With a half marathon planned in early 2020, I decided to ‘upgrade’ from the 5K to the 15K distance. I knew it might not be pretty, but I didn’t envision what happened occurring.
Because of how early we had to be there pre-race, I stayed with friends Saturday night. But it still meant getting up before 5AM to get there in time. They did a really nice presentation with a Make-A-Wish recipient pre-race, and Dave gave us a shout out prior to starting.
Last year, we were in the dark (Lower Wacker?) for about a 1/2 mile. This year, it seemed like we were down there for at least a mile, if not more. During that dark run, I had to completely rely on Rob to be my eyes since I could see little. As we emerged from the drak and made the first aid station stop, things felt just fine.
As we continued on though, issues started to happen. By about 2.75 (where the 5K / 15K split was), my feet started hurting. Getting hydration and gels in at about 3.25 helped with that though, and I was OK until about 4.5.
After that point, what started in the feet had worked upwards a bit. From about 4.5 to 6, it was a decent walk/run. But after 6, I was having to constantly stop to stretch things out. And by 7.5, I was in so much pain I couldn’t run.
At that point, the main thought in my mind was ‘I don’t care if I have to crawl, I’m finishing the race.’ As we hit 9, the next thought was ‘I don’t care how much pain I’m in, I am running this in so there are decent photos for Achilles.’
While it wasn’t a great day, I’m grateful to Achilles Chicago for all of their support and Rob for guiding / his continual support throughout the race.
