On Sunday, 45,000 people will run the Chicago Marathon — many of them Northwestern students. Weinberg junior Aaron Gale recounts how he prepared for this year’s race. Be sure to check back next week for more Marathon 2008 coverage.
The 2007 Chicago Marathon was held on October 7th, and I was supposed to be running it. It was going to be my fourth marathon, but my first in Chicago. I’d followed a grueling training regime all summer, getting back in shape after being humbled by my first Midwest winter.
I felt ready. After all, I’d done this three times before. The Chicago Marathon is widely regarded as one of the best races in the world, and I was excited to finally run it.
Barely two weeks before the race, I went out for a routine six mile run. I was waiting at a stoplight about a mile from campus, at the intersection of Green Bay Road and McCormick Boulevard. The light changed and I started running across the street, and the next thing I remember is… well, I don’t quite remember what happened after that. I woke lying on a stretcher, being lifted into an ambulance. I later found out that I’d been hit by a car that didn’t stop for the red light. “Crushed” might be more appropriate word than “hit,” however, as an SUV had slammed into me at 30 miles per hour, throwing me into the street and knocking me unconscious for an entire five minutes.
Amazingly, I didn’t break a single bone, but I did have an intense concussion and a blanket of cuts, scrapes and bruises covering my entire body. Lying in the hospital, I should have been thanking god just to be alive, but there was really only one thing on my mind: Would I still be able to run the marathon?
The doctors informed me that, given the severity of my concussion, 26.2 miles of bouncing around would be a lot for my head to handle. They strongly advised against running the race — but I still wanted to run so badly, no matter how long it took me to finish. For the next two weeks, up until the final days before the marathon, I went back and forth as to whether I would run.
When it came down to it though, I knew that there’d be other races, and that it was just plain stupid to risk serious damage to my head for one race.
Although I know sitting out was the right thing to do, it was also one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made. The psychological pain of seeing months of training go out the window, all because some idiot had a mental lapse while driving, was far worse than any physical pain I’ve ever experienced. I made a promise to myself that I’d be back for the 2008 Chicago Marathon, and that I’d be ready.
After spending half of Fall Quarter just being a regular college student (i.e., not running six days a week), I decided it was time to get serious. I spent the rest of fall, and all of winter and spring running upwards of 40 miles per week, building up my mileage. Winter was the toughest, but whenever I didn’t want to run I just pictured myself lying in the hospital, and thought about how I never wanted to feel like that again. And so I got out there every day, no matter what else I had planned, to the point of running 12 miles the morning before Dance Marathon. And why not? The event would keep me from running on Saturday, so it was even more important that I got my long run in on Friday, or so I told myself. This kept up until the start of summer when, exactly 16 weeks before the marathon, I began my official marathon training plan.
Winter may have been tough, but it was nothing compared to the true test of discipline that was my summer training. Of course, most of what made it so hard was that I was also taking summer biology at Northwestern, which crams in 20 hours of class per week and countless hours of studying. Added to the 50 miles I was already running every week, it didn’t take me long to realize it was going to be a tough summer. I probably only stayed sane because I started taking yoga four days a week, which calmed my mind and muscles after long days of class and running.
The training was difficult, but once I found a routine it was manageable. It’s not as if the summer didn’t have its high points. I ran two half-marathons in August: the Chicago Distance Classic on the 10th, and the Disneyland Half-Marathon on the 31st, where I set a new personal best of 1:27:12. The second would have been worth it even without the fast time, because you only get so many chances to go running in Disneyland when the park is completely empty. Finally, just a week and a half ago I ran a 10K as a final tune-up race, and I placed 2nd overall with a time of 38:23, or 6:11 minutes per mile — a HUGE personal best for me.
To be perfectly honest though, every run is a high point, as it’s the only time during my day when absolutely nothing else matters. As crazy as this sounds, even a 23-mile training run is a high point for me – if I do nothing else that day, at least I ran 23 miles.
Sure, my friends all think I’m crazy, but I kind of like it that way. Every time I have to tell someone “Sorry, I can’t go out because I’m running 20 miles tomorrow,” or “I’m busy that day, I’m running a half marathon,” it reminds me of what I’ve had to go through just to get to the starting line. And now, just days away from the marathon, I know that I’m ready. I’ve been waiting to run this race for over a year and a half — and my excitement is getting to a pretty ridiculous level.
But that’s one of the amazing things about the marathon. On Sunday morning, 45,000 runners will line up in Grant Park, and every one of them has their own reasons for being there, their own compelling story to tell. To be fair, they probably didn’t all involve rides in an ambulance and minor memory loss, but everyone has something that motivates them to run, and running the marathon will be an experience that every one of those 45,000 people will remember for the rest of their lives.