bob, lisa, addison & lucas: Chicago marathon.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Chicago marathon.

About a month ago Bob and I ran the Chicago marathon. Wow, it was an amazing experience!!!

Bob and I both ran the St. Jude Memphis Marathon back in December and we didn't exactly have the best experience during that race. We were both battling a stomach bug and our race didn't leave us with that great feeling of accomplishment. I was devastated.

So, we went at it again and trained for another marathon in hopes that the 2nd time around would be much better. It was very easy to select the Chicago Marathon since I am from there, Bob and I lived there while Bob was in law school and we just love the city. Bob battled through his training after healing a sprained ankle (he only had 9 weeks to train....from zero miles to a marathon). Pretty crazy. My training went good. It was a big commitment for both us of and come race day, we were ready.

The Chicago Marathon did not let us down.

The crowd support was out of this word. Just amazing and through just about all 26.2 miles too. Running down the streets where we had so many memories was so great. We ran through our old neighborhoods and even past Rush hospital where Addison was born. The weather was PERFECT (high in the 50s). Both Bob and I felt pretty great until about 20 miles in and like many, kind of hit our wall. We were both very very pleased with our finish times. Bob finished in 3:53 (8:54 pace) and my finish time was 4:14 (9:42 pace). Bob's goal was to finish under 4 hours and my goal was to finish under 4:20. We both got our goal...and then some!

Our good friend Brad ran the marathon too (his wife and my amazing running buddy Lara was there to cheer us on). Kris and Mike came from Ohio to run it as well. Becky, Pam and Marina came to cheer us on. It brought tears to my eyes each time I saw them during the race. To have them there to cheer me on made this marathon experience truly one of the best days of my life. Yes, it was hard. I wanted to give up at times....but I can't wait to run it again next year!!!!

Here is a picture that the marathon posted. I love it. It gives you a small glimpse as to just how big of an event it it. I think there were about 38,000 finishers!!!