Well sports fans, a week to go and this is probably the last scribbles before the big day. Everyone talks about the ‘maranoia’ that comes with taper time and this boy has had his share of it this week. I haven’t had the doubts about feeling I need to do more miles, but I have felt every ache and pain that has probably been there for the last 18 weeks…they just a bit more obvious now. First run of the week it was like my legs were frightened to run. I was trying to go out at 9:30-9:40 steady pace for six miles, but struggled to get under 10 minute miles so just chilled out and went with the flow. The other two runs this week (an 8 and a 6) have been much better, although towards the end of Friday night’s run I felt a wee ping in my foot. There’s been a bit sharpness and discomfort in it since then, nothing major, but there is a bit bruising there. I’ve reached for the frozen peas and I’ll probably take it easy for the rest of the weekend and stick to the swimming, hopefully giving it a chance to settle down. I’ve probably more to lose at this stage doing another 8 miles than I have to gain from it fitness wise, so for once, I’ll be sensible…well, that’s the plan at the time I write this. A wee wave of maranoia and I’ll no doubt be lacing up and getting out.

Speaking about lacing up, I had a great bit of customer service from the Brooks team. The shoes I’d been running in for this training block had started to breakdown around the heel. I sent them a few photos and my mileage and they offered to send a replacement pair which arrived a few days later! Can’t ask for better than that. With these being technically a free pair of shoes, does this make me a sponsored athlete? 😊 (still waiting on the chocolate milk sponsor, and there’s still time!!). That said, they did send a replacement pair that are a ½ size bigger…and it could be the maranoia talking but I do think it makes a difference and they aren’t as comfy a fit. I’ve done about four runs with them and I am tempted to go back to what I know for race day and use the older pair.

A few people have asked me what my ambitions are for the race. It feels like I’m giving the equivalent answer to the football manager saying ‘we’re taking one game at a time and not thinking about the championship’ when I tell them that I’m just hoping to get round and enjoy the experience. But that is the truth and I’ve been nothing but honest on here – probably too much. Just getting the chance to run these streets again is a prize in itself, and the fact that I’m getting to run the marathon course, well that’s the icing on a very nice cake.  

A few days after my 40^th birthday, I found myself in a taxi heading down the Kennedy Expressway. I’d just spent the weekend with the family in a lovely wee farmhouse on the outskirts of Arbroath (and spent the morning of my birthday running around a freezing cold but cool Montrose parkrun route). As soon as the city skyline came into view, I was a starstruck wee pup, a similar feeling to when I rocked up in New York as a wide-eyed 15 year old heading off on a school exchange programme. The cab dropped me off in the West Loop and I had no idea at the time how big an influence that neighborhood and the city would have on my life in the years that followed. The next day, jetlagged but wide awake, I stuck my trainers on and went exploring. In my head, it felt like a Rocky montage, running underneath the L trainline surrounded by meat warehouses. To anyone else, it probably looked every bit like a breathless wee Scottish guy plodding along half asleep, turning blue with the cold with snot frozen to his face (sorry if you’re having your tea reading this).  And if I wasn’t breathless before it, that first time you cross the bridge on Lake, head down the stairs on to the River Walk and then under the Franklin Street bridge to see the city towering above you on both sides is a sight to take anyone’s breath away (I have a million photos from this spot and none of them remotely do it justice). And don’t even get me started on when you run a bit further along the River Walk and head south (or north) along the Lakefront. Magical. A few years later, I spent a few months living in Chicago – an incredible time in my life, but a time where I spent a lot of it on my own, the family were back in Scotland (but did come to visit for an unforgettable few days). Every neighborhood and place I know about in Chicago, I know about because I’ve ran there, or I’ve ran to somewhere near there, or went out with no plan but to explore. And when I was running here, I never felt alone…I felt at home. I remember the night before Thanksgiving, everyone was clearly getting ready for the holidays but the entire city seemed empty. From the minute I left my apartment, along the river walk and down along the lake towards the Shedd aquarium, I was lucky if I saw a handful of people. There’s a set of raised steps like an ampitheatre that hug that part of lake and you can ‘pick a lane’ and head round toward the Planetarium (to a spot they call the best view in the city) and then down to the tiny but tranquil 12^th Street Beach near Northerly Island. The only noise you could hear in this massive city was the water lapping against the shore…and a random group of lads singing and filming a music video!!!! (it was baltic, they must have been frozen). Apart from the band, I felt like I had the entire city to myself and just drank it all in. You hear people talking about the living in the moment – I’m not very good at that. Nostalgia is a spiders web that I’ll regularly and willingly trap myself in and whilst you could say it’s sensible in some ways, I probably also look too far down the line and wonder what the future holds. But for that run at Thanksgiving and indeed for every run in Chicago, I lived in the moment. From the early visits, when I was never sure if I’d ever visit the place again, or when I lived there knowing it was for a set period of time, I made the most of the playground that was on my doorstep and savored every run. I should probably be a bit more like that in other aspects of my life.

I won’t have the city to myself this time next week, but I’m still determined to live in that moment and try to enjoy as much of the experience as I can. That’s not the same as saying I’m not going to work hard; I’m going there to graft. Like the 20 mile runs, I respect the marathon distance…I maybe respect it a bit too much. Fitness wise, there’s bits of me think I could put in 9-9.30 minute miles consistently, sometimes even feeling a bit quicker. But if my knees could talk (and sometimes they feel like they can scream) they’d tell me to stick to a safer, slower more conservative pace 9:45-10 and they’ll try to get me round in one piece – and I’m erring on the side of caution. So ‘the plan’ at this point, is to try and find a clear lane to get into a bit of a rhythm (the blue line would be ideal), not get carried away by the crowds and atmosphere, get the first hour in the legs, then the first half in and then just see how I’m feeling. Aye there’s a ton of things that could go wrong on the day and ‘the wall’ could come at any time when you least expect it. If it does, and I’m sure it will, I’ll deal with it when it comes. But the days of being the ‘eyeballs out runner’ who goes out hard and tries to hang on – sometimes successfully, but always painfully – are probably over, and I’m ok with that.

So team, I think that’s about it. The Chicago Marathon app is available on all good app stores and you can track the Chicken Legs dot by following runner 35283 (my lucky number, what were the chances!).  A big thanks again to everyone who has supported me over the last few months in so many different ways…including all of you who have been reading this. I’m not the runner I once was but for the first time in a long time, I feel a wee bit like a runner again. And that’s enough. It’s more than enough.

When I checked in to the Ace hotel in the West Loop – now no longer there, the digital radio had this station called 93XRT as the default station. It was my kind of station and my kind of music. When I moved into my apartment, the first thing I did was get the radio tuned in. The breakfast host, an incredible broadcaster called Lin Brehmer who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer, would regularly feature a song ‘from home’, and every time it came up, the volume was cranked right up before heading out the door for the day.  “In a big country, dreams stay with you”. Let’s go Chicago!