The Illinois river run that drowned my Boston Marathon dreams

My 3:11 pace group in the Spring Chance BQ.2 Marathon in Geneva, Illinois, on April 21.

Wisconsin does not lack marathons. There are marathons with cool names, like Paavo Nurmi, and others others with less interesting names, like Wisconsin Marathon. Green Bay has a marathon. Madison has a marathon. The Fox Cities have a marathon. Even Madeline Island has a marathon. Milwaukee used to have a marathon, but upon further inspection that race turned out to be marathon-lite. There’s still a marathon that ends in Milwaukee, though.

So what the hell was I doing in Illinois running a marathon that didn’t have Chicago in its name?

By the end of the day, I was asking myself that question. The short answer is I wanted to qualify for the Boston Marathon. And the long answer was still about 10 miles too short.

You can qualify for Boston at many marathons, but the Spring Chance BQ.2 Marathon, like its older September sibling, Last Chance BQ.2 Marathon, is specifically designed to give you the best possible odds at securing a spot at the starting line in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. It’s mostly flat. The starting time is early. Each runner has a personalized aid station. And there are pace groups set to run faster than your qualifying time, because by now any serious BQ candidate knows that the official qualifying times are a lie.

The main downside to the BQ.2 marathons is they’re in Illinois.

OK, I’m kidding. Illinois isn’t that bad. And the course is a somewhat scenic loop between Geneva and Batavia along Illinois’ version of the Fox River. For better or worse, the loop is only a bit longer than three miles, so to cram 26.2 miles into this race you have to circle eight times. Fear of boredom was something I tried calculating into my training.

But oh, the training! I don’t want to be guilty of spreading even more boredom by recounting my training program, because there is nothing worse than a runner who bends your ear to provide painstaking detail of every speed workout, tempo run, long slog and crosstraining session. So let me try to very briefly summarize the impossible task I set out before myself.

I’ve only run three marathons before. My fastest was my first, at age 30, when I ran the New York City Marathon in 3:42. Now that I’m 40, my official BQ time is 3:15, but realistically I would need to run a 3:12 because of the aforementioned BQ lie. Trimming a half hour off your best marathon time may sound like a ridiculous goal, but I was counting on the fact that I just wasn’t very fast at age 30. I’m much faster now. No, really.

To get even faster, I dug up an old clipping from Runners World. On one side is the beginner marathon training plan. The opposite side is the aggressive plan, which I dove into with a diligence that I didn’t know I could muster. Speed workouts, tempo runs, long slogs and … well, not so much crosstraining. But I felt good, and strong.

Here’s the quick take on marathon training plans. They take forever! Seriously, when I started this 16-week training plan, I think I was only 33 years old, but the frickin training aged me about seven years. When you’re halfway through a marathon training plan, you look back on week 1 as if it was some bygone era before tech shirts and body glide. You start feeling nostalgic about that 14-miler in the snow in week 5 or the visit to the track way back in week 2 when you thought you saw your old boss walking the oval but it was actually just some OTHER sad-looking guy.

I think the reason for this distorted sense of time is that training programs are SO INHERRENTLY BORING. You can’t do that scenic run you always love because it has too many hills or isn’t quite long enough or the speed work gets in the way, and anyway, your training isn’t about having fun, right? It’s about work.

Add a BQ to your dreams and kiss the last bit of fun goodbye.

That’s, of course, not totally true. There’s something to love in even the most grueling training runs – even a speed workout, if you happen to like speed. And I do. But unless you were born a 6-minute miler, the quest for a BQ infuses training plans with an element of insanity. Most people aren’t meant to run that fast. But … it’s possible, right?

I was determined to find out, even if it meant braving “Chicagoland,” as the BQ.2 races claim, though the land south of Elgin and north of Aurora is no one’s idea of anything like Chicago. One of my obsessions in training was the need to see the course before the race, so in week 10 I finagled a work assignment that required a day trip to Aurora. After my assignment, I drove up to Geneva and parked at Fabyan Forest Preserve, where the BQ.2 races start.

One loop was enough that day, and I already felt like I knew everything I needed to know about the course. Not much to look at, and not entirely flat. But a fast route that just might do the trick. If the day is perfect.

It needs to be perfect.

Leaving nothing to chance, I drove down to St. Charles, Illinois, the night before the race and checked in at the Quality Inn carrying more than enough gear. Bottle of water. Bottle of Gatorade. Thermal underwear (didn’t think I’d need it, but maybe). A few different shirt options. A hat or a headband. Couple bananas. Couple bagels. Gels (but probably wouldn’t use them because the race provides some on the course). And my secret weapon, a pair of Brooks Hyperion racing flats, the lightest shoes I’ve ever worn while still being able to call them shoes.

The next morning, up at 4:30 a.m. It was about a 15 minute drive to Fabyan, and the sun was just starting to rise as I checked in at 5:30. The race is capped at 300, which is one of the biggest perks. The bib numbers starts with each runner's official BQ time. My bib was 31503.

I couldn’t help but size up the competition, not because I felt I was competing with them. This race, perhaps more than any other, was purely about my time and whether I had it in me. All other runners didn't matter... Except they did. It meant something to be in a community of runners, all, presumably, with the same goal. Not the same time goal, but the same compulsion to test their bodies in ways that the Boston Athletic Association would find worthy.

After a last-minute potty break, I jogged over to the starting line and found my 3:11 pace group. The BQ.2 races suggest beating your official qualifying time by four minutes to be safe. That would mean a 7:17 mile pace. Kaitlyn, a Batavia native, was our 3:11 pacer, carrying a stick with the target splits. And when the race started around 6:35 a.m., I took off following behind her with about a dozen others.

A word of reassurance, I won’t be recounting my full race for you. I know how that, too, can be about as interesting as a detailed analysis of the merits of the waffle tread. The psychology of a race, especially one with high stakes, can be thrilling for a runner in the moment. In conversation afterward, not so much.

So I’ll give you the short take: I failed.

I would like to say I failed in a small way. The weather was perfect, the course was perfect, the race was perfect, my preparations were perfect and my pace group was nearly perfect (with one exception that I’ll come back to in a moment). The only thing missing was my legs. They just weren’t strong enough.

After 13 miles at a heart-thumping pace, I realized my body was not going to be able to keep up that pace for another 13 miles. Suddenly, the gap in my training became obvious: I completed all my core workouts, but I hadn't trained thoroughly at marathon pace on my long runs.

I still wasn’t fast enough.

It didn’t help that Kaitlyn was pushing my pace group a bit faster than the 7:17 target. I think we did those first 13 miles in about a 7:10 pace, which felt great – until it didn’t. By the fifth lap, as I fell farther behind the group, I started asking myself whether I really needed to finish this race. With a BQ slipping away, I decided the smartest answer was no, and bailed after just over 16 miles.

Disheartening, to say the least. Were those 16 weeks a waste? Time will tell, but I still feel good about the race. I ran the fastest half marathon of my life on April 21. And with a bit more training at a faster pace, I think I can run my fastest marathon by 30 minutes.

I might even do it in Illinois if the schedule looks right.