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October 24, 2006
Chicago Marathon and Short Sabbatical....
Thank you to everyone who sent me emails, left voice messages, saying that you were praying for me over the weekend as I ran my first ever marathon. All in all I think it went pretty well. I accomplished one of my goals (finishing the race) and missed the other one (wanting to finish in under four hours). I ended up running the 26.2 miles in 4:13:07. And in the end, I'm pretty happy with that.
I was not prepared for the tactical nature of the race at all. With an estimated 40,000 runners (though I think there were only 34,000 this year) it was pretty difficult to maneuver. Since I was a rookie I found myself in the very back of the pack before the race started. It took approximately 16 minutes for me to cross the starting line once the race started (each runner's timing chip starts once they cross the line), meaning the winner had over three miles under way by then. I spent the first mile moving pretty slowly since I was told most runners start off too fast. I was eventually able to get some good pacing under way, when finally after about 10 miles I had to pull over to use the restroom when I could bear it no more. Some of my friends who were tracking me online were wondering what had happened since I lost over 3 minutes on that pit-stop.
Eventually I got into a good rhythm and I really, really enjoyed the race even though the temperature was in the 30's. I was pretty happy with my pacing as the race progressed and some of the negative splits I ran towards the end. With about 5 miles to go I realized I would not break four hours unless I ran 6 minute splits all the way out. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to do that I think I was finally able to really enjoy the end of the race and all that the city of Chicago and its people had to offer.
Coming back into the city with hundreds of thousands of spectators cheering you on is quite inspiring and the last one to two miles that I ran were a lot of fun, especially since my wife, brother and friends were there to cheer me on. Even though I enjoyed the race the thought, "What am I doing?" crossed my mind and I vowed to never run a marathon again. That crossed my mind at about mile 22 and 23. But as the finish line neared I was excited about running another marathon again in the future.
After a couple of weeks of rest I think I will begin training for the LA Marathon. In the meantime I will also be posting pretty sporadically for about 10 days as I'm preparing for some exciting new things in our ministry, at school and in the blog world.
If you are interested, here are my final race results and my splits below.
Thanks friends for all of your support....
5K: 33:07 (10:39.553 pace)
10K: 29:43 (9:33.892 pace)
15K: 29:26 (9:28.420 pace)
20K: 32:53 (10:35.047 pace)
Half: 2:11:40
25K: 29:17 (9:25.523 pace)
30K: 28:55 (9:18.442 pace)
35K: 27:53 (8:58.486 pace)
40K: 28:49 (9:16.511 pace)
Finish: 4:13:07
Posted by rhett at October 24, 2006 11:07 PM
Comments
Congratulations! That is a huge accomplishment! It almost inspires me to go run one... almost.
Posted by: ChrisG ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.rhettsmith.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 25, 2006 01:01 PM
Great job Rhett! It won't be that cold in LA come marathon sunday.
Posted by: andrew at October 28, 2006 12:33 PM
I'd love to get into good enough shape to run a marathon sometime. How long have you been running?
Posted by: Donny at October 30, 2006 09:00 PM
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