29 in 26.2

This past Saturday, I visited 29 of Chicago’s 77 neighborhoods. When I was done, I could barely walk.

Of course, I did this not because I enjoy aimlessly meandering about the city for hours at a time, but because I was running the Chicago Marathon for the first time –actually, my first marathon, period.

It was the culmination of months of training, mostly along Evanston’s and Chicago’s lakefront trail. My runs ranged from leisurely 3-mile post-work jaunts to very serious 20-mile journeys. The early morning runs, the Crazylegs Classic (the first and only race I did this year before the marathon), the runs in far-off places and the runs right here at home in Evanston — all of them made a difference.

I ran up through Winnetka and back. West to the North Branch of the Chicago River and back, crossing bridges there swarmed with summer gnats. Sometimes it rained. Earlier in the year, it snowed. Sometimes it was too hot to think. Sometimes I felt great. Other times, I felt like doing anything but what I was doing.

But most of the time, I kept going, keeping to a schedule that wasn’t so much a “plan,” the kind you’ll see marathon experts touting, as much as it was a vague emotional idea of what needed to be done.

But while I might not have set my preparation to a defined plan, I worked to get better. Even on vacation, during my road trip out west, I ran through the quiet yellow-brown hillsides in Cody, Wyo., just east of Yellowstone. I ran through the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City in the early hours of the morning, seeing those places before they had woken up for the day. I ran through Denver and stopped to take pictures of the venues where the Avalanche and Rockies play.

In all of those instances, when viewed as a journey, an opportunity to see new things, the miles just melted away into the scenery.

The same was true, for the most part, on Saturday. The marathon course took all 45,000 or so of us up north from Grant Park, past Lincoln Park to Addison, then back west and south past UIC, Pilsen, Chinatown, just north of U.S. Cellular Field and back north to Grant Park.

It took me five hours to finish, but in that time I entered 29 neighborhoods, some of which I had never been to before. Of the various bustling junctures along the way, I’d have to say Pilsen was my favorite: the music, the people and the snacks offered by the good people there — oh the snacks — could not have been better.

But every stop along the way offered something different. The only constant was the enthusiasm of the crowds — some people undoubtedly cheering for friends or family, others just enjoying the spectacle. Whatever the case may be, the amount of support for the event was awe-inspiring and the kindness shown by many along the way truly blew me away.

The signs, motivational and funny and sometimes sarcastically effacing (“You’re really good at exercising!” one read) all helped, each in their small way. A marathon, I found, is a roller coaster. One moment, you feel ready to coast to glory. The next, you feel like you can’t go on. Then, you swat that thought away, only to find it swatting back at you.

The first few miles felt like the start of any other run — the only difference being dozens of runner peeling off to the side to answer’s nature’s call in a tunnel at the start of the race. So, you know, just like any other run.

After a while, though, the reality of it sets in. We ran across river bridges, covered with soft carpeting to mitigate the sole-to-metal impact, as bystanders sat up high on the metallic red-brown of the State Street Bridge. Every so often, spectators would try to cross the path of the course, carefully making their way as if in the face of slow-moving automobile traffic.

Adults and children held signs and clapped toy plastic hand clappers and blew on whistles and yelled.

Upon reaching Addison, the northernmost point on the journey, the reality of the endeavor starts to set in. About 7.5 miles in, only 842 to go (at least, it feels that way).

Then it’s through Boystown, Old Town and ritzy River North. Then west on Adams, past Greektown en route to the westernmost point, Damen Avenue. The halfway point comes on this leg, just west of the river on Adams. Just before turning south and then back east along Van Buren, slightly north then east again along Jackson, the course runs past the United Center. The UC is a place I’ve been to many times, but in that moment, running by it in a state of singular focus approaching delirium, it was almost like seeing it for the first time.

I stopped to get a picture through the chain link fence.

Halfway done, one thinks — this isn’t so bad.

Just have to do that one more time. Unfortunately, the shade and relative cool of the race’s early portion faded. The sun beat down in Little Italy, University Village, Pilsen and Chinatown.

No matter how much water and Gatorade I drank or mysterious endurance gels I consumed, it never seemed enough.

At one point, I ran behind someone wearing a black shirt with the following lettered across the back: “Why did I do this?”

I laughed, then reconsidered the laugh. Why am I doing this? This is ridiculous.

Nonetheless, I and many other masochistic humans soldiered on. Save for a couple bathroom breaks and a quick second here or there to really drink a cup of water — i.e. not splash most of it on my face while trying to run and drink — I am proud to say I never walked for reasons of fatigue. I wasn’t going fast, but I was going.

At 18th and Halsted was the 20-mile mark. The 10-mile mark is a mental milestone of another order, but 20 was something else. The reason, other than the relative proximity of the finish line, was that my longest run before the race had been, you guessed it: 20 miles.

So, from that point forward, at the intersection of 18th and Halsted, it was a new experience wrapped within a grander new experience.

East on Cermak takes one to the 21-mile mark. The end is near, yet so far. Running — limp-running, rather — it became clear that the remainder of the journey would only happen with significant mental resolve. My legs were completely sore and my sweat had crystallized into little bits of salt on my arms (I like to think in homage of the soon-to-be-shuttered Morton salt facility on Elston Avenue … it is the Chicago Marathon, after all. Even the sweat must be Chicago in nature.)

Then, 22, near 26th and Wentworth. It takes a lot to admit this, but I will say — it is at this point that I became emotional, as cheesy as it sounds. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the fatigue, maybe it was the relative loneliness of this part of the journey (the herd-like crowds of runners at the beginning of the run had thinned out, leaving ample space around me in all 360 degrees) … whatever it was, I teared up for a moment that felt like several minutes. Maybe it was just a moment.

In a period of time when you’re tracking things by hours and miles, you tend to lose your grasp of smaller increments of time — like pennies, you no longer have a use for minutes and seconds.

So, yes, I teared up for a bit. I thought about all of the work I had put into this since April. I thought about how I felt when I received the email confirmation that I had gotten into the race back in April, and how far away this thing felt then. I thought about people I was running for in spirit. I thought about all of the volunteers who took the time out of their day to hand out water and Gatorade and bananas, to officials and police officers who supervised the course and the doctors providing medical attention, and the people raking cups, plastered to the street under the footfall of thousands of runners, as if moving leaves into neat curbside piles.

I thought about the spectators handing out snacks. I grabbed a Ziploc bag of what I thought were lemon slices but might have been oranges — I still don’t know, and never will — from a woman in Pilsen. I don’t even like lemons, but those two slices were the best things I had tasted since the pretzels I grabbed around mile 14. People stood by with smiles and sliver trays of pretzels and popcorn. I almost felt bad, running by and grabbing things from strangers. After I thanked them and went on my way, I wished there was something more I could say or do for these people, people who I’d never see again.

Eventually, though, after turning off my phone to save some battery for post-race communications, I stopped tearing up and focused on the final few miles. As someone who almost exclusively runs with the aid of music, this was like listening to the music of my soul — and in that moment, it was a sad, fatigued ballad, languishing forward listlessly.

Just after the 23-mile mark, US Cellular Field was in view. I only had the chance to go to a few White Sox games this year, only seeing one win (against the Yankees on Aug. 1, an 8-2 win, one of the South Siders’ 76 wins this summer). Amid the current Cubs hysteria, I chuckled — there’s always next year for my team at 35th and Shields.

Bronzeville, The Gap, South Commons, The Prairie District. At the 25-mile mark, just north of Cermak and Michigan, a woman held up a sign noting that we had “no f#$@&!& option” but to finish. Well, she was right, of course.

When you have five, 10, 15, 20 miles to go, it seems an impossible task. But with just one, your mind can break the thing down: one to go. Just one.

So I cruised, pumping my arms a little more to make up for the lack of anything left in my legs. I felt like I was going fast, but I most definitely was not.

I rounded a corner past the 26-mile marker sign, just before the intersection of Roosevelt and Columbus. I couldn’t believe it. The end was actually just around the corner.

I turned the next corner, north on Columbus Drive — and there it was.

The finish line.

About 0.2 miles remained in this odyssey, but when the end is literally in sight, it could have been two miles and it wouldn’t have mattered.

I shuffled my feet, one in front of the other and crossed the line: 5 hours and 26 seconds. As I crossed, I raised my arms up above shoulder level for the first time in hours. In that moment of exhilaration, I felt like I could keep going, buoyed by the winds of accomplishment.

Then I stopped.

Walking past the camera folks congregated at the finish line, my legs screamed out and my head thumped.

In a daze, I walked forward in this strange post-finish-line No Man’s Land, a procession of things being handed to you. A finisher’s medal, bottles of water, protein bars, bags of miscellaneous snacks, ice packs, a heat blanket.

A blanket in 75-plus degree weather never felt so good.

Eventually, I took a seat, putting the ice on my legs and responding to messages about my finishing time. The sun beating down and my legs shot, I could only think about the physical, almost unappreciative of the idea of what I had done.

But, in retrospect, I had just finished doing one of the greatest things I’ve ever done.

—

Just a couple of years ago, I was not a runner. In high school, I played three sports yet dreaded conditioning drills, particularly long team runs.

But, one day, while doing my master’s year at Medill, I decided to start. It was May 2013. Becoming a “runner” was not on my mind, then.

I struggled through a 5-mile run on a hot day, running north on the lakefront trail for 2.5 miles, stopping for 15 minutes, then jogging back at a snail’s pace.

I did that for two months, then ran the B1G 10K, my first-ever race. I’d never done anything like that before, and, at the time, it was an accomplishment (and still is).

That December, I ran the Hot Chocolate 10K in New York. The following spring, I ran the Crazylegs Classic (an 8K in Madison, Wis.) then the Solider Field 10 Mile.

Next, the Rock n Roll Half Marathon in Chicago last July. I remember thinking how that was enough, and that I’d never run a marathon — 13.1 is more than enough, I thought.

Summer ended, and so did fall, making way for the interminable Midwestern winter. Eventually, the thought started to creep into my head: what if…

That what-if turned into a plan. If I do this and this and this, I can do it. I ran the Crazylegs Classic again earlier this year. I subscribed to Runner’s World magazine. I talked to people who had done it before.

I took the plunge and registered for the 2015 Chicago Marathon’s lottery entry system. I got the aforementioned notification email, a milestone in and of itself.

The morning of the Michigan spring football game, I ran 16 miles, perhaps far earlier in the “official marathon training schedule” than one should do so. Nonetheless, I did it. I’d never run that far before.

I did that distance another time, then I did 17, then 18. Last month, I did 20.

Saturday, I did the real thing. Today’s Chicago Tribune is proof.

But even if I lose that paper memento, I don’t really need it. My name is inscribed into my medal, too, a metallic reminder of the accomplishment. I can’t show you, but it’s etched in my mind, too.

As I’ve worn my medal during the last 24-plus hours and received congratulations from strangers and friends alike, I’ve thought about what has meant most to me throughout all of this.

For one, I got to see many places and things that I might not have otherwise, including parts of the City of Chicago. I wish the sense of unity and jubilation felt along the marathon route could be the case all the time in this city, but, of course, real life is far more complicated than that. Even so, simply getting out into various corners of the city and seeing people, happy and unified behind a singular thing, was heartwarming. I still remember the faces of people I grabbed cups of water or snacks from along the way. (If you’re out there — thank you.)

Then, of course, I accomplished something that I never thought I could, or, more specifically, never thought I would even think about doing or even wanting to do.

But, here I am, a day later, still sore … and wishing I could do it all again. In the past two years, I’ve found this sometimes painful activity has given me joy, even purpose, and, even more importantly, direction, even when I’m going nowhere in particular.

Of course, it will be a while until I consider doing something like this again. Next year, I hope to find a new marathon to run, maybe in a new place I’ve never been with new people to meet for a moment and then run past on concrete carpet ceaselessly unfurling into the horizon.

Until then, I have my memories, of 29 in 26.2.