No Marathon

This is a translation. The original post is in German.

I’ve been back home since 20 October. In the end it was a very eventful trip: first there were problems getting there, then the disappointment with the marathon. Even so, I’m leaving Chicago and Iceland with very positive memories.

Getting there

On Thursday, 8 October, I flew to Chicago with Icelandair via Keflavík. We took off from Frankfurt 20 minutes late, and I only had 40 minutes to change planes in Keflavík. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. Instead of landing at Chicago O’Hare that evening, I was rebooked onto a flight to Baltimore that left two hours later.

I arrived in Baltimore in the middle of the night and had to stay there. I managed just three hours of sleep at the airport hotel, because the next flight to Chicago left at 7 a.m. on Friday. Not a good way to prepare for a marathon.

In Baltimore it also turned out that my suitcase hadn’t made it, and my running kit for the marathon was in it. That was extremely annoying. I hoped it would arrive in Chicago on the next Icelandair flight. In the end it was only delivered to the hotel on Saturday afternoon. In the meantime, I stocked up on new clothes and new running shoes in Chicago.

The Abbott 5K as a dress rehearsal

On Saturday morning, 10 October, it was time for the Abbott 5K, the warm-up race the day before the marathon. Two weeks earlier, I had unfortunately injured myself on my last long run of 30 km. So the 5K was the dress rehearsal: had the injury healed well enough for me to run the marathon?

The race started in Grant Park and went through the Loop to the Chicago River, right in among the tall skyscrapers (see the course on the map). A great course and a great atmosphere.

But while running I noticed that the injury hadn’t healed well enough. So I decided not to start the marathon on Sunday, 11 October.