I realize there are already a number of threads discussing different aspects of yesterday’s Chicago Marathon. I just thought I’d share some thoughts I had on it while reflecting on the even while I was doing an easy hour late last night. Just so everyone knows where I’m coming from; I’m in my twenties, male, have lived in Chicagoland most of my life, have run competitively since HS, am currently training for a marathon later this fall and want to go under 2:40. I’ve run the Chicago Marathon in the past, and had a number of friends running this year with time goals ranging from sub2:20 to sub4:40 and everything in between. So does that make my opinion worth much? No…not really. I don’t expect you to care, that’s why I called this “my 2 cents.” I’d love to hear your thoughts as well.
It would be understatement to say that having temperatures near 90 degrees for the Chicago Marathon is frustrating. One of the things that makes this event so great is that it is consistently conducive to a good marathon experience for everyone from the Olympic medalists to the charity joggers. Unfortunately, the Chicago Marathon is just like the rest of life; it doesn’t always go as well as you want it to.
I understand that people are frustrated, even angry about the event. You have great reason to be frustrated. You spent a lot of time and energy preparing for this marathon, hoping and expecting it to be a wonderful fall day. You may not have another chance to get your Boston qualifier in this year, or who knows where you'll be four years from now when its time to qualify for the tirals again. It’s also natural, then, to want to find someone to blame. Maybe you think the race should be run later in the month (I'd be okay with that) or that the race should have started earlier. At least one person, according to another thread, wants to SUE the marathon. Yikes. Just because something’s natural doesn’t make it noble, honorable, or even right. You can blame marathon directors for short courses, misrouted courses, poor amenities and a laundry list of many other things, but you can’t blame them for one random weather anomaly. The LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon has routinely done the miraculous by creating a generally positive marathon experience for tens of thousands of people year after year. They did a pretty decent job considering the hand they were dealth this year. Next year it may be freezing over Columbus Day weekend. There’s really no way to tell right now. Average conditions on Columbus Day weekend in Chicago are terrific for a marathon, so you can’t blame them for choosing a bad time of year.
One other thing to realize (and I admit that it’s a lot easier to preach this than to live this) is that disappointment is a part of life. It’s okay to want things to go well, but once we act like we have a God given right to have everything we plan for go exactly as we want it to, we become delusional. One of the main reasons we, as a society, value having sports as part of our schools is that they act as an extra classroom to learn about life. When our kids go out for a sport they learn about the value of a team, they get to be physically active and healthy, and they get to learn what its like to set a goal, work for it and then achieve. Yet they also learn what its like to fail, to come up short or to be rejected. We understand the multifaceted role of sports in the lives of our kids. Let's apply those prinicples to ourselves. Sometimes the girl you really like doesn’t like you back. Sometimes the school you really want to go to doesn’t let you in. Sometimes you don’t get hired for the job that would be perfect for you and sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate for the marathon you trained so hard for.
I feel bad for all of you whose plans got derailed by the heat wave that hit Chicago this past weekend. I hope you recover quickly. For those of you feeling up to another fall marathon, I hope it goes well. And regardless of whether you race again this fall or not, I hope the months and years ahead are filled with happy running, both in spite of and because of the endless ups and downs that this beautiful sport provides.