Chicago Marathon
October 7 thru October 11
I've never had an inkling to visit Chicago. In all honesty, I've never understood why Chicago was so significant in America?
But with my desire to enter big time world marathons, I decided to put my name into the Chicago Marathon lottery last December. Luck was on my side again as I was chosen to participate in the run.
I saved up as much money as I could. One thing about these major marathons is that it is very expensive; the hotel and flight alone would cost me $1,700. The registration and add-ons were $340. This is all before I even set foot in Chicago. Of an important note, once the people get chosen for the lottery, the hotel rooms get booked and hotel prices get jacked up. Also the airfare gets jacked up too. I can't believe how expensive some of these places were, it goes to show you that when things are in demand the prices go through the roof.
I want to divulge into my training. It went better this year than last year. But I'm still not where I need to be. I continue to drink too much alcohol and I love to drink on the weekends. Of course, the problem is that my long runs are on the weekends. I did manage to get my long runs done even though I was hungover most of the time.
My pace has slowed down. I'm about a 11:30-12:00 mile. Though I can still run fast, I can't sustain that for a long period of time like I used to. I have to really go slow the first mile and can't seem to go faster after I'm warmed up.
The flight to Chicago was quite fast. It was under 3 hours. But getting from the airport to downtown Chicago was harder than I thought. My plan was to take an uber, but that would cost $65. I decided to try the "L" (elevated train). It reminded me of that movie The Fugitive where the FBI was trying to track down Harrison Ford and they figured out from an audio recording that he was in Chicago based on the background noise of the elevated train. The "L" train from the airport was only $5. What a deal right! In addition, I get two transfers on CTA transportation vehicles within 2 hours of my purchase. It only took me around 1.5 hours to get to the hotel. In hindsight, if I took an Uber it would have taken a little over an hour because there was so much traffic. In the end I saved up over $60 which is always a good thing.