Yep. I won an entry to the Chicago Marathon courtesy of Whirlpool. Holy crap (there have been a lot of “holy crap’s” in the past 24 hours).
I was a little in shock last night when I saw that pop up in my Twitter mentions. I went from “OMG. OMG. OMG.” to “Holy crap, it’s in a MONTH?” to “Um.. Can we afford this?”
After having a night to sleep on the news, I have a few things consider:
- I haven’t exactly been training for a marathon – Obviously, that creates a small problem. I briefly discussed it last night with Stacey (who also won an entry) & I resigned myself that the smartest move would be to use the Galloway Method of running & walking intervals to tackle this challenge. In the coming weeks, I’d continue my long runs, but do all of them at over 10 miles a piece.
- Can I run a marathon alone? 26.2 miles is a long, long way. Ideally, I would like to have a buddy, if not a training group to help me through the inevitable wall that I know I’d hit. With Stacey also undecided, this is a huge factor for me.
- Can we really afford this? We’re leaving for a 10-day European vacation TOMORROW. Understandably so, it’s taking a significant chunk of cash out of our savings. Can we really afford for me to jet off to Chicago for a weekend? There’s flights, hotels, food, etc to factor into this. & could we afford for Brandon to come as well? I’d hate to do this without him there.
So there you have it. I might be running a marathon in a month. I might not. Like I said, I have a lot to consider, as this is a pretty huge decision to make.
Any insight is GREATLY appreciated 🙂
Confections of a Food Bitch 
We’re totally crazypants. That’s all there is to it.
Uh… YEAH WE ARE!
BIG decisions! I think it’d be an awesome opportunity and a great experience if you can make it work. But I totally understand the money part of it- especially SO close to your EUROPE TRIP! 😀 (squeee)
Just my 2 cents since you asked. I wouldn’t do it & there are a number of reasons why.
1) Yes, it’s very exciting & yes, it’s nice to have your entry paid for…but the entry really isn’t that big of a deal. If the whole trip was paid for, I would understand the temptation. OR if it was a marathon like NY where you could spend 3 yrs in the lottery before you could get in, I could also see the temptation. But really, if you want to run Chicago, you can just pay an extra $130/$140??, train and run it next year.
2) You’re a runner. You absolutely CAN run a marathon and while your 1st will never be your best time, wouldn’t you like to give it a real shot? I still regret that I wasn’t fully prepared for my 1st & I was still significantly more prepared than you’ll have a chance to be in this short of a time frame. Even Galloway-ing it is no joke when you’re covering 26.2 miles. It will be painful (& honestly miserable) & I just hate that that would be your first experience with the marathon.
You should be up to 40+ miles a week right now and heading into your 20 miler & then tapering. For me, the best feeling on race day was coming through all of that training & (as corny as it sounds) celebrating all of that by actually enjoying every step of the 26.2 miles. I’m in love with that distance and I hate to think about it being a bad experienece for you.
Another thing to consider is the time limit. I think it’s 6 hrs for Chicago?? Without the training and using a run/walk approach there’s a chance that won’t be long enough. I know several people that trained for my 1st with me and using run/walk they came in just over 6hrs. You need to think about whether or not you want that pressure.
3) Marathons are as much mental as they are physical. The last 6 miles, even when you’ve trained, can me a mental hell hole. Someone who’s done a few marathons but is undertrained would at least be prepared for that aspect of it. One thing I really worked on for my 2nd marathon was the mental aspect, When you basically just want to die lol and the finish line is still 4 or 5 miles away it freakin sucks…even walking. Actually, maybe even more so walking because it’s taking you even longer to get there. It was so nice this time around to still have my steady running pace going for the last 6 miles rather than run/walk breaks.
So with all that said, you rock! You absolutely can (& you absolutely should) run a marathon. I just think you should give yourself a real chance to enjoy the process. I would enjoy Europe (no brainer) and set your sites on a future marathon.
While Christie’s reasoning seems somewhat valid, I’m going to have to vote the other way. It’s a great opportunity if you can swing it financially. Winning the free entry is motivation… why not just go for it?
My question is… when do you need to decide by? Can you try to kick your butt into gear this week and see how your running is going? Where you’re at mentally? And then make the big decision?
It’s a great excuse to go to Chicago.. a super fun city. You’re not going to win the marathon… and if by some weird chance you didn’t finish… at least you didn’t pay to enter?
/my initial thoughts
Anne
I understand where Christie is coming from. I’m not a runner, but if I were, and I decided to enter a marathon, I would want to give myself the best shot of A) Finishing it and B) Reaching a specific, personal goal.
However: Anne is right, you could kick yourself into gear and assess yourself right now. You should definitely visit Chicago at some point, and people plan a trip there for reasons that aren’t nearly as cool as yours. There will be plenty of marathons to plan and train for in the future. At least after this one, you’ll have a great story to tell, beginning with “So I won a free entry to the Chicago marathon.”
-Teezy