Before we start with this thing, Dawn and I would like to thank all of those who donated money to the Tourette Syndrome Association. Due to your generosity, we raised nearly $1200 for this worthy cause. Most of you know that our son, Braden, was diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome when he was five years old. When he found out we were raising money for TSA, he was extremely excited and did quite a bit of the work for creating fliers and letters on his own. Again, we can’t thank all of you enough!
Dawn and I would also like to thank all of those who wished us well for this marathon. We trained pretty hard and had very high expectations going into this race. We knew that running a marathon was physically and mentally challenging, but knew that the satisfaction of completing 26.2 miles would be worth all the effort.
The Good
The day of the race began pretty uneventfully. We had scouted the area the day before one our way to the Expo so we knew how to navigate the “El” and arrived at the start area about an hour before the gun. As you can imagine, with 40,000 or so of your closest friends all trying to get to various places at the same time you are, it was a bit crowded; you definitely wanna hit the toilets early. Both Dawn and I signed up for pace groups that were a bit slower than the pace we trained. Theoretically, this would insure that we ran at an even pace (see The Bad below). Dawn and I wished each other luck around 7:30 AM so we could join our pace groups and get ready for the start.
Shortly after arriving at the corral that my pace group was lining up in, Jo Dee Messina (she also ran) began singing the National Anthem. It was pretty much like being at a major sporting event when the Athem plays (well…it WAS a major sporting event); everybody was pumped and started cheering when it was over. At 8:00 AM sharp, the gun sounded and the 2007 Chicago Marathon had begun. You might think that it’s mayhem when 40,000 people begin running all at once, but not quite. I didn’t cross the Start line for about 13 minutes after the gun; there is actually quite a bit of walking before you actually start running.
When we started running, it was apparent that quite a few people didn’t hit the toilets before they lined up (see above). I saw a dozen or more people - both men and women - dropping trow off the side of the road; it seemed pretty humorous at the time, but Dawn thought it was disgusting; we definitely have a different sense of humor.
The residents of Chicago were excellent! It was obviously extremely hot and many of the residents along the course dug out their garden hoses and were spraying us as we were running by. One resident had a garden hose duct taped to a step ladder and was continuously spraying water across the course. Other residents had water or Gatorade along the route and were handing out what they could. Without these wonderful folks, I can honestly say that I probably wouldn’t have been physically able to finish the race. These folks were amazing!
The Bad
With my pace group targeted to finish the race in 4 hours and 20 minutes, I was expecting to run just under 10 minute miles. Dawn’s pace group was supposed to finish in 4 hours and 45 minutes, or just under 11 minute miles. We were assured that these pace groups would run a rock solid pace for the whole marathon.
The pace for my group lasted roughly until we began running. We ran our first mile in about 9:18 which was way faster than I wanted to run. I figured I’d hang in there for a few miles, just to make sure it wasn’t adrenaline pushing people to run faster than they wanted; it wasn’t. When the third mile was roughly the same as the first, I decided to forego the pace group and just run on my own. Dawn’s pace group ran pretty much the same way mine did and she decided to do the same as me. So much for pace groups.
At the start of the race, the temperature was already over 70 degrees and very humid. All of the people running near us we breathing hot, humid air and that was mixing with the hot, humid air on the street, making it even more hot and humid (did I mention it was hot and humid?).
Going into this race, I had three simple goals. As it got hotter, it became apparent to me around mile 11 that if I continued to work towards goals one and two, I wasn’t going to complete goal number one. So, I decided at mile 16 that I was going to have to walk. I walked from mile 16 to mile 17 and also from mile 19 to mile 20. I was right at mile 22 when I heard something that forced me to stop and ask somebody if I heard correctly; the race had been stopped early. A bunch of us began walking and discussing what we had just heard. The race marshalls were telling us to go to the nearest aid station and get on a bus to be taken to the finish. At that point I decided that it was going to take somebody wrestling me to the ground and carting me away to get me on that bus. I began running in earnest to finish those last four miles; mixing in walking when I couldn’t run any more. I heard that the heat index had reached 113 degrees around that time. I didn’t have access to heat index numbers, but I did run by a bank clock that read 92 degrees and it certainly felt that hot.
The Ugly
As I was running, I began to notice that it was taking much longer to get to a table at the aid stations that actually had water. I remember wondering how much water would be left by the time Dawn got there. As it turns out, I had good reason to worry.
While marthon officials vehemently deny running out of water, when Dawn made it to the second aid station (mile four or so), they were indeed out of water. The tables were folded up and laying on the ground. The only evidence that this had ever been a water station was the thousands of empty cups laying all over the place. At mile six (third aid station), the lack of water lead many people to begin drinking water out of a park fountain - you know, the chlorine-filled decorative fountains. Dawn ran behind the empty tables and began picking empty water jugs and trying to drink whatever water was left in them. At one point, she found water, but there were no cups available to drink out of, so when she finally found a cup, she ran with it for eight miles, just in case.
While the party line is that there was plenty of water, there is definitely very public evidence to the contrary. There are plenty of YouTube videos that provide video evidence, posts by angry runners to newspaper websites, and even celebrities who also ran in the marathon adding to the mix. There were stories of people running into convenience stores along the race route in order to buy their own water (note to self, bring money next time), people were begging bystanders for whatever water they could provide, and Jo Dee Messina said on a radio show the day after a marathon that she attempted to call her fiance collect on a pay phone so he could meet her with water (again, note to self, bring money next time). I can’t help but wonder how quickly they would have run out of water had the 10,000 people who chose not to run, would have run. It might have been a much bigger disaster than it actually was.
Probably the most crushing blow of this whole deal was the fact that thousands of people weren’t allowed to finish. The story is that people who were at the halfway point on the course (about 13.1 miles, if you’re keeping score at home) by noon were given the option to finish the race. That is inaccurate at best and an out and out lie at worst. As near as we can tell, Dawn was at mile 16 by noon and she was redirected back to town. The marthon website reported during the event that the runners who were redirected were routed down a closed road with additional support. Dawn said there were cars still on the street and that there was no water, medical aid, or race officials anywhere on that road. Worse, none of these people were told that they were being redirected to downtown, they were just redirected. It became devistatingly apparent that something wasn’t right because she new they weren’t supposed to be back in the city proper until the finish. To prove the inaccuracy of the marathon’s website, all you have to do is look at Dawn’s 25K split time of 3:20:33. Assuming the race started at 8:00 AM sharp (and it did) and with worst case scenario of her crossing the start line 30 minutes after the gun (she crossed it in about 20), that still puts her well past the halfway point BEFORE noon. Any joy I felt by crossing the finish line was taken away when I found out what happened to her; complete and total devistation is what I felt.
The Wrapup
While I was extraordinarily angry that they stopped the race when I was at mile 22, I realized shortly after crossing the finish that it was absolutely the right thing to do. It was hot - period. While I was very aware of my physical well being, not all of the people there were. The fact that over 300 people ended up in the emergency room is proof positive. By the way, in case you hadn’t heard, the guy who died - Chad Scheiber - had a preexisting heart conditon and was running with his doctor’s permission.
In any case, after taking the longest train ride ever back to the hotel, we sat down and began to discuss the events of the day. The only thing the marathon race officials did right that day, and the week leading up to that day, was stop the race. The weather was forecast to be the hottest day in Chicago’s history on that day. They had plenty of opportunities to make critical changes that would have changed the outcome of the race, but chose not to.
First and foremost, they absolutely could have made more water and Gatorade available on the course. Even with just a week, that would have been more than enough time to purchase and stage more. In that same vein, there are people blaming the runners for drinking or using “more than their fair share.” Exactly how much is my fair share? That isn’t a runner’s responsibility to determine that. You MUST assume that on a very hot day, runners are going to consume way more than they normally would. It may just be a little too much for someone who is running a marathon to think about whether or not he/she is going to drink too much water. However, the Expo would have been a good place to tell runners it was going to be hot and to be cautious about wasting water on the course.
There were complaints that runners were taking six or seven cups of water and dumping it on their heads. I never actually witnessed anybody taking six or seven cups for the express purpose of dumping it on them instead of drinking, but I suppose it could have happend. However, I know I did see aid station volunteers dumping full jugs of water over runners as they went by. This is something race officcials could have taken care of early as well. The aid station volunteers are just that - volunteers. They were doing what they thought was best at the time. In hindsight (seems like it’s always 20/20, huh?), it definitely wasn’t the right thing to do. Race officials could have instructed the volunteers to take it easy on the water and to discourage runners from wasting it.
The race inexplicably started at 8:00 AM. It could have easily started earlier at 6:30 or 7:00. Every single runner who is going to run in the marathon is required to pick up race packets the day before at the Health and Fitness Expo. The people handing out the packets could have been informing everybody that the race was starting earlier. Information to that effect could have been stuffed inside race packets telling runners the who, what, when, why, and how. Signs could have been posted everywhere, in all different languages, telling runners the race was starting early due to heat.
As for the infrastructure, it might be difficult for the city to shut down the streets at an earlier time, but the Chicago Marathon is a big deal to the city. Over 40,000 runners and their families come to Chicago for several days to spend money. A week’s notice would have been sufficient time to get the word out to news outlets that the marathon was starting early due to heat. It would have inconvenienced some folks, but the marathon does that anyway.
In the end, race officials are only human. As much as we like to hold our officials - of any position or stature - to a higher standard, at the end of the day, they are still human. Humans make mistakes. I think most runners who feel cheated would be happy with an apology for the way things went down and they would all move on. It’s an apology that will never come. American society is very litigious and admitting that mistakes were made would invite people to sue the organizers. I really wish they would throw a bone our way and offer a discount or something along those lines to those who didn’t finish; something to entice them back next year. It’s unfortunate because I would love to go back next year and try to improve my time and Dawn would love to beat the marathon that she was cheated out of. I just don’t think it will happen though.
In the meantime, marathon registration for Indianapolis Marathon and the Indy Classic Marthon is up significantly. People who ran the Chicago Marathon and were not allowed to finish, basically turned right around and registered for one of these two marathons. Dawn and I were two of the many. We are running in the Indianapolis Marathon this Saturday and our only goal is for her to finish what she started working for many months ago. My plan is to run with her the whole marathon. We are looking forward to this one and, while being a bit nervous with all the what ifs, we are most excited about the weather forecast.