Last sunday my Dad and I ran the Chicago Marathon.  It was my first marathon and my dad’s second – he ran Chicago last year when it was brutally hot. I survived but it wasn’t a good race. It was almost as hot as last year. By the time I finished it was ~85 degrees. I ran the first half ok but I think messed up my fluid intake and my stomach got upset. I think I got a little too excited about the lemon-lime gatorade they were handing out at the aid stations. I don’t like it to begin with and it made my stomach more upset. I shouldn’t have drank drank it. I intentionally slowed down a little for the 2nd half, but I crashed around mile 22 and puked all over the place. I was hoping I could hang with the 3:45 or 3:50 pace group, but I lost about 30 minutes walking/shuffling/puking the last few miles. I managed to run the last 1.5 miles and then puked again at the finish line.  This graph shows basically what happened.  You can also see how ridiculously fast the winner, Evans Cheruiyot, was running:

As you can see from the graph, my dad ran a good race but missed his qualifying time by 1 minute, 11 seconds. If the water stations hadn’t been so congested with walking runners due to the heat, he probably would have made it.

Thankfully no injuries besides expected leg soreness.