Marathons are not just for runners; They are for believers
By Jeff Armstrong
IV Leader Staff, Nov 9, 2006
This years La Salle Bank Chicago Marathon consisted of
over 35,000 people.
How do I know? Because I was one of them. Towards my senior
year of high school I decided to sign up for the biggest challenge of my life
and would enter myself into the marathon.
Although the marathon wasn’t for months, I needed to start
training for it as soon as possible. The marathon is a total of 26.2 miles and
runs almost all through the city of Chicago. Training can last for as long as 18
weeks before the race.
Training takes up a lot of your time so you need to be
motivated and have an open schedule in order to perfect the training.
The Chicago Marathon has been going on for 29 years, but what
made this one so much different than the others had to be the first place
finish. Robert K. Cheruiyot of Kenya finished the marathon in a time of 2:37:35.
But when Cheruiyot finished, he came up to the finishing mat and put his hands
in the air for victory. His feet flew up from under him, and he fell back and
hit his head off the street. Cheruiyot suffered bleeding on the brain and a
concussion. When Cheruiyot woke up in the hospital later on that day, he didn’t
even know he won the race.
Second place finisher Daniel Njenga finished only five
seconds behind Cheruiyot. Njenga has finished second in the last three Chicago
Marathons.
As for me, I was only at mile 13 (halfway) when Cheruiyot was
done. At mile 13 my time was at 2 hours and 9 minutes.
Only stopping once to go to the bathroom and slowing down a
few times to get a drink, my running buddy helped me out throughout the race.
Maggie Gryglak ran with me from start to finish and, I have
to say, without her I wouldn’t have been able to finish with the time I did.
Maggie helped me along the way from giving me Energy Gels throughout the race
and telling me “we’re almost done!”
My finish time was 4 hours, 15 minutes and 39 seconds. I
finished 15,460 out of over 35,000.
The Chicago Marathon is by far the biggest accomplishment in
my life and makes me so proud to say I finally did it.
Even if you are not a runner, I highly suggest going to
Chicago next year to watch the race.