Des Plaines River Trail Marathon - Saturday 10/15
The weather was overcast, windy, and in the upper 50’s at the start. Because of the need to take a shuttle bus from remote parking, there was much sitting around in the wind before the race started. I kept my jacket and pants on until shortly before we started. Even doing that, my teeth were chattering for the first ¼ mile. Then I warmed up and the long sleeve shirt and arm warmers ended up tied around my waist.

The course was on a crushed limestone trail with not much in the way of incline changes. The trail went through the woods so there were only a few spots where you could feel the brisk wind. Temps got into the mid 60’s by the end of the race. The humidity was high so my glasses kept fogging up a bit.

The first 9 miles were uneventful. I was holding a comfortable pace and doing a 9 minute run/1 minute walk cycle. I was on target to come in under 6 hours. After 2 hours, my right IT band and right side of my sacrum really tightened up to the point that it became painful to run as well as walk. As I had gone into this marathon with nothing more than a ½ marathon 2 weeks prior, I had figured there would be a lot of discomfort the second half.

Having issues before mile 10 was frustrating as I had a couple of good runs last weekend without any issues.
I started walking more and running a lot less in hopes of getting things to loosen up. I took some salt capsules thinking that perhaps this was some weird cramp (typically it is my adductor or calf that cramps). Nothing was working and by mile 13, my goal of getting in under 6 hours had slipped away. My mood was dark but I kept going as I was determined to finish.

The turnaround was between mile 14 and 15 (we had gone south for a 3 mile loop prior to going north on the trail for the remainder of the race). There was an aid station at the turnaround so I stopped and had some flat Coca-Cola. Shortly after this point, I was finally able to start running a bit more as the tightness finally released. By mile 16 I was back into a 3 minute walk/2 minute run cycle.

I got to mile 20 before the 5 hour mark and realized that I just needed to run a bit more and walk a bit less and I would be able to finish in under 6:30. I started gradually lengthening the running bits and shortening the walking time. Around mile 22, another woman caught up with me. Turns out she had a sweatband of mine that I had dropped at the previous aid station! We had played leapfrog several times during the race. She was hurting, too, as a foot injury had kept her from running much in the weeks leading up to the race. I told her I was doing run/walk and she said she would like to stay with me. I told her that my goal was to come in under 6:30. She said that would be great as she was happy to just get in under 7:00.

The miles passed more quickly as we chatted about all things running. We picked up another woman around mile 24 who admitted that she should have trained better for a marathon. Her running had consisted of 5 mile sessions on the treadmill with no outside running. Oops.

By mile 25 I was doing a 3 minute run/2 minute walk cycle. The horses smelled the barn and I was eager to be done. My new friends dropped back a bit when I went running up the last bridge before the finish. Finally I saw the finish area and I just kept running. I finished in 6:26:36. My friends both finished just a bit later. Looking at the results, the first woman I had picked up did get in under 6:30, but the other woman I think was after that because she had started in an earlier wave. The first wave went off at 8:00, I was in the wave that started at 8:09. No matter their start time, I had helped push them to a better finishing time than they would have had on their own.

The pre-race instructions said that the shuttle buses were only running until 2:30pm. It was 2:37pm when I was walking over to pick up my gear. I saw a volunteer and asked if there were any more buses otherwise I would have to walk another mile back to my car. She informed me that there was still one bus running until 3:30pm. Thank goodness! I told the driver that he was a sight for sore eyes and sore legs!

So even though this race didn’t go quite as planned, I still finished strong as my pace really picked up the last 2 miles. In addition, I looked back at my prior marathon finishing times since I turned 50, and this is my second fastest of the 5 I have done.

I felt pretty good yesterday with just some mild muscle soreness. Stairs aren’t an issue, thankfully. I think the time I spent in the pool and hot tub after the race really helped a lot.

Nicely done, @gadgetgirlIL!! You don't expect that sort of humidity in October - sounds like the same thing I found here yesterday afternoon. You're report made it seem like fun, which I'm sure it was. Congrats!

@shenry111 give yourself some time to heal. You won't lose all your running fitness that quickly. And it will come back when you can run painfree again. BTDT

It was 70 degrees this morning in Chicago at 6am. So I went outside for a slow run/walk. Good excuse to try out my new waist-mounted light. I got 4.5 miles in. So peaceful as it was just me, the moon, and the bunnies on the trails today.

A sluggish 3 mile walk/run this morning. Cooler than Tuesday but still nice to be outside. The trees are really getting colorful!