Student Finishes 18,998 In Chicago Marathon
By Lauren Sauter
Sports Associate

Two out of the three people who read my articles (the three being two copy editors and myself) think that I am some kind of schmuck. You think I have no business writing about sports. You think that I sit here in TSL, sipping my Diet Coke, making up sports stats, cracking lame jokes, and constructing illogical metaphors. Well, this is where I prove you wrong. Sort of.

This weekend, in addition to watching several innings of televised Cubs games (I love sports!), I also ran an absurd amount—26.2 miles to be exact. What, sound familiar? That’s right baby, a marathon. This all took place in Chicago, which is the site of the largest marathon in the United States. Last Sunday, October 12, a total of 32,500 people finished the course, which makes a large loop around the downtown Chicago area. The winner of the Chicago marathon takes home the largest prize purse for any marathon in the world—$550,000. This year those riches went to Evans Rutto, who finished in a truly insane time of 2:05:50.

Coming in only 2 hours, 27 minutes and 9 seconds later was me, Lauren. That equals 4:32:59 as my final time. My place was 18998, which puts me in the “less fast” half of the finishing group. But you have to keep in mind that some of those people in front of me were part of the wheelchair race, which, technically, is cheating.

Training for and running a marathon will tell you a lot about who you are. For instance, before the race, during some long training runs, I learned that I am the type of person who thinks about boys and clothes with disturbing frequency. During the actual race, I learned that I am the type of person who will leave my vomiting friend in the sidelines so I can shave one minute off my highly mediocre time. After the race, I learned that I am the type of person who does not like to give up my seat on the train to an exhausted mother and her baby. But you know what? I’m fine with that. This marathon helped me to feel more comfortable in my own superficiality and selfishness. Thanks, Chicago!

Here are a few questions you might have a) Why did you run a marathon? b) Was it hard? c) What was it like? c) What are the origins of the marathon race d) Did anyone die?

Well, those are good questions. I decided to run a marathon because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something that the average person cannot do. As it turns out, a lot of average people can and do run marathons—32,500 people, to be exact. So that didn’t really work out.

The thing is, marathons are not just for super-athletes. The Chicago Marathon has no qualifying time, and although runners must attest that they have trained adequately and been assessed by a physician, these claims are never evaluated. Although I didn’t expect everyone to be in top physical condition, I expected people to look like runners. To my surprise, there were a lot of fat people and a lot of old people. Worse yet, those fat and old people finished ahead of me, probably by cheating somehow. What I’m saying here is that anyone can run a marathon.

In response to your second question, it was hard, but not blow-your-mind hard. By this I mean that marathon running seems decidedly less crazy once you do it. But, to quote the brochure I got in the mail, “No one said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.” And it was worth it, because I got A LOT of free stuff. I got a long-sleeve t-shirt, a medal, several bananas and Powerbars, all the Gatorade I could drink, and memories. Like the memory of waking up at 4:45 am to catch the train into Chicago, or the memory of the exhaustion I felt at mile 24, or the memory of being unable to move the morning after because every muscle in my body pulsed with the most intense pain I have ever known. Ahh, those memories, that’s what really matters.

The race started at 8:00 am, but it took about 18 minutes before I got to the starting line. To account for this lapse in time, the marathon is actually timed by little chips of technology that you tie to your shoe. When you cross the starting line, the little chip is activated and takes splits at various points throughout the course. Pretty incredible, eh? If you are going for a certain time, there are pace groups you can follow. The leader of the pace group holds up a sign with that time written on it, so he or she can be seen from far off. I ran the marathon with my friend from home, Jessica, and we stuck with the 4:30 pacer for most of the marathon. Nothing really crazy happened, other than her puking at the end. Throughout the course, there are water and Gatorade stations. Towards the end there are also bananas, but watch out for the peel!

As for the origins of the marathon, it’s quite an interesting story:

The modern marathon commemorates a Greek soldier by the popular name of Pheidippides. When the Greeks defeated the Persians in Marathon, Greece in 490 B.C., Pheidippidydoo ran to Athens to deliver the joyous news. He then collapsed and died (hmm), but from his ashes rose the concept of the marathon.

The first marathon was an event at the inaugural Olympics, in Greece in 1896. It was actually 24.85 miles (40,000 meters). When the pompous Brits hosted the Olympics in 1908, they increased the race to 26 miles so it could cover the distance from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium, adding an extra 385 yards so the race could finish in front of the royal family’s viewing box. In 1924, the distance was established at 26.2 miles.

Yes, someone did die. A 29-year old woman collapsed and died just as she passed the finish line, and the cause of her death is still unknown. She is the fourth runner to die in the past six years. Many of the people who die from marathons have run them before in the past, so no one is safe. There is a direct correlation between running a marathon and dying during them, and as more and more people run marathons, more people will die of them.

Maybe reading this article has inspired you to run a marathon. Especially that last part. In all honesty, I highly recommend it. What is really incredible is not just the marathon itself, but the path you take to get there. This is one of those journey-being-more-important-than-the-destination type deals. I was trying to keep it lighthearted, but now I am going to get serious. This marathon was probably the best thing that has happened to me since... since ever. Frankly, before this semester I didn’t really like Pomona, and I didn’t like my life here, and I don’t think I could have come back if something hadn’t changed.

So I changed. Somewhere along dirt road in Iowa, I got an arcane glimpse of the universe. I realized that, as Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke) put it in the brilliant movie Reality Bites, “Honey, all you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.” I’m not 23 yet, and I’m not sure if I’m myself, but I’m getting there.