Marathons Are Dangerous

My friend and former teammate told me that she finished the Chicago Marathon today, after only having run up to 6 miles in the weeks preceding the marathon. I thought she was crazy for going through with it, and I told her as much. But this was her second one, and she has some thing about setting goals and achieving them. (Yeah, I know, she's weird).

So when she said she finished today, I was not surprised, but I was glad to hear that she made it. I haven't officially confirmed that she ran the whole way.

But I did see that one person died and 49 others were taken to the hospital, prompting the organizers to actually cancel the race. Apparently the conditions and high humidity made it more dangerous than other years to run, and nearly half the entrants did not finish the race.

The winner of the marathon was a Kenyan man, Patrick Ivuti, who only edged out Jaouad Gharib of Morocco by 0.05 seconds to win the race. I can't confirm, but I heard rumors that Ivuti wore a sweater in the last few miles and complained about the chill in the Chicago air.

So my friend definitely gets extra points for making it through to the end. I don't like running enough to run 26.2 miles unless someone is chasing me. I'm proud of you, friend.