(warning: this is long and self-indulgent. non-runners are welcome to skim).

88 degree heat + humidity = one brutal first marathon course.

we stayed on pace pretty well for the whole first half of the race, and for the 3rd quarter even we were running a pretty respectable pace. after that, it all blew up.

the first half was the way i remembered the marathon from watching it in past years: early morning sun, beautiful fall trees, crowds on the sidewalk, a sea of bobbing runners that goes on endlessly, festive atmosphere.

the second half was more like a news clip of people trying to leave new orleans after katrina. (okay, that’s a little dramatic. but you get the idea). it was hot and bright out, with no shade, and the sun just seemed to blaze down on us relentlessly. just miles of pavement, industrial buildings, no trees. people were dropping like flies. we saw a guy collapse right in front of us, just outside of a water stop. callie screamed over her shoulder for a medic while several other runners stopped and got him up, but it was like his legs had turned to jello and wouldn’t support him as they stagged over to the curb. there were people sitting on the sidewalks, heads hung in defeat, bags of ice pressed to their necks.

at mile 21, race officials along the course started announcing that the race had been canceled. they were out of water, out of ambulances. 300 hundred people had been sent to hospitals.

canceled? we had paused at a water station when the rumor first reached me. i burst into tears. 30 seconds ago, i was miserable, in the trenches, so far from the finish that i couldn’t even see the end. but in the next moment, to have the finish line moved back, not six miles but another six hundred?

i don’t wallow in despair for long, it’s never been my style. a moment later, a new determination boiled up in my core, and it burned my tears of disappointment dry in no time. (besides, i had no breath to spare on crying). they can’t take this away from me. not now. here was the belly-fire i needed to finish the race. it arrived in the most unlikely form (someone giving me permission to quit), but it was exactly what i needed at that moment. (extrapolate into a larger life lesson, anyone? the things we need sometimes arrive in the most unlikely packages).

you want to see determined? try telling a group of marathoners at mile 21 that they should quit. ha.

conflicting rumors and misinformation spread through the crowd of bobbing runners as we pressed forward, unclear when or if we were going to be stopped, loaded onto buses, turned around, or just what would happen. helicopters flew overhead with megaphones telling runners to stop running. police cars drove slowly up the sides of the course announcing the race was over and would everyone please walk for their own safety. we walked, we jogged, we trotted. we tried not to hurl. i was wracked with waves of hollow nausea from miles 20-24, callie bent over with stomach cramps from the heat. our legs ached, feet ached, my fair skin (sunscreen long forgotten) reddened with the passing hours. there were dark (metaphorically that is) moments when it hurt and it was emphatically not fun, not even in that grueling i’m-a-tough-i’m-a-runner sort of way. there were miles that just really sucked.

that final trek up south michigan avenue seemed to take a hundred years, the city skyline beckoning us all home to grant park where we’d begun hours earlier. the first few miles of the race seemed to have taken place on another day, in another life time. we came home changed; something happened out there on the pavement that brought us back to grant park different people. when we came around the corner and into the final stretch, i remembered the passing advice i’d gotten from an ultra runner i met on the trails earlier this year. she had told me, finishing your first marathon is the best feeling in the world. that last mile just soak it all in, the crowds, the accomplishment. you’ll never get to experience that again.

she was right.

so we finished with a time of five hours and fifteen minutes. it never entered into my head that i’d run a five+ hour marathon. because it was my first, and the day was warm, we were aiming for a pace of 4:15, and really, i think (thought) that i’m capable of a four-hour marathon. maybe not yet, but i will get there. i have a four-hour in me. so i wouldn’t say i conquered the marathon so much as it ate me for breakfast, but i’m proud of having finished, even when i was given plenty of opportunity, a perfectly good excuse, to quit.

paradoxically, twenty minutes after completing the most hellish five hours i’ve ever run, callie and i were seated in the grass, in the shade, stretching and nibbling on fig newtons and discussing which marathon we should do next year: chicago? montana? big sur?

it’s not over between us, chicago marathon. you and me have got unfinished business.