Final (?) update for the Abbott World Marathon Majors

As mentioned previously the Tokyo marathon opened up for more participants through travel agents, so suddenly I got moved up 2 years meaning that instead of running Tokyo marathon and completing my 6 Marathon Majors in March 2026 I got the opportunity to do it in 2024. I didn't need much convincing to do that.

This means that I have now completed the 6 marathons majors as follows:

Berlin - September 2019 - 3:58:16
New York - November 2019 - 4:11:53
Boston - April 2022 - 3:59:30
Chicago - October 2022 - 3:58:02
London - April 2023 - 3:58:42
Tokyo - March 2024 - 3:59:06

So this is the final update for the marathon majors.

Well, maybe not completely final; Cape Town and Sidney are considered candidate runs in an attempt to be accepted as the 7th and 8th majors, and further out Shanghai is also lurking on the horizon. Interesting times ahead. But for now, I'm enjoying the accomplishment and my new medal.

New update for Abbott World Marathon Majors

With last year's completion of Chicago and Boston marathons, and the mail received letting me participate in the 2023 London marathon, things have been moving forward in more sense than one. On top of that its satisfying being able to cross them off one at a time. This means that 4 of the World Marathon Majors are complete, one is in the near future and one is still some years in the future.

As things are currently, this is the current schedule, past and future.

Berlin - September 2019
New York - November 2019
Boston - April 2022
Chicago - October 2022
London - April 2023
Tokyo - March 2026

So in a few months I will have only one left, so I guess I'll have to find other runs in the mean time to keep me on my toes. Sounds like a horrible concept. Also, there are rumors that they are planning on adding another run to the group, so even if I can see the end of it now it might change in the future. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out as there have been talk for a long time to add more run(s). We'll see, but I worry this will be an endless chase with always another one in the future that has just been added, and not being able to actually finish the group like I did with the Superhalfs. 

9th – 11th – Post race and going home

Having arrived back at the hotel and showered (thankfully I didn’t have a bathtub so I could just walk into the shower without having to lift my legs) I splayed out on the bed and moved as little as possible until it was time for dinner. I waddled along until I arrived at a restaurant where I could get (another) Chicago style pizza. Disgustingly beautiful. While the previous pizza I had had been 6 inches and for one, they didn’t have anything smaller than 12 inches here. Oh, well, the sacrifices you must endure on vacation. Unfortunately this was a challenge I couldn’t handle and had to leave a quarter of it. And I even skipped dessert! 

Returning to the hotel I managed to arrange a late checkout which could not be any later than noon. This meant that I’d still have time to kill before returning to the airport to catch my flight at 2200, and I wasn’t planning on spending most of the afternoon at the airport. 

Cars lining up for the Columbus Day parade.

Leaving the hotel at noon I deposited my bag and hobbled about for a few hours around town without any real purpose other than trying to get my legs moving normally again. I ended up going back to the hotel and spend an hour in the reception relaxing before retrieving my bag and leaving for the airport.

Check-in was quick and efficient but security not so much. Long queue and only two security stations tested your patience, but finally getting through the lounge turned out to be located literally across the hall so that was easy to find. It was probably the smallest lounge I have ever been in a very limited selection of food, and if you had to use the toilet you had to leave and find one somewhere else in the airport.

Apart from that everything went smooth – we took off on time, the flight was uneventful and arriving in Copenhagen arrival was perfectly timed with the trains so I was back home only 1,5 hours later.

Full album can be see here.

9th – Chicago marathon

My alarm went off at 0530 (I do this voluntarily…) but it was made easier by me waking up a few minutes before. I stumbled about for a bit and got ready – the temps were just a few degrees above 0 but I decided to skip long pants over my shorts and settled with a shirt and jacket to stay warm. Walking the 20 minutes to the starting area I found my choice of clothing wasn’t completely off, though my legs did notice the lack of covering.

I had expected it to be similar to the starting area for the New York marathon where you could get snacks, light food and various drinks (and dogs to pet!), but there was just water filling stations, the bag check tents and porta potties. Considering the size of the arrangement it just seemed a bit lazy to not have anything. Though I do seem to remember the NY starting area being bigger so they had room for more, I still think there’d be room for various booths here. Oh, well.

Around 0700 it was time to get rid of my warm clothes and hand in my bag, and wearing only my running shorts and t-shirt I really got to feel this morning temperature. Definitely close to freezing. I got stuck in the queue to a porta potty for 20 minutes (why is it that outdoor urinals are never used in the US? Is it really such a taboo to pee even if no one’s able to see your penis?! If you take out your penis to pee and nobody sees it, is it still sexual assault?).

After the long and cold wait I shuffled over to my starting corral and realized with absolute – sarcastic – joy that the pacers were carrying a small sign on a stick in their hand. So also here you completely lost sight of the pacers only a few meters away, and none of them were able to hold their arm out to keep the sign elevated for even a short while before the sign was swinging all over the place out of sight. The corral closed at 0745 and as the first wave were sent off we were slowly shuffled forward until it was our turn to stand at the starting line. And, as scheduled, at 0800 we were sent off.

The first 5km was spent going a bit back and forth in the center of the city before heading north, passing among other things the zoo. At the 8 mile mark (app. 13km) we did a u-turn and returned towards the center where we hit the mid-way point before turning west, another u-turn at around 25km with a few kilometers return before turning south until just past the 37km mark where we once again turned around and headed back north, into the center and finishing in the opposite end of the park from where we started, another marathon done.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

While it was cold waiting for the run to start it was clear it had already started heating up at that point (either that or I was slowly loosing all sensation in my body from the cold) making it more comfortable standing around. After the start it took a few hours for the temps to reach around 15-17°C making the entire thing much more bearable. It was also quite windy throughout the run, and while the buildings shielded us from the worst part, when we did get hit directly by it, it lowered the temperatures quite significantly.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

As with the previous runs in the US the support along the way was impressive for the majority of the course. There were parts where we ran “alone”, but when people were lined up there was a lot of energy among them. And I bet there will be a few worn-out vocal cords tomorrow; I’m impressed by the volume some of them were able to produce! A lot of great encouraging posters: “Blisters are braille for awesome”, “At least you’re not at work”, “World’s worst parade” and “You have stamina – call me!”. The latter I saw first fairly early on and having not seen that poster before I instinctively gave the girl (young woman?) holding a quick smile – and passing her and her friend I heard a shy giggling and “did you see that guy??”. Short interactions with the onlookers can be fun.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

There was also multiple posters warning against trusting farts during the run and puckering up instead. Last turn before the finish line, 400m to go, I gained on someone who was running funny. Which, for the record, a lot of people were doing at this point. Having noticed him and returned to my normal empty “who’s idea was this please let it be over soon”-gaze my mind started churning; “he’s struggling hard, legs also covered in mud, wait – when did we run through mud, that isn’t… sniff-sniff… that isn’t mud at all!”. Poor guy. Didn’t pay attention to the posters. I just hope it had only happened recently.

Glad it was over.

Photo by MarathonFoto.

I crossed the finish line in 3:58:02. This put me as no. 14033 out of 39301 total (top 35,71%), 9712 out of 20844 men (top 46,59%) and 1796 out of 3488 M4044 (top 51,49%). For Danish runners I came in 55 out of 101 total (top 54,46%), 46 out of 78 men (top 58,97%) and 9 out of 15 M4044 (top 60%). I had hoped for a new PR (sub-3:55:34) considering the flat course but at around 25-30km it was as if my body started realizing what it was being put through and started complaining so I was suddenly facing a massive mental hurdle. Combined with the two half marathons 1 and 3 weeks ago (the latter being a new PR)  I was happy with getting in below 4 hours. But crossing the finish line everything below my waist just felt like overcooked noodles. A few steps past the line I had slowed down and started zig-zagging, having to lean against a fence to not topple over. A volunteer came over and grabbed my arm – I reassured her I was ok but just needed a moment to recover, thinking that she would tell me to sit down. Instead she reached into her pocket and grabbed a water bottle which she shoved into my hand and ordered me to drink. Apparently I was pretty thirsty – it disappeared in only a few gulps. The water, that is, not the bottle.

I waddled slowly on, collected drinks, snacks and my medal before I lined up to get my bag. From there I slowly started towards my hotel, wincing every time I was faced with a curb or even worse: stairs. It took almost two hours for me to be back in my hotel room after crossing the finish line, a walk that under normal circumstances would probably have taken half an hour or so. 

The slower pace was definitely because of traffic and the large crowds making it hard to move around.

Definitely.

8th – Chicago 5k

The following morning started off with the official 5k run at 0730 from the Millennium Park and around the loop in the center. Meant as a social run as a warmup for tomorrow’s marathon there is no reason to push yourself in any way. The weather was nice but cold, and it stayed dry with only a breeze. Quite nice conditions everything considered. App 7300 runners participated and the fastest ran it in app. 15 minutes. I ended up finishing in 25:48, putting me as 1072 out of 7115 overall (top 15,01%), 814 out of 3455 men (top 23,56%) and 140 out of 594 in M4044 (top 23,57%). I obviously didn’t catch the part where it wasn’t a competitive run – it probably wouldn’t have hurt to relax a bit along the way. Oh, well – it’s nice getting a good result, and it was only a 5k after all. Crossing the finish line you were handed drinks and snacks, and to my surprise you were also handed a medal. I did not see that latter part coming!

Photo by MarathonFoto.

After having returned to the hotel for a shower I went out for breakfast. Following that I decided to just visit the Institute of Art, apparently a very famous and large museum at the park that has a large variety of stuff. And yes – from the old classics from Europe (and especially the Netherlands) including a lot by Monet to modern stuff that at best could be defined as “odd”. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand modern art. A rock cut into three pieces. It was a nice Japanese rock, but apparently the artistry was through the roof because you could “see how beautiful the pieces are as how they fit perfectly together”. Or the self portrait that was just a pile of sweets. “Optimal amount: 175lb”. Or the self portrait “White acrylic paint on wall”. The wall was white. There was no difference between the color of the wall and the paint, so the resulting “art” was basically just a blank wall. The a collection of statues that each were accompanied by three questions that the artists had answered to explain their creations. One of them a wiggly shape forming a circle and the question was “Is it wiggly or circular” (which one could say is a reasonable question) but the answer was “The onlooker does not know what they are looking at. But it is grounded like they are.”. And the rest were equally if not even more out there. I couldn’t help but think they were high on their own supply. Maybe I wasn’t high enough? A more reasonable explanation (in my mind) is that they are having a bet among themselves trying to see who can come up with the most outrageous idea and still manage to sell it as “art”. 

Or maybe I just don’t understand modern art. 

The good weather brings everyone out to the Bean.

After a somewhat confusing visit to the museum I returned to the hotel where I relaxed until dinner. Fastest service ever. Arrived at 1800 and left 45 minutes later after having both lasagna and tiramisu. I can be an efficient eater when I want to, I admit, but it was the wait time for the food that was the shocking part – 2 minutes was the longest I had to wait at any time throughout the meal. And the food was genuinely good and didn’t seem rushed. 

6th – 7th – Chicago pre-race(s)

Slightly jetlagged I woke up before the alarm went off, though at that point I had had more than 10 hours of sleep, so one could argue it was time to go.

Leaving the hotel I found my way to Millennium Park to figure out how long it would take to get to the starting area on Sunday, and from there slowly made my way to the runner’s expo. Walking the main concourse in the massively huge facility I passed multiple ridiculously large halls (several of them were larger than the hall at Royal Arena in Copenhagen) before crossing a walk bridge into an equally large building where the expo was held.

When I arrived there were multiple long queues to get in and they didn’t move at all. It took me a moment to realize that today, on the first day of the expo, they didn’t open until 1100 and I arrived maybe 10 minutes before that. When they did open the queues started moving at a decent pace which effectively funneled people through security before being directed to the booth that had your bib. After having received my bib I also picked up my kit for the 5k morning run on the day before the marathon before entering the expo hall. Here I picked up the marathon kit (which contained my t-shirt and mostly just vouchers) and had a walk around looking at the booths of various more or less running-relevant stuff. There was nothing really interesting, though I did leave with two boxes of energy bars which were pretty much tossed at me when passing by the booth.

The Bean.

Walking the waterfront.

Leaving the expo I wandered through Chinatown before circling around and ended up back in Millennium Park and seeing The Bean (I am a tourist after all). And while the official name is Cloud Gate everybody calls it The Bean, and seeing it that name makes perfect sense. Crossing through The Loop and walking the Chicago Riverwalk brought me to the waterfront where I continued a bit north before crossing through Millennium park and returning to the hotel. Perfect timing, as it had just started raining when I entered the building. A few hours later I left for dinner, something I had been looking forward to; Chicago style pizza. It’s basically a cheese pie with pizza toppings, so when you cut it the melted cheese, while still relatively firm, lightly oozes out. For dessert I had a cookie which ended up bigger than I would ever been able to imagine. It turned out it was made in a individual-size pizza pan (6 inches), filled up the pan and topped with ice cream and whipped cream. Just like the pizza it was disgustingly obscene and I loved every single bite of it. And I am pretty sure it’ll prevent me from getting a sub-4 hour time on Sunday.

Do you want some pizza with that cheese?

When leaving the hotel the following morning I went to grab breakfast nearby; 2 pancakes, sausages and eggs before heading north. My plan was to go along the waterfront but the weather made that a miserable idea. It had gotten windy from east-ish and it varied between drizzling, pouring down and the occasional break until past noon. So instead I wandered through the city streets until crossing the Chicago River where I headed towards the water to see Navy Pier. It is basically a large recreational area built on top of a very large pier, but as it was out of season and morning everything was closed, and the few other people out there looked like me; having a look around trying to ignore the disappointing weather.

Standing in the center below the Bean looking up.

I continued north and found myself up alongside the zoo which is free to enter which meant I ended up entering and had a walk around to see what they had to offer. Nothing really spectacular, but I assume if you have a zoo which rely entirely on donations it does limit you one way or another.

Returning south towards downtown I took a couple of hours rest in the hotel before returning outside to grab dinner. It was surprisingly hard to find an Italian place with room for one (third time was the charm and I still ended up sitting outside) so when returning to the hotel in the evening I found a place online and secured myself a table for Saturday night. Or tried – it took half an hour just to find a place that had room for one and was willing to book only one! The dinner was pretty great, but I am baffled by the size of the desserts. The piece of cheesecake was enormous – and dense – and I am sure the calorie contents dwarfed that of the creamy pasta with bacon I had as a main.

5th of October – Arriving in Chicago

In spite of it being an almost 9-hour flight getting to Chicago was (almost) without issues along the way. Obviously, as we are in Denmark, there were problems with the train signals towards Copenhagen so only one train departed my station every hour which didn’t leave any margin for error going to the airport. Also, the flight didn’t have internet. What is this? The stone age?

Arriving in Chicago it was fairly uneventful getting through immigration. The officer did point out it was suspicious that I had been in Iran in ’17 while eyeing me up and down, and I had just started worrying about if this would be the end of the trip for me, until he continued grinning pointing out the suspicious part was that I still had my head on my shoulders. Hah-hah. Humor of airport security. 

Arriving in Chicago.

It took a bit to find the train to the city – it required a trip across terminals with the airport train before I could get settled into a seat on the train that took me on a 40-minute ride to the city center. From there it was a 5-minute walk from there to get to the hotel. 

The hotel has some weird quirks. There are rooms on floors 3 to 22, except for on floor 9 where the reception and restaurant is located. There are three elevators, and it seems like two of them stop at every three floors. It doesn’t open its doors – it just slows down and stops for maybe 4-6 seconds before it continues for another 3 floors until the next stop. Staying on the 18th floor and wanting to leave it was infuriating that the elevator stopped 5 times before reaching the ground level. The doors never opened until I had to exit. Leaving on the third elevator was mind-blowing – leaving the room and being able to leave the building only a few seconds later? Wild!

Despite having a room on the 18th floor I didn’t have much of a view; there was a taller building across the street blocking the view. Lots of large windows and it looks like most of the interior is apartments. And not all apartments have curtains so you have a fairly unobscured view into other people’s home. As someone who enjoys his privacy that concept gives me the willies. As an example; right now maybe one floor below me there is a woman lying on her carpet in the middle of the living room on her phone. Butt-naked. Not a care in the world. 

One would think that as this height you’d be far away from the street noise, but I suspect that being across from an even taller building the noises are just channeled up past my window giving me the full experience of the traffic. Also doesn’t help that the window doesn’t fully close/seal; I even had an employee up to see if I was doing something wrong but nope – couldn’t fully close, adding a slight draft throughout my stay. Marvelous!

Update on the Abbott World Marathon Majors

For someone who enjoys travelling it has been some frustrating years to get through, and carefully laid plans got moved around, cancelled and postponed. With the pandemic seemingly reaching the end one could hope that the current planning might hold going forward.

I was supposed to run in Boston April last year, and after being postponed multiple times it seems like I now have a spot for the run next year. Similarly with Chicago, and with the US borders not opening until November this year it looks like I'll be running that next year. Also, due to cancellation of Tokyo a marathon and them being careful on the first post-pandemic (halving the capacity), my spot for Tokyo has been pushed back to 2026. So the schedule for the 4 remaining marathons (having already done Berlin and New York) looks something like this:

Boston – April 2022

Chicago – October 2022

London – April 2025

Tokyo – March 2026

It looks like, as things are currently, that this schedule should hold, but I have learnt not to rely on any vacation scheduling more than a couple of weeks in advance. Hopefully things settle down and I can look forward to joining some of the big runs in the world again, it'll feel great getting back out and running.

Update on Chicago marathon

Chicago marathon was planned to be in October but due to the pandemic it has been cancelled - not being postponed but just downright cancelled. With the current situation I can't blame them for that decision. As opposed to Boston, though, they let you defer your spot to one of the future runs in 2021, 2022 or 2023. No big issue, when signups open for a run you just sign up and refer to your application from 2020 and you are guaranteed a spot, so they say at least. Easy.

My plan is to sign up for next year (2020), but if this are still going significantly downhill with regards to the pandemic I am free to wait another year or two. The extra freedom seems smart in this situation.

No date has been formally announced, but they usually have the marathon some time in the middle of October. They don't even know when they'll open up for applications for next year's run so there is still quite a lot in the wind yet.

This year is turning out very anti-running.

Going to the windy city

The thing with the Abbott World Marathon Majors (Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York and Tokyo) is that there are no way to just sign up for a spot, but instead you have to gain access by other methods. Among other methods there are donations to charities, meeting a qualifying time, a ballot draw or getting a spot through a partnered travel agent.

The donations required to be taken into consideration are usually in the equivalent 100s or more often 1000s of USD. The qualifying times are strict enough that if you just run casually you won’t really have a chance to reach the cut-off time. In the ballot draw you have, depending on race, between a 4% and 50% chance to get picked (Boston differs as they don’t have a ballot). So in the end, for a runner like me, most of the time the only realistic chance I have is going with a travel agency and as I am not the only one in that situation many of these departures are often sold out several years in advance.

But at times you are allowed to be lucky. Chicago has the highest chance in the ballot (50-ish percent) and it fortunately went my way this year. So added to the marathon in Calgary and the SuperHalfs Chicago is now on the list for 2020’s runs.

7^th – 9^th of October

Flying out to Chicago (yes, it’s two days after coming back from Cardiff) and spending some time in the city. I have never been there before so it’s going to be new for me. For ease I booked a hotel close to the start and finish line of the marathon which puts me in downtown (in The Loop, for those who knows Chicago) which means getting back will be a breeze – relatively, at least. No up and down stairs to subways as in New York, at least.

10^th of October

The International Chicago 5K run is in the morning which brings us on a short 5km course round downtown, ending up near the marathon’s finish line. The afternoon will be spent on relaxing and (mentally) preparing for the marathon tomorrow.

11^th of October

Race day. The first wave with wheelchairs gets started at 0720 and from 0730 and the following hour the three runner waves will be sent off. The race starts in Millennium Park and after circling downtown we go north to Uptown before returning to downtown and heading west. This will be a few kilometres before we return back and circle south through the University Village, Little Italy and Pilsen before heading south through Chinatown to Bronzeville, returning up north finishing in Grant Park, bordering Millennium Park to the south. The course is relatively flat (seems like there is a variance of app. 10 meters) so for a marathon it doesn’t seem like a technically hard course. The rest of the day will obviously be spent on relaxing and recovering.

12^th – 13^th of October

Flying out the 12^th in the evening means I have most of the day to walk around while being sore.

The Chicago marathon has around 45.000 runners each year which makes it one of the big ones, on par with Berlin and New York – but being one of the Marathon Majors it does attract a lot of runners in general. The small ones can be fun but participating in a big run just has a completely different feeling and something I am looking forward to experiencing again. And it’s just a plus that it’s in a city I haven’t visited before.