my times steadily improve. Why am I saying all of this? Because to any of you who may not get into this year’s race, I say keep up the hard work. It won’t be easy, but you can get to Hopkinton too. When you do, hopefully I’ll be there to show you the shortest port-a-pottie lines.


____________

*Technically I needed a 3:10:59 because of the 59 second grace period the BAA used to offer, but I really want a sub-3:10.