Well…I finished. The weekend was a lot of fun. Melissa and I carpooled down with mom and dad Schaaf, and took the skyway straight to McCormick place to pick up the race packet. Mom and dad did not particularly enjoy driving around downtown. Darren came up from St. Louis and stayed at the Bos’. Mom and dad Schaaf came down and stayed in a hotel. Doug and Gail also came down and stayed in a hotel. Cheri stayed with some friends, and Randy and Erin stayed with Jeff downtown.
Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to take the train downtown.
It was cold and windy. Darren and I wore garbage bag coats which kept out the rain, but not the cold. 
We met Randy at the starting line, which was fortunate considering there were 40,000 runners. After the race started Randy and Darren took a furious pace. I did everything I could to keep up because our family was stationed at the 3 mile mark and I wanted to stick with them at least to that point. After that I let them run ahead because they had both trained more diligently than me and were in better shape. At mile 13 dad Bos jumped in and ran with me for a block. I was able to easily spot him and the rest of our support crew as I ran by because they came prepared with matching home-made neon green scarves to stand out among the 1,000,000 spectators.
As the race progressed I was slowed down by fatigue and pain. However I wasn’t feeling as bad as Randy. I was very surprised to catch up with him at mile 22. His goal going in was to finish in 4 hours, while I thought I would be lucky to make 4:15. I stuck with him to keep him motivated until he had an adrenaline rush at 800 meters and ran ahead. In the end Darren posted a fantastic time of 4:10 (which beat my 2005 Detroit Marathon time by 3 minutes), Randy ran a 4:18, and I ran a 4:19. After the race I felt as bad as I’ve ever felt in my life. I was shivering cold, exhausted, and sore. I was happy to have accomplished this hurdle in life, but I don’t know if I’ll do another. Randy would like to do the New York Marathon, but the preparation required before hand and the fatigue afterward might be too fresh in my mind to be willing to sign up for next year..JPG)
Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to take the train downtown.
It was cold and windy. Darren and I wore garbage bag coats which kept out the rain, but not the cold. We met Randy at the starting line, which was fortunate considering there were 40,000 runners. After the race started Randy and Darren took a furious pace. I did everything I could to keep up because our family was stationed at the 3 mile mark and I wanted to stick with them at least to that point. After that I let them run ahead because they had both trained more diligently than me and were in better shape. At mile 13 dad Bos jumped in and ran with me for a block. I was able to easily spot him and the rest of our support crew as I ran by because they came prepared with matching home-made neon green scarves to stand out among the 1,000,000 spectators.As the race progressed I was slowed down by fatigue and pain. However I wasn’t feeling as bad as Randy. I was very surprised to catch up with him at mile 22. His goal going in was to finish in 4 hours, while I thought I would be lucky to make 4:15. I stuck with him to keep him motivated until he had an adrenaline rush at 800 meters and ran ahead. In the end Darren posted a fantastic time of 4:10 (which beat my 2005 Detroit Marathon time by 3 minutes), Randy ran a 4:18, and I ran a 4:19. After the race I felt as bad as I’ve ever felt in my life. I was shivering cold, exhausted, and sore. I was happy to have accomplished this hurdle in life, but I don’t know if I’ll do another. Randy would like to do the New York Marathon, but the preparation required before hand and the fatigue afterward might be too fresh in my mind to be willing to sign up for next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment