I haven't written a blog post in awhile so I figured it was time.
Marathon #41 - Chicago Marathon - Overcast, some rain but really not
bad. 2nd time running this race and I wore the same shirt as last time,
the first time was in 2011 and I was 24 minutes faster this time. This was despite my watch stopping somewhere in the first 6-7 miles and having to restart it so I really had no idea what time I was at for most of the race. I was also looking for a friend of mine who is a Chicago police office and was working along the route. From mile 12 - 17 I was looking for her at all the cross roads but I never ended up seeing her at all
I typically don't run the same marathon twice, but felt compelled to
come back to Chicago as last time I didn't run well (the race conditions were hot and humid) and also due to the
circumstances.
In 2011 I joined a charity
team for this race as I thought it would be worthwhile to raise money
for a good cause (I already had my own entry but figured I would try this once). Unfortunately, a
member of my team ( https://foundation.iaff.org/ ) - Will Caviness collapsed just short of the finish line and later died. You can read about it in this story:
http://www.espn.com/…/story/_/id/9…/the-marathon-their-lives
I can't say I knew Will well or even at all, as most of our team first
met at dinner the night before that race. I do know I thought about him
a great deal while training and running this race. My memory of Chicago since then has always been about the circumstances of that race in 2011 and what happened afterwards. This race was a way to reset my view of the Chicago Marathon and also my own personal tribute to Will as I stopped at the point where he collapsed on the race course for a few moments.
