I ran a 2:51, a PR by six minutes. That is a fast course. I found Boston a lot harder.

I just picked up triathlons this year. I think the biking and swimming has gone a long way to improving my running. That goes against what some running guides tell you to expect, so I am curious if others have set PRs after picking up triathlon.

I wish I could say yes. I was right on 2:40 pace until the mile 20 marker, coming through in 2:02.15. But admittedly, my training just didn't support the time goal. I had great energy and a good attitude, but my legs quickly turned to concrete and I basically jogged it in from there. Finished in 2:44. It was a great morning to run. Congrats on a great race!

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Steve Johnson
DARK HORSE TRIATHLON |

Thanks for the info - and congrats again on a great race!

I don't think GPS is very accurate at Chicago.

Probably don't need to tell you, but don't forget to update your time with the BAA! You will now have a 3-digit bib and corral 1 seeding.

the race start screwed me up too..

My last 20 mi training run i took some dayquil as i felt weak. Everytime this year I get flu/bronchitis having my lungs filled with phlegm. Needless to say I ran the marathon sick with 1/4th vo2 max cut out. Felt the pain in my lungs at mile 7 trying sub 3. Also since I had limited lung space, hit side stiches at mile 12... just suffered through it, kept on thinking to quit but I remembered how much I paid to do the race, and it is a world major on the belt notch. I ended up doing 3:16 (26.36 mi) . I can look at this optimistically as a simulated high altitude run and try for some PR's in novemeber.

My wife even beat me with a 3:11. The pacers fucked up as she was following 3:10 to get NYCQ.. many of them faded out (3:15 never passed me). She also ran 26.5 avoiding slow people. As for the race, the course is nice and well supported, but I did not like the start of the race....

Here are the elites: jeptoo, etc etc... runners go! What? No count down or gun? They also delayed the area to the left that I got caught with a slow pack as the people on the right were released first. They should have done TT wave starts like boston... most well organized race ever.

Tried the chicago must haves... lou's deep dish and giodarnos. Lou's has better salads, gio better pizza (more cheesey).

Went to all you can eat polish food place 'red apple' (I am polish) pretty decent. Expected the polish village to be more tight than so spread out.

Which watch did you use to get 26.36? That is very low.

I think it's easy to run a pretty true course in Chicago. I got 26.62 on my Garmin 620. The first 2 miles in downtown and under the elevated Wacker Drive etc were recorded at 1.09 and 1.07, so that's 0.16 of variance right there. Add another tenth or so when you go through downtown again (my mile 13 was 1.06 for example), and you only have about 0.15 of variance that's mostly attributable to running long. I was pretty happy to see a blue course line on Sunday which wasn't there last year and which I was told isn't common at marathons in the U.S.

The start likewise took me by surprise. No fanfare!

Congrats on your great run. Personally I ended up at 2:53 which was about what I figured I'd be capable of running. I do think wind from the north would have given me another 2 minutes or so...I ran with a large group from 8 to 14 who were pacing for 2:50 but once a gap opened up and we turned east onto Jackson I had no draft and started having to work a lot harder.

Is that a sneaky back door brag?

If you have ever tried to piss in a regular bottle before a race then you'd understand. I almost missed a race once because I had piss all over my shorts! Don't worry though, I sucked it up and ran faster so nobody would notice.

Didn't you run 10 straight 20-milers? No wonder you felt weak.

garmin 910. may need an update, the actual pace was all out of wack most of the race


yea, I tried to mimic my training for boston. was trying to make up for mileage lost thanks to psoas injury 6 weeks ago that had me doing 0 running in a week

I didn't put that connection together that you did the 200mile week leading up to Chicago. You still banged out a 3:16 after 200 mile week and getting sick! Nice job, you're a tank.

reading dean karnazes book 50 marathons in 50 days, he does 49 marathons and then putting down 3:00 at nyc for #50 makes you think about volume numbers and tapering (what I did was 200 miles in 10 days, 140 mile week + 3 days nothing near that). Regardless I failed. time to look into this speed stuff you folk do :)

Ran 26.52 on FR 620. Tried to stay on tangent lines, but early crowds made it tough. Also interesting to hear that the dotted blue line is exactly 26.2, but just heard that while running and cannot verify. Sometimes the course was split with a median and I tried to split time between both sides to minimize the road crown effect.

The buildings and GPS inaccuracies made early pacing a disaster. I had miles all over the place on auto lap. First time to do a race with HRM and I just went off of that but I wish I would have had more confidence in the lap paces that I was seeing on my watch. Probably smarter to figure out 5K/1M splits based on time beforehand, but did not and lesson learned. Great crowd support, start line corral and porta-potties needs improvement, but overall a recommended race.

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Nice race. What type of mileage were you running leading up to Chicago, e.g., average weekly, and highest week of mileage?

I did an 11 week block where I averaged about 60 miles a week, with my longest week at 80.