Chicago, October 8-11
Beers 🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺
Michelin ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ramen 🍜🍜🍜
Cocktails 🍹🍹🍹🍹🍹
Breweries 🍻🍻🍻🍻
Flights ✈️✈️
Transit 🚇🚌🚕
#WindyCity262x2
Ah, Chicago Marathon, we meet again. But before we did, I actually had to, ya know, get to Chicago and that alone was quite the adventure. Scheduled to depart at 6:45 am, DL556 was delayed to a 7:45 am departure at 5:45 am, only to then be delayed to an 11:30 am departure at 6:15 am. Hilarious. At this point, everyone was scrambling to change their flight to an earlier one and by the time I got onto the app while everyone rushed to the gate agent, the next available flight was for 10:15 am. Fine, whatever, better that than the11:30 but still not great.
With my flight rebooked, I debated going home for a few hours and then coming back - it was 6:30 am now and I wouldn’t need to be back to LGA until 9:30 or so. As I walked back to security, I detoured to the Sky Club to see if I could get any help getting onto an earlier flight but I wasn’t a member so they couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything for me. Again, fine, moving on; next up was to maybe find a Delta rep at a counter but it was too early for it to be manned so I picked up a black phone to wait to speak to an agent.
So now I’m on the phone, listening to some lovely hold music when a Delta rep makes her way to the counter. It was barely 7:00 am and it normally would be unmanned for a little while longer but a similarly delayed customer got her to look into options for rebooking her flight. As she’s being helped, I position myself to be next in line while staying on the phone, cord extended as far as it can go, just in case someone on the phone would beat out the IRL agent. No surprise here, I ended up hanging up the phone so I could speak to the agent at the counter.
The first thing the agent did was to ask me for my boarding pass. As I handed it to her, I made it a point to address her by name which I had to strain to make it out from her badge as it was off to her side. After scanning my boarding pass, she saw that my original flight had been delayed and that I had already rebooked myself for 10:30 am so she asked, maybe wondering, what more she could do for me. I asked if I could be put on standby for the 8:05 am flight, figuring it was worth a shot. She thought so too so she put me on it and now I figured I might as well ask how far down I was on the standby list. She told me there were 18 people ahead of me and I laughed ruefully, knowing there was zero chance I would get off the list.
This was when something awesome happened for me. The agent told me should would “do something nice” for me and changed my 8:05 am standby to a confirmed seat. Daaaaaaamn. I thanked her, told her I loved her, and booked it back to the departure gate as it was now 7:15 am and the flight was going to start boarding in 10 minutes.
End of story, right? Nope. This flight was oversold so while my confirmed seat may have jumped me ahead of standby, I’d still need some luck in the form of a no-show or someone taking an offer to be voluntarily bumped. The latter seemed like a non-starter as this flight was full of fellow Chicago Marathoners who had zero intention of missing this flight. Now I’m standing by the gate agent as they call boarding group after boarding group as they keep upping the offer all the way up to $1000 and still no takers. This entire time I’m schmoozing the guy and he keeps checking the flight for me, finally landing on a likely no-show. He kindly offers me the $1000 if I’m willing to wait for the next flight but I politely decline and then he gives me the seat for the no-show. Thanking him and my lucky stars, I gather my bags, grab the seat confirmation, and get onto the plane.
The Race
The training for Chicago started off rough with back pain and PT for it in June but by mid-July, I was back on track. By the time I finished my third and last 20-mile long run, I felt like this had been the best marathon training season I’d ever had. This was reinforced with a PR by over four minutes at the Bronx 10 Mile, two weeks out from the marathon.
After that PR, I came up with my three goals for the Chicago Marathon. Here were the goals:
PR: Sub-3:50:52
Sub-3:50:00
Sub-3:45:00
With two weeks to go, I felt really good about hitting all three of those goals. Then I saw the forecast for race day the Monday before and it was lows in the mid-60s with highs in the mid-70s. That forecast would only get worse throughout the week, peaking with lows in the low-70s and highs in the low-80s. As tempted as I was to re-adjust the goals, I figured I’d trust the training and bank on having trained in a traditional NYC summer.
I started the race with every intention of following the 3:45 pacers but I actually started a few feet behind them so that meant a quicker than expected first two miles to catch up with them. After that, it was just running a consistent 8:35ish mile, doing as much as I could to stay below the pace through the first half so as to bank some seconds for a decent cushion as it got warmer. When I hit the halfway mark at 1:51:21, I’d built a solid 69 second cushion. That’d come in handy because it definitely got warmer and the sun started to peak out from behind the clouds a little more than it had the first two hours of the race.
Honestly, there was very little drama in this race. Mile after mile, I kept churning out miles close to 8:35 though most were above the mark but that’s what the first half cushion was for. The only potential problem was the ol’ IT band barking after 23 miles but it stopped bothering me less than a mile later. I just kept telling myself “trust in the training, trust in the training” like it was my fucking mantra and shut everything else out. By the time I hit Michigan Avenue for the last few miles, I knew I was in good shape to hit some goals. But just how many goals?
I finished the marathon in 3:44:21. I crushed all three of my goals. This was my second time running Chicago and this was now my second time setting a marathon PR running it. I love this race.
Everything Else
The standout meal on this trip was at Mako, a Michelin-starred Japanese sushi omakase restaurant. This was some of the best sushi I’ve had in some time, certainly since I was last in Japan in 2019.
Another great meal was at Moody Tongue, a two Michelin-starred restaurant/brewery. While the food was spectacular, their beers were aggressively okay - fine to go with a meal but nothing worth bringing home.
The two days in town leading up to the race, I carbo-loaded the best way I know how - with ramen. Of the three bowls I had, my favorite was at High Five Ramen. The bowls I had at Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya and RAMEN-SAN were also excellent.
The List
Restaurants
RAMEN-SAN
Moody Tongue
Kizuki Ramen & Izakaya
High Five Ramen
Mako
Breweries
Moody Tongue Brewing Company
Haymarket Pub & Brewery
Cruz Blanca Brewery
Pilot Project Brewing
Bars
Clark Street Ale House
The Aviary
Beermiscuous
Coffee
Caffe Umbria
Marathon Splits
Half Splits
| Split | Time |
|---|---|
| Half | 1:51:21 |
| Finish | 3:44:21 |
5k Splits
| Split | Time |
|---|---|
| 5K | 25:55 |
| 10K | 26:40 |
| 15K | 26:35 |
| 20K | 26:27 |
| 25K | 26:28 |
| 30K | 26:49 |
| 35K | 26:56 |
| 40K | 26:35 |
Mile Splits
| Split | Time |
|---|---|
| 1M | 8:08.8 |
| 2M | 8:18.7 |
| 3M | 8:31.7 |
| 4M | 8:32.5 |
| 5M | 8:32.3 |
| 6M | 8:35.7 |
| 7M | 8:28.8 |
| 8M | 8:33.0 |
| 9M | 8:41.9 |
| 10M | 8:38.1 |
| 11M | 8:32.2 |
| 12M | 8:30.5 |
| 13M | 8:22.1 |
| 14M | 8:24.7 |
| 15M | 8:35.5 |
| 16M | 8:36.1 |
| 17M | 8:37.0 |
| 18M | 8:40.2 |
| 19M | 8:36.0 |
| 20M | 8:47.8 |
| 21M | 8:37.4 |
| 22M | 8:37.8 |
| 23M | 8:38.1 |
| 24M | 8:47.3 |
| 25M | 8:32.9 |
| 26M | 8:38.6 |