Chicago Marathon - I was pleased that I had a reasonably good day of "racing." I put that in quotes because I am long past my days of running my best times in marathons at my age - but today was a reasonably good showing particularly since I had such a rough first half of the year with illness and injuries. I had expected to run with Richie at perhaps a 9 min pace or thereabout to enjoy the day together, but he had to cancel and stay at his home in St. Pete which is still without power from the damage of hurricane Milton. So, I had a decision to make - run at that same pace, or just run to "feel" and see what the day gives me. I ended up doing the latter - after the first couple of miles had me running in the low 8 min per mile pace. I decided to set an alert on my watch if my heartrate exceeded 150 - and I was able to manage to run at that pace for the majority of the miles in the upper 140's bpm.
It was a little challenging to keep myself from just running with the crowd - as I would get pulled along after the 10k mark and see that my hr alert would go off, and so I would slow down slightly - yet still I was ticking-off 8:05 to 8:07 per mile like a metronome.
Somewhere around mile 12 or 13 mile the airpod's batteries were nearly dead and I put them in the case. I rarely run with them, but in a loud and chaotic race like this with no one to run with as a partner, I find them helpful to isolate and concentrate on staying in the right zone. It was shortly after this, that I noticed that my gait felt a little bit off as I approached mile 15 and a female runner alerted me to it. She said, "you are starting to lean to your right." I had this happen to me in Tokyo in March and I think it may have happened a little bit at Grandma's in June. So I slowed down a little bit and tried really hard to concentrate on keeping myself vertically aligned.
Around mile 20 or so, I could feel that I was losing that battle - though I was not in any pain - I just noticed things were "off." I think I made things a little worse because starting around mile 22 I ceased the effort of keeping my HR under 150 and figured I could get myself to the finish line however wonky my gait, and with my HR approaching threshold if it was only for another 4 miles.
Pace slowed a bit in the final stretch which was into a fairly stiff headwind of about 15 mph - and the last 800 meters up the bridge and down to the finish showed my pace at over 9 mins for the first time.
I was in good spirits afterward having been rewarded with a 3:42 time - which frankly I think was my best time since November 2022 in NYC, and nearly 2 hours faster than the debilitated Tokyo marathon this past March. I ran 4:06 in June this year at Grandmas - so this was a good progression of fitness over 8-10 months.
Photos after the race that came in - show a sharp right lean - so that's a little disappointing - And I am a little more fatigued than I expected to be but all in all - it was a good day.
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