The Chicago Marathon: 13 October 2002Early one October Sunday, while the sensible half of the world is still comatose, a great serpent is winding its way round a frozen Chicago. The 25th Marathon is happening. I'm somewhere in the hindquarters of this snake. Unknown to me, it's been steadily shortening for the last forty minutes, since Khalid Khannoucchi crossed the finishing line. Now it's almost 10:30, and we've just meandered across some Interstate towards Mile 16. Against the cold air, my sweat feels hot. I've been running for almost three hours now without a break. Mile 16. It's a big number, and it's where it all starts to go wrong. The plan had worked well. Yes, my legs were weakening, but even that was part of the strategy. Well, that's what I told Rachel. We had stuck together pretty much since the off. We were both in the 4 hours 50 minutes pacing group. She'd looked so frightened at the start that I'd passed a few encouraging comments, and before I knew it I was her kindly uncle, there to guide her through her first marathon. And so, I chuckled, in the space of less than a year, I'd gone from being a chronic sufferer of Middle-Aged Inertia Syndrome to being a marathon mentor. Blimey. "What's so funny?" "Ah, nothing really", I said. "It's a long story" But she heard it anyway. Just as I listened to her own. Every mile that came and went she told me more than I needed to know about her physiology, her life on the South Side of Chicago, her hopes for the future. The first 10 miles had zipped by, before we started to tire. For the next four or five we plunged on at around the same 11:05 pace -- just right to get round in our target time. It's around this point that you start to enter the auto-pilot zone. Your eyes fix on arbitrary objects - a face at a window, a child's balloon, an advertising slogan - and they become your entire universe for a while. I run in tribute to my God and my Husband are the words on the T-shirt of the plump Hispanic lady in front of me. I was dredging my way through the connotations of these words when Mile 16 happened. Most runners, particularly at our end of the field, stop at each water station. It's one of the principal mantras in the novice marathoner's religion. But we were feeling heretical today, and ran through this one. As we did so, I saw two or three runners stretching their legs against the wall of a boarded-up bakery. Hmm. Why not? I told Rachel I'd catch her up, and stopped to devote a minute's maintenance to my calf muscles, which were getting sore. Perhaps the pit-stop was too hasty, but as I turned to rejoin the field, it just happened. A sharp internal pain in my left knee, as though a needle had been deftly pushed through it. Whaa-aat?. For a moment or two I was disorientated. What was happening here? The knee was now throbbing, and I'd no choice but to sit on the kerb and wait for the pain to go. But the pain didn't go. A minute or two later I was still squatting there, confronting the trembling possibility... even the probability that the Chicago marathon was over for me. It was shocking. It was not believable. Since the middle of last year, when I first started to face the possibility of running a marathon, after a quarter of a century of sloth, I'd set my sights on Chicago. Eighteen months of research and planning and preparation, and here it was all starting to unravel in the dust alongside Interstate 90. Tears were looming. Stunned. More than stunned. I was bloody distraught. Picture this. Come with me. It's two days after the race. Tuesday morning. I wake at 5:30. Perhaps I'm disturbed by the light rain at the hotel window, or the noise of the early traffic on Michigan Avenue, fourteen floors beneath us. Or perhaps there are other things on my mind. I dress carelessly and quickly. In the bathroom I write a quick note for M. Outside it's still dark. The stiff breeze flying in off Lake Michigan funnels through the tall buildings along the Magnificent Mile, just as it did on marathon morning. The air is still and frozen for the few pedestrians around at six o'clock in the morning. And who are we? Who is out at this time? - We are the Streetwise sellers, who have had no bed tonight. - We are the window cleaner deftly dragging his squeegee round the Starbuck's window, softly singing As Time Goes By. - We are the silent black men in our caps and boots and greasy jackets, waiting forlornly at the corner of Washington to be collected and carried off to our labour in the suburbs. - We are a pensive street entertainer, facing the dark glass window of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Concert Hall, thinking what? - as she watches me watching her watching herself, casually juggling a pocketful of apples. I pull my coat tighter and walk on. I walk on over the dark Chicago River, stopping briefly to read the inscription to two French guys called Marquette and Jolliet : "The first white men to travel up the Chicago River, in 1673". I lean over the parapet and try to imagine how this might have looked back then. Three hundred years later the sky is filled with monstrously beautiful, illuminated blocks of concrete and glass. The Prudential Plaza buildings, Sears Tower, the John Hopkins Building, Chrysler... Their scale is the scale of mankind's endeavour and resourcefulness and brilliance, and the scale of its stupidity, and the scale of its desire for self-extinction. Look. Just look at them up there. And as we look up at these glowing, mesmerising monuments in the pitch black of a brittle Chicago morning, my breath is taken away. Isn't yours? I turn away from the river, and from this fabulous, modern cityscape, and walk towards one of the oldest buildings in the street: the Chicago Tribune. Here is our destination. I push open the old oak and glass swing doors and start to march purposefully towards the reception desk. This marathon thing is a profoundly emotional journey; more of an ascent, or a series of ascents and plunges perhaps, than the linearity of the race itself might suggest. What sort of a journey is it? Listen, and I'll tell you. Back to the race. Mile 16. There was a hand on my shoulder. "Are you going to finish the race?" It was a smiling young guy wearing a yellow marshal's jacket. "I mean, are you giving up?" "Am I giving up?" It was probably only three hours, but 6:30 a.m. seemed like a very long time ago now. That was the time I'd left the hotel up in East Huron Street, to walk the mile and a half to the start of the race, along with the rest of the army. Stepping outside was like stepping into a wind tunnel. It was just above freezing point - 34 degrees Fahrenheit. Not intolerable you might think, but remember that this brigade was not kitted out in overcoats and boots. Most of us had bare legs and trainers. Some brave or foolish people were in T-shirts, though most of us had some sort of upper body covering. I wore the Tylek jacket that I'd bought at the Expo for five dollars. A good purchase. Tylek is a very thin and light, paper-like material. Flimsy but surprisingly wind-proof. On my hands I had... a pair of socks, though these didn't last more than a hundred yards before they ended up in a bin. The freezing wind stung my legs, but it was never painful. Yes it was cold, but the excitement of the race ahead took the edge off it. That excitement noticeably increased just past Grand Avenue. Along with a horde of others, I was making my way briskly down Michigan Avenue, Chicago's main tourist artery. But then as we got towards Grand, there came a low, thunder-like rumbling. It was the sound of drums. Three guys dressed in African robes were beating on large tom-toms on the street corner. What had at first seemed menacing, was now promising. Intentional or not, the drumbeat was there to rouse the world; to announce the event; to summon the participants. Was I alone in feeling this? I doubt it. As we approached the drummers, a kind of rhythm developed in the way we walked. Did I call us an army? That's how we felt. Marching unto war. Into battle. That's how it feels at times. Columbus Drive was closed to traffic, and beginning to fill with thousands of runners and their supporters. I walked slowly past the elite runners' enclosure, hoping for a glimpse of Paula Radcliffe, but was out of luck. I suspect they were all keeping warm in some nearby sponsor's caravan, enjoying a few bacon sandwiches and tots of warming Cognac. Something like that. Would Paula win? What a great year she'd had, including just pipping me by 3 and a half hours in London. I was flattered to discover she'd opted for a rematch in Chicago. After some jostling, I got to the 4:50 pacing group and met Tom and Gretchen, the leaders. Someone turned up a few minutes later and handed out deely-boppers disguised as bees' antennae: jolly black and yellow things. Of course it was way beneath my dignity to consider wearing these things. "Hi Andy, wanna be a bee?" "Er, right, yes… of course. Erm, thanks..." And so it came to pass that I ran most of the Chicago Marathon looking like a fat bloke trying to look like a bee. 7:30 a.m. approached, and the excitement rose further. Someone sang a ditty called The Star Spangled Banner, or similar. It will never catch on. Then the hooter sounded, and amid a great roar of excitement and expectation... nothing happened. We were so far back that it took about 12 minutes to start moving. The banter, conversely, didn't stop. "Hey, this marathon thing is easier than I thought it would be" was the general nature of the comments. Oh how we giggled. And then we started to move. Slowly at first, edging forward, then walking, then shuffle-jogging till we were nearly at the start line. In the background, the speakers were pumping out Sweet Home Chicago. Corny perhaps, but more resonant now than it ever had been. How could they follow that? As we approached the start line, amid much wailing and venting of excitement and anxiety, amid much high-fiving and back-slapping and leaping to touch the bottom of the START banner... there came probably the only song that could follow it: Bruce Springsteen and Born To Run. That guitar riff did something strange to the hairs on the back of my neck. I was swallowing hard, and on a tear-filled day, I could feel the first ones approaching. One of the surreal moments of a marathon is the jettisoning of gear as the race starts. Many people wear an old sweatshirt or leggings to keep themselves warm beforehand. As the race starts, this extraneous stuff gets peeled off and thrown high in the air, towards the pavements, waiting to be collected and donated to charity. From the back of the field it's a wacky sight. The noise and the thrill was immense. Yarrrrghhhhh! We're on the way! Yarrrrghhhhh!. The Chicago race is not a marathon, it's a whoopathon. The runners and the spectators whoop like banshees as the race starts. And then they whoop some more. We whoop as though it might save our lives. Even I do some whooping at the start. Whooping for England. We seem to be hollering and wailing and clapping and dancing for at least half an hour. Just look at all of this. Just look at it all. Someday girl I don't know when… … we'll walk in the sun But until then, tramps like us, Baby we were bor-orn to run! And as that guitar peals out again, like some great inspirational bell, urging the troops forward, it's through the start line, across the squealing chip mat that sets our clocks going, and oh yeah! This is it! And now it's up to us. Was it cold? I'm sure it had been cold when I left the hotel. Very cold. But now I don't feel cold. After just a few hundred yards I'm glowing. Around me, the whooping is still going on. As we enter an underpass, beneath (I think) Monroe, the many hundreds of whoopers hanging from the bridge above us wave their flags and arms and... and they whoop. The runners too are still shouting encouragement to each other, and in this great echo chamber the noise is amplified to panic levels. What could we do with this energy? Where could we go with it? What could we NOT do with it? For a minute or two, the possibilities of the human spirit seem outrageous and alarming. The marathon is indeed a race: it's the human race. I miss the first mile marker, but catch the second. 23 minutes for the first two miles. Our target is about 11:07 per mile. The crush has delayed us a little but we'll make that up. I can hear Rachel's voice; I can hear the crowd; I can hear the irregular beating of a thousand trainers on the frozen road. But it's all in the background now. I'm in awe. In shock. I've retreated slightly. I feel like I'm standing just inside the mouth of a cave, looking out at some astonishing event. "Awesome" is a word never far from the lips of the average American, and it's a word heard many, many times today. I would normally steer clear of it, but for those first few crazy miles of the Chicago Marathon, it was the right word for the job. The first three miles of the race have us twisting and turning round the city centre. Columbus, Grand, State, then a long stretch up La Salle Street. It's a blur of smart shops and flags and bunting and white noise. From that blur I remember random snatches of sensory data: Osama's Hair Design, One Hour Photo, a half-torn Elvis Costello poster, a pink Ford Focus parked on a side street, a portable toilet provided by a company called "Drop One Here". Two guys who seemed to be in front of me for half the race. The large one had a T-shirt proclaiming: I'm Fat Boy. The second, sleeker one with the runner's legs had a T-shirt saying: I'm With Fat Boy. A marathon is filled with small, heart-warming slogans like this. Paul. 50 Years Old Today was running alongside three others of a similar vintage whose shirts read Celebrating Paul's 50th. The miles peel off. Around 4 or 5 we enter Lincoln Park. The pace has settled down to a steady 11:05. I am feeling strong and healthy, and I've found my marathon groove. The sun is out, the park is beautiful. Was there a happier moment in the race than this? I doubt it. Just in front of me I spot a runner in an England football shirt. (That's the English football.) I discover that he's from Plymouth. (That's the English Plymouth.) As you do, we quickly began a conversation about our respective football clubs. To our mutual amazement, we find that we were both at the QPR-Plymouth match a few weeks ago. We must have been the only two people in that 12,000 crowd in West London who were planning to run the Chicago Marathon. And we ended up meeting in Lincoln Park. After much polite chat about the attributes of each other's team, I pressed on, as I have a date lined up with a beautiful woman. M has promised to be at Mile 7, near a place called Broadway. This was a meeting place recommended to us by no less than Carey Pinkowski, the race organiser, whose talk we'd attended at the Expo yesterday. Broadway is a hotspot for Chicago's alternative culture [it says here]. Passing the mile marker, we are encouraged by a gang of male Tiller Girls in red tutus, white ruffs and stilettos, shrieking and clattering and high-kicking in unison from a long table-top. And just after this, waving her flag and whooping most uncharacteristically for a well-bred English gal, is M. Much hugging and gasping. I'm quickly introduced to Beth, her new pal. I ask her to take a snap of us. Glad I did, as M's video diary of the race fell a little short of expectations. I take the opportunity of dispensing with my Tylek jacket. I had planned to ditch the $5 investment shortly after the start, but I liked it, and wanted to keep it. The world could now see my new, grey singlet in its full glory. I'd broken a key rule. Never, say the marathon sages, never wear anything in the race that you've not worn before. All must be tried and tested before the real deal. To hell with the rules. I wanted to run in a shirt with my name on it, and I didn't have my Hal Higdon singlet with me at the Expo, where the shirt-lettering service was available. So I took my life into my hands and bought a new Coolmax shirt. What a difference it makes, to hear hundreds of strangers shouting your name. Way to go, Andy! Looking great, Andy! You can do it, Andy! Yer gonna make it, Andy! Best of all was the ten year old kid on the traffic island screaming Andy, you are my hero! Clark, Sedgwick and Wells. Sounds like a legal firm, but they're the roads that take me up to the 10 mile point. I remember nothing about them. I'm too busy swapping life stories with Rachel, and feeling grateful that my lack of training hasn't yet made itself felt. She's a teacher who loves her job. An unfamiliar notion in the UK, where teaching is seen as the modern equivalent of fighting in the trenches. The conversation turns to rotten jobs. I tell her about the sherpas I saw in Nepal, carrying rich, obese Indian tourists up the Himalayas on their backs. And the time I went to see a doctor in Bangladesh. His air-conditioning was provided by a young child standing outside in the garden, in the hundred degree sunshine, waving a long, leafy tree branch through the window. It gave the room a refreshing breeze, but made me feel uncomfortable in other ways. There's a long stretch along Adams that takes us up to the halfway point. As for much of the race, Sears Tower dominates. It's like the centre of a maze. Visible from everywhere, but you never quite get to it. This is where we started to tire. Rachel was getting worried. No, I said, this is all going as expected. We completed the first half of the race in about 2 hours 22 minutes. My splits for the first 13 miles were: 11:32 11:32 11:06 11:06 11:06 10:33 10:44 10:44 10:49 10:49 11:02 11:05 10:44 In retrospect, I wondered if the slight quickening of the pace after mile 5 might have contributed to what happened shortly afterwards. It probably did, but I suspect my patchy training had caught up with me at long last. Like some horror film where the baddie is defeated early on, but springs, horribly and shockingly, back to life to haunt you for the rest of the movie. So sudden, so unexpected, so stark. Like a light being switched off. And so I was sitting there, rubbing my knee and wondering what it was that had suddenly happened, when the marshal continued: "If you want to give up, I can arrange some transport for you" I think it was that collection of words: if-you-want-to-give-up. To give up was bad enough, but to want to give up? Well, was I giving up? "My knee's gone", I said. "But I'll give it another go in a minute. Thanks." "Are you sure you're OK?" "I'll be OK, thank you." It sounds corny, but the exchange was like a shot of adrenaline. Come on, get your act together mate. The knee had stopped throbbing but there was still a sharp pain when I tried putting any weight on it. All I could think of was to rub it. So I rubbed it. And rubbed it some more. I got to my feet and tried hobbling forward, but it hurt like mad. I wondered if I might be able to walk to the finish. I took a few more steps and just carried on. Something strange. If I walked, it hurt a lot. If I jogged very slowly it hurt a bit less. If I jogged a little faster, the pain seemed to diminish just a tiny bit further. And so I jogged a bit faster. And I stayed like that for the last ten miles of the Chicago Marathon. Once or twice I stopped hopefully to test the knee, but the pain would come flooding back each time. It would take a minute or so to get going again, but once I'd settled on a steady jogging pace, the discomfort stayed at a just-tolerable level. It was like that Keanu Reeves movie, Speed, where he's on a hijacked bus that has to travel at more than 50 miles per hour to prevent the bomb from detonating. I was alright as along as I kept running, but if I stopped, my knee would explode... Despite the knee and the increasing fatigue, I was encouraged by my mile splits. I knew I had to average around 11:07 to get 4 hours 50. Miles 14 and 15 had been 11:13 and 11:15. Miles 16 and 17 together, surprisingly, were 24:42. Surprising because I had spent at least two or three minutes perched on the kerb, watching my life flash in front of my eyes. Had I run a bit faster during Mile 17 to try making up ground? I don't know. Miles 18 and 19 were both 12:19. Mile 20 was 12:53. I now knew that 4 hours 50 was beyond me, and could only hope for a miracle to get me home in under 5 hours, my original target. The second half of the marathon takes you through some of the lesser-known neighbourhoods. Little Italy, the Greek Quarter, Chinatown. Everywhere, we were greeted with warmth and delight. Which is just as well. You need every crumb of encouragement on offer. A less endearing source of help came from Power Gels, the small sachets of concentrated carbohydrate that you squirt down your throat when you feel yourself winding down into paralysis. I'd decided to take more gels this time than I had in London. Do they work? Probably not, but as long as they make you feel as if they might, then arguably, they have some worth. I had one at miles 4, 8, 12 and 16. As may be deduced from those figures, I was due to have another at Mile 20. But I literally couldn't stomach it. The thought of another mouthful of that stuff gave me no delight. Which was a problem, as miles 19 and 20 were some kind of unspeakable torture. Was this the fabled Wall? Who knows? I suspect the Wall is just heroic shorthand for "feeling bloody tired". And I felt bloody tired. To supplement my listlessness was the bleak, polluted, concrete scenery as this dog-end of the race winds around and about and over Interstate 90. Between 20 and 21 I met M again. I stopped for a minute, but I can't recall now what was spoken. Trying to recollect those last few miles is like watching a grainy movie of my life. I am somehow detached from it all. I am seeing it through the wrong end of a telescope. I was now very tired, and could feel the anatomical machinery moving down the gears. Apart from the knee, my calf muscles and quads were beginning to protest in earnest. Up till now they'd just been grumbling. Now they were crying out for relief. It's around here that you enter a long, dark tunnel. A vacuum. You retreat within yourself again. Not like you did in the first elated mile or two. This is different. It's a drawing in, a closing of the blinds against the light. It's a battening down of the hatches; a withdrawal to conserve energy and, quite literally, to survive. It's your body entering some kind of emergency routine to try to cope with this inexplicable crisis. From Mile 19 onwards I just existed. 21 must have been a bad one. I laboured through that one for 15 minutes and 35 seconds. The slowest mile by a long way. Terrible. What happened, I don't know and never will know. If it hadn't been for a piece of banana-shaped luck, and some wonderful news, I don't know how long the rest of the race might have taken. I was running on empty. I needed energy but couldn't face another gel. Then, as I shuffled through another aid station, I came across a table of volunteers handing out bananas. This had to be better than a gel. Wow! It was like Popeye and his can of spinach. After the dreadful 15:35, I managed 22 and 23 in 13:10 and 13:08. Long live the blessed banana. It's always depressing when you find that you are running at the same speed as someone walking. This happened around Mile 23, when I got talking to a corpulent student called Ralph. He was walking quickly, but he was walking. We talked for a mile or two. "Wonder how Paula got on". "Who?" "Paula Radcliffe." "British? Not a chance." I protested that she'd won the London Marathon, her first, just a few seconds short of the world record. Ralph was dismissive. "You'll find that runners always do well in front of their home crowd. We're a long way from London. The Africans will take her apart." A long way from London. Yes, you patronising, smug bugger, I had noticed. We carried on in silence for a minute or two, and were well into Mile 24 when the effusive announcement came over a public address system. "There's been a new world record this morning!" Ralph said: "That'll be Khalid". "Smashing the world record by an awesome one and half minutes, from England, Paula Radcliffe!" Quietly, he said simply, "Oh". It wasn't even an "Oh!" with an exclamation mark attached. It was just a solitary, hoarse, free-standing, plaintive, and ever-so-slightly quavering "Oh". Thank you Ralph, it was your "Oh" that carried me through that last stretch around 31st Street, through the suddenly civilised, leafy campus of CIT, and back along that long run-in down Lakeshore Drive. Thank you too, Paula Radcliffe. You've mesmerised so many of us all year long, and you're as much to blame for me being in Chicago as anyone. I'm so glad that I was able to shake your hand at the post-race party and tell you face-to-face, "Thank you. We're all so proud of you." Another long-awaited Chicago handshake came when I finally got to meet Hal Higdon, whose marathon training programme I had followed assiduously for both London and Chicago. Hal has been a well-known figure in American running for many years, as both athlete and writer. His collection of books on the practical art of distance running are classics; all aspirant marathoners will profit from reading at least one of them. In fact, we came across Hal no fewer than 6 times during our stay. The first occasion was at the V-Team pre-race party at the Hilton Hotel on the Friday evening before the marathon. The V-Team is the curious name given to the runners who use the Hal Higdon runners' forums, which is aimed mainly at the Chicago event, but is used as a general resource for runners, and particularly marathoners, worldwide. M and I had arrived at O'Hare Airport that same afternoon. The Blue Line on the CTA train system - the "El" - took us into central Chicago where we finally popped up, like prairie dogs, on Washington Street at about 5:30. The first thing we saw as we emerged from the subway system was an earnest young guy wearing a huge cardboard sign saying NO TO WAR WITH IRAQ. Hear hear, though sadly we were to come up against too much of the opposite sentiment in the two weeks that followed. Shortly afterwards, we had our first skirmish with that strange, silent race that rules the streets of Chicago: the cab driver. They take you where you want to go, and quickly, but they speak, hear, see no evil. Eventually we reached our hotel at about 6pm, only to be told that we didn't have a reservation. After resolving this little misunderstanding we were dispatched to our room on the… the 37th floor? This is an alien concept to simple English folk like us. I've done no research, but I can confidently state that there is no hotel in the UK that has a 37th floor. I remember once, when I worked briefly for Federal Express, having to deliver a package to somewhere near the top of Centrepoint, at the end of Oxford Street. Wow, the twentieth floor! From there, I could see half of southern England! Our first couple of hours in the city had been disorientating and frustrating, but what a moment it was, pulling back the curtains in that hotel room, and being thumped in the face by Chicago's magnificent skyline. From up there, we were even a part of it. And Lake Michigan just over there to our right. Hey, this is it. We giggled like schoolkids. Here, at last, the great city of Chicago. We made it. It was only a couple of hours later that we had turned up at the V-Team party at the Hilton. We spent most of our time with the sociable and welcoming Barb Tomasek, a familiar name from the forums, and her partner, Tom. We were beginning to get disorientated. It may have been 9pm in Chicago, but our bodies thought it was three in the morning. Just before we left, Hal appeared. We exchanged brief hellos, and I was able to confirm that we'd be calling into his art show the following weekend. Next day was the pre-race Expo, where I was to collect my number, my chip and my final instructions. It was also here that I began accumulating what was to become the world's largest collection of Power Gels and energy bars in private ownership. Just before we left we bumped into Hal again, who was doing a roaring trade selling his artwork and his signed books. And later that evening he popped up at the pasta party at the Hilton to introduce some of the eminent guests and past winners. The Saturday after the race, we finally let go of this tumultuous city, and headed out in our hired car. I'm not a car buff, and can tell you nothing more than that it was a Ford, and that the steering wheel was on the wrong side. Oh, and it was a sort of whitish colour. I think it had four doors, but I couldn't swear to that. The drive up to the Indiana dunelands, further round the rim of Lake Michigan, should have taken us an hour or two, according to the extremely detailed instructions Hal had kindly emailed me during the week. Perhaps it's her Art teacher background, but my wife decided on an interestingly free interpretation of these directions, and combined with my erratic driving (he said generously), it took us twice that time. Eventually we made it, and it was worth the effort. The dunes are spectacular, and the variety of architecture along the lakeside, fascinating. Hal and his lovely wife Rose, and Rose's sister, made us welcome with a great array of donuts, and what we would call home-made apple juice, but what they called cider. Hal Higdon is also an accomplished artist. Much of his work can be seen here, and most of it is for sale. We bought this painting, which shows Clarence Demar winning his seventh Boston Marathon in 1930:  .
Hal and Rose kindly invited us to join them for dinner that evening but I felt that was imposing too much, so instead we went off to our local hotel - the Duneland Beach Inn, where we dined well, and watched the first game of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Anaheim Angels in the bar. This was the ideal opportunity, finally, to learn the rules of this sport, and with the help of the locals I think we just about cracked it. For the rest of the week we were baseball enthusiasts, me in particular, and wherever we stayed, I had to get my nightly fix. We spent a memorable evening in the bar, discussing the impending World War III with the local crowd, and interestingly, an East German nuclear physicist with an impressive capacity for alcohol. It was encouraging to discover that at least some Americans share our nervousness about the Bush and Blair nightmare ticket. I've always enjoyed my trips to the USA, but parts of this one were depressing. Maybe Europeans are over-cynical, but it seemed to me that too many Americans retain a naïve faith in the integrity and the wisdom of their political leaders. Let's bomb the crap out of a nation that our president can't even find on a map, and all our troubles will be over. My fear is that a trap has been set for them, and they are walking right into it, feeling rather pleased with themselves. We used to complain that the US was insular, and lacked interest in the rest of the world. Not anymore. Now everyone has a view on who they should be massacring first. All things considered, I think the old version was better. Perhaps I'm being harsh. There are still plenty of decent people about who know there's a bigger picture out there. We met a few of them at the bar of the hotel that night. The following morning we were back at Hal's, arriving at 9am to enjoy a brisk walk along the lakeside. Hal was on good form, dispensing a barrage of stories about the provenance of some of these lavish properties and their owners. It really is a beautiful place to live. Quiet, scenic, calming. Back at the house we met up with a gang of marathon survivors, including Rick Neal who had kindly recommended, via the V-Board, that we go to the ice hockey match between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Florida Panthers. Which we did. I was probably more interested in the hockey culture than the game itself, which the Blackhawks won 4-1. The crowd was patchy but enthusiastic, and I was particularly pleased to discover that The Philosopher Behind Me is an international phenomenon, and not restricted to English football. This Florida fan kept us entertained the entire game with his loud commentary on life's manifest cruelty. More donuts, more cider, then it was time to head off up the coast of Lake Michigan for a week of indeterminate meandering. And a great week it was, filled with highlights. The Bladerunner-like drive through the outskirts of Detroit. The meeting with, and guided tour from, Berry Gordy's nephew at the Tamla Motown studio/museum. The meeting with my QPR-supporting internet buddy, Tom Rizman, in Akron, Ohio. The stopover in Amish country in the rural backwaters of Ohio, and the visit to an Amish farm. The discovery that Saginaw was a real place. We had presumed that would be the last time we'd see Hal and Rose, but no. A couple of days before we were due to leave the USA, I called them from a motel in Dover, Ohio, to check that there were no problems regarding the despatch of the painting we'd bought. Unfortunately there were. The original price we'd been quoted by the local mailing company had been a serious underestimate, and we agreed that it would be best for us to take it back with us on the plane, as long as they could find a strong tube. And so we headed back, and spent another very pleasant couple of hours discussing movies and books and travel and running, before it was time to get going back to O'Hare. Hal Higdon has been an inspiration to many thousands of people, myself included. Without his help I'm sure I would never have managed those two marathons in my first 12 months of running. I'm delighted I had the chance to shake his hand and to say "Thanks Hal". But I'm sure he would rather be known for what, at heart, he really is: a decent man with a great story to tell. I hope we'll bump into the Higdons again. Great people. The last three, post-banana-euphoria miles were painfully slow again. 14:58, 14:07 and 15:21. But by now, of course, I knew I was going to get home, despite the knee, despite the problems with my training. As at London, I had tears running down my face as I made it through those last two hundred yards. I ran the Chicago Marathon in 5 hours 16 minutes. This was longer than I had hoped, but it still represented an improvement of 40 minutes on my London time. But I took particularly delight in the knowledge that, apart from my knee-stop at Mile 16, and two brief stops to greet my wife, I ran the entire marathon, unlike London, where I walked much of the last 10 miles. The Chicago Marathon was the great emotional thrill that London was supposed to be, but wasn't. Bluntly, London is, in many ways, a better event than Chicago. The London crowds are bigger, and there is more of a party atmosphere, with what seems like a majority of the runners raising money for charity, and/or dressed suitably outlandishly. There wasn't so much of that here. The runners were just as amiable, but they were more earnest about their objectives. The whooping spectators were hugely enthusiastic, but there wasn't so many of them, and the lack of live bands in this, the electric blues capital of the world, was a disappointment. The time of day has something to do with this. London starts at 09:45, and by the time that most of the fun-runners and fatties have struggled to the halfway mark, the pubs and their knees-ups are in full swing. Chicago kicks off at 07:30. It's too early for many spectators, unless they have friends or family taking part. But both events have some kind of greatness about them, and for me personally, Chicago was the greater of these two wonderful occasions. Some newspaper commentators are dismissive, particularly in the UK, where marathoners are portrayed either as harmless eccentrics, or desperate middle-aged people trying one last time to be interesting. The Chicago press was altogether more generous and respectful. They are rightly proud of their marathon. And do you remember where we are? Two frosty mornings after the marathon? The lobby of the Chicago Tribune is a wonder to behold, its marble walls etched with the sagacity of Samuel Johnson, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Aristotle, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others. There is something almost fearsome about it. Yes, it is awe-inspiring, and quite possibly even awesome. The security guard must be accustomed to this reaction. He gives me a minute to gaze upwards and around me. Eventually, from behind the polished oak desk, he welcomes me with a smile. Would his British counterpart be so disarming? I suspect not. "Hi, I ran the marathon a couple of days ago, and am I'm looking for a copy of yesterday's newspaper…." "Hey, put it there!" He shook my hand vigorously. "Y'know, my son done it one time, and every year I said I'd do it. But I never did. And now I never will." Back on the street. Six thirty in the morning. Michigan Avenue is still cold and black, but at least the coffee bars are beginning to open. I walk past a constellation of Starbucks and Subways, and stop eventually at a Corner Bakery, where I order scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, and a pint of coffee. I sit down, and start to write something that I have been thinking since the moment I opened my eyes, more than an hour ago. It's this. That the marathon is a truly democratic activity. It doesn't matter how wealthy you are. Or how famous. Or how beautiful. You still have to get through your months of preparation if you want to do more than saunter round in seven hours. And there isn't a whole lot you can do about that. Your four or five runs a week. The long Sunday run that will trash your weekend. The tedious three or four midweekers. Up with the birds, slapping the streets in the dark and the cold. Or late in the evening, after work, when your mates are in the pub, or at home watching the match. You can't buy this training. You can't be excused it. You can't ask someone to do it for you, or to give it to you. You can't take short cuts. You can't do it for a couple of weeks, then take a month off, then do another week or two. No one who wants to run a marathon can escape it. It's like the shadow of some great bird of prey, forever hovering over you. But what few understand is that every frozen minute of training, every shred of pain, every missed indulgence, every ounce of frustration and tedium and dread that fills those long pre-race months... are all worth it. When you pile up all those great rocks of pain and sulkiness and boredom and sacrifice on one side of the scales, and your solitary finisher's medal on the other, you find to your astonishment and delight, a perfect equilibrium. Many people believe it's an event of twenty six miles, between two points on a map. The truth is different. It's a much longer and more complex journey than that. Imagine this. Imagine that you leave home with two suitcases. One is empty and one is full. By the time you return, the full one is now empty, and the empty one is now full. The marathon is that sort of journey. After Chicago> |