This was my first Chicago Marathon, and it was also the first time Kim and I would be missing pacing at Hartford. We tried to find flights to run both marathons back to back, but we couldn’t find any flights that worked with our schedule.
I had also been selected for Team HMF (Hartford Marathon Foundation), so I kind of felt like I was cheating on them by running another fall marathon instead of Hartford.

That said, I loved the logistics of Chicago. You get off the plane and walk through the airport to catch a tram that takes you directly to the hotel—super convenient. We had a large group from Connecticut running: Angie, Mike Dunlap, Diane, Suzy, Meredith, and me. I was really excited to run this race, especially since I had just ran my fastest marathon in San Francisco. With Chicago’s flat course, I hoped to set a PR, Personal Best.
We walked to the starting corrals, and I said goodbye to Kim since he was in a different wave. I set out running strong, but my Garmin was having issues with the tall buildings, and I had no idea what my splits were.
As the race went on, my legs started getting tired, and I began to miss the give-and-take of the hills in San Francisco.
As I neared the finish, I pushed to beat my San Francisco time, but I ended up only running 10 seconds faster! I did however, get a new PR!
Would I run it again? Probably not. I don’t ever want to miss another Hartford Marathon!
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