Chicago Marathon Expo 2025
Race report by Róisín O’Brien
An early end to Triathlon season in July saw the start of a 12 week training block for the Chicago marathon.
A half marathon PB on a trip to Antrim in August had me feeling confident in the training block.
We arrived on Thursday and went exploring the city. The first stop was to find a supermarket and acquire the minimum of 6 bagels per day for the carb load. These were all accompanied by Nutella and banana. And I’m happy to report that 14 is not enough to turn me off them.
On Friday we went to the expo. If you’re looking for photo ops and branded merch, this is the place to be. Race packs and numbers for the 5k shakeout acquired and we were back to the city to continue our shopping spree.
Time for the Shakeout
5k Shakeout
The 5k shakeout was perfect to suss out the plan for race morning. Such a cool experience to run through the streets of downtown Chicago. A 5k PB for mam, hopefully not the only PB of the weekend 🤞🏼 an architectural boat tour was our attempt to be off feet and rest for the marathon. But 20 thousand steps and a large bowl of pasta later we were back to the hotel to prep for the race. And eat more bagels of course.
A 5am start, another bagel and we were off to the start. 55 thousand people is a lot to have in one place. We parted ways with a plan to see each other at 3 places on course. Unfortunately we were 0 from 3.
Chasing a sub-4 hour marathon
So the race started well. The plan was 3 hour 50, so to keep around 5.25 per kilometre. I stuck with the pacers and the first half to the north of the city flew by.
At around 20k, 2 gels were dropped and stupidly not picked up 🙄 little did I know how much I would pay for this later.
The sun was out and the next 10k passed with slightly more effort but still feeling good. I ignored the gospel of racing of not trying new things on race day and took a gel on course. As things got tough my stomach said no to any more gels. And then things got tougher. This is when the pace started to feel very hard, and the pacers slipped away.
Another 7k in the trenches with a few 7 minute kilometres thrown in and I hit the 40k mark. A look at the watch and I knew if I pushed to the end I could still get sub 4 hours. So push I did.
Some cruel person decided that there should be a hill at mile 26 to really make us earn the medal. 3 hour 58 minutes of hardship and the medal was mine.
It doesn’t count if it’s not on Strava
Well earned medal
Somehow my watch decided that it was an invalid activity and wouldn’t update to Strava. But obviously it doesn’t count if it’s not on Strava. So begins 3 days of thinking I’d have to come back next year to do it again. But some tech wizardry on my laptop at home saved me and showed my fans that I had in fact completed the marathon.
A swim in Lake Michigan and a bottle of Prosecco on the beach was the perfect post race recovery. Followed by deep dish pizza, salt beef sandwiches, treats and all the other nice things we couldn’t have before the race.
Thankfully the body wasn’t too bad after, but there were definitely some sore looking folks hobbling around on medal Monday.
I couldn’t have done it without the support of my number one fan, my mam. Who can now add travelling abroad to support me to her CV (despite missing me on three occasions during the race) 😅 I also couldn’t have done it without my partner in crime and personal cheerleader, Aoife Rooney ❤️
And finally a thanks to the man who is driven demented daily by my off plan training sessions, ridiculous questions and occasional hysterics. To Ciat Joyce, can’t wait to see how your patience holds up to an Ironman training block 😏.
– Róisín O’Brien
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