Recapping My Epic Journey To Completing The 2017 Bank of America Chicago Marathon
Yo. Sup? It’s your loyal White Sox blogger WSD.
Yes, the rumors are true. I completed the 2017 Bank of America Chicago Marathon and did so in stunning fashion.
I took yesterday and today off from the cube life. Figured I’d do a little recap. I told people I’d spend 48 hours being the most prototypical marathon/runner douche possible and flash my medal and 26.2 bumper sticker around before going back to normal. That said, it’s honestly not too big a deal to me. I guess it kinda is because until June or so I had a steady diet of Armand’s pizza, fried food and cheap domestic beer, but I’m not kidding when I say this, anyone who wants to run a marathon can do it. All it took was me waking up at 5am 3-4x a week to run 5-6 miles, staying in on Friday nights and running 13, 15, 20 miles on Saturdays for like 6 months and possessing the mental toughness of a Seal Team VI soldier. NO BIG DEAL. Real talk though – look at this route and tell me that’s not pretty intimidating, you can’t:
I got asked why I ran it by like 100 people over the last day or two. Honestly, I was drunk at a bar last November with two friends who ran it last year and figured “fuck it, I’ll give it a shot”. I registered through Team Ronald McDonald House and knew if I tweeted about it non-stop from then until the race I’d have to follow through with it. Big shout out to everyone tweeting me on Sunday calling me a fatass and making sure I finished.
The race itself was awesome. Well, the first half of it was. Running through the Loop, Lincoln Park, Old Town, and Boys Town was awesome. I read somewhere 1.2 million spectators lined the streets. People getting all sorts of shitwasted rooting on 70,000 strangers to finish that bitch. There was even a cop who I’m assuming is a Stoolie who yelled my name and said “RunDaveRun” right at the 13.1 mile marker. Really cool. I didn’t stop running once until the 15th mile, which was right about at the United Center.
That was the point of the race where there weren’t many spectators as you turned south towards Pilsen, Greek Town and Chinatown and I hit a bit of a wall. Miles 15-22 were the most boring, redundant, abysmal 2 hours of my life. My feet were fucking throbbing, it was WAY too hot to be running that distance, the area of the city we were in sucked and I just wanted to get the goddamn thing over with at that point.
And then I saw it. A little beacon of light off in the distance:
The most beautiful stadium south of Roosevelt Road in Chicago, Comiskey Park sponsored by Guaranteed Rate Stadium at the Cell. As soon as I saw it I got a little extra pep in my step and cruised to the finish. Final time was 5:25:32. About what I expected. If it weren’t 80 fucking degrees out I think I would have been closer to 5 hours, but oh well. It was good for about 32,000 place out of about 70,000 runners.
There are two bad things about having finished the race:
1. it feels like someone took a billy club to my quads and hips
2. Now that it’s over I’m asking myself “what now?” It was kinda awesome challenging myself like that for the first time in my entire life, so I guess I gotta find some other stimulus over the next year. No idea what that is yet.
I say this with 100% sincerity to anyone taking their time to read about a part time White Sox blogger running a marathon, do yourself a favor and find something that will challenge you over the course of a year or more. It is different for everyone and for whatever reason I chose the marathon, but there is no feeling more redeeming then having a goal that seems goddamn impossible working your ass off and conquering it. That’s probably the most sappy thing ever written on Barstool, but it’s the goddamn truth.
So to the haters and the losers in the comment section calling me guntsoxdave over the last 5 years, #ByeHaterz
PS – Shout out to my “coach” Jill Slucki for texting me every goddamn Saturday to make sure I was actually running and not drinking my ass off, couldn’t have done it without you