My First Marathon
Watching the Chicago Marathon this past Sunday made me reminisce about my own experience running Chicago… it was my first marathon, back in 1990. Things were quite different then! How different, you ask? Well, the 1990 race (then sponsored by Old Style) was only the 13th running of the Chicago Marathon, and there were 6168 finishers. The course was different- I couldn’t tell you many details except that the last eight miles or so were a deathly boring out and back on Lakeshore Drive. And with that relatively small amount of runners, there was no rigamarole about getting into the race. You just dropped your application in the mailbox, and a few weeks later received your letter of confirmation. I was 24 years old and living in Florida at the time, but my family was back near Chicago where I grew up, so that seemed like a logical choice for my first marathon. Get ready for some poor quality pictures- all I have are some pictures my parents took at the finish line (and one from the start) on their 1990 camera. You might be thinking, wait! This was your first marathon! Don’t you have some professional pictures from the race? No I don’t, and there’s a reason… read on to find out, and also see a completely ridiculous clothing choice I made for the day! My longest long run before the marathon was 18 miles, and since I had done every single training run at a 10 minute mile pace, I told my family that I would be at the finish line at 4:20. I mean, obviously- right? I had also done all my training runs in the heat of Florida, so figured a nice crisp fall day in Chicago would make things feel easy. Ho ho! All I can really remember about the start of the race is that it was cold. When I asked my sister (who was there at the end to cheer me on) what she remembers, the first thing she said was, it was cold. So I looked it up- the race was on October 28th, and it was in the 30s at the start, and windy! Too cold for a Florida runner. I ran well until around 20 miles, where- surprise, surprise- I hit the wall. I didn’t know much about fueling, but I had taken a couple gels and was drinking Gatorade when it was offered. But those last six miles were P.A.I.N.F.U.L. For some reason, it helped me to run short stretches with my eyes shut. I definitely slowed down, but I didn’t stop- I ran the whole way. I know that picture was taken right before the finish line, because that’s where my mom, dad, and sister were, cheering loudly. The biggest lesson I learned was that I didn’t know what I didn’t know, going into it. Having a solid time goal for your first marathon is silly, and luckily I gave up on that early on and was proud to finish in 4:36. So why don’t I have an official picture of myself crossing the finish line? WELL… Again, since this was 1990 there were no digital photos. You would receive proofs of your photos in the mail, and could order what you wanted. My boyfriend at the time intercepted the mail and as a surprise to me, ordered a full size poster of me crossing the finish line. And it was a terrible picture- I even had my eyes closed. He gave it to me for Christmas, and I pretended to be happy. But I was actually so mad- I just wanted a picture of that moment. What was I supposed to do with a huge poster of myself, looking awful? Frame it and put it up in the living room? Somewhere along the way, that poster was “forgotten” in one of my many moves. I’m so glad I got to run a marathon back in the old days. No complicated training plan- no Garmin- no timing chips- no fancy gear (ahem, apparently!) I just figured if I could run 18 miles I could run a marathon, and I did it… the Old Style way. Who else is old enough to remember racing in the 90s? Do you have any awful race pictures? Do you look back at your clothing choices and cringe?