Monday, June 14, 2010

The Feat...and Feet

By Ross Forman

(June 21, 2010)
Let's hear it for The Feat - and I do mean feat, not feet, which seems more fitting for a Marathon Journal.

I have to start things off with a salute to the Chicago Blackhawks, the 2010 Stanley Cup champions! As a lifelong Blackhawks fan, I couldn’t be happier.

Kudos to Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Coach Joel Quenneville and the rest of Chicago’s first Stanley Cup championship team in 49 years.

Now can we repeat the feat in 2011?!

When the next NHL regular-season starts in October, I will be on the home stretch for my next marathon, which I will run in mid-October.

The question is, where?

I have the list narrowed down to about 10 marathons, and am still debating which one to choose. Let’s see, the finalists include marathons in Kansas City, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids and Boise. Yet the leading candidates are Long Beach, Toronto and Albuquerque.

I pick one city, and then re-consider another.

Am tempted to just throw all the names in a hat and pick out the winner.

I just hope I stick with that one.

My last marathon was May 2, in Vancouver, B.C., and it was, perhaps, my best. I finished two minutes behind my Personal Record (PR), set at the 2009 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, but felt good throughout, and after.

But after the Vancouver Marathon was when disaster struck, so to speak.

The afternoon of the Vancouver Marathon, I had to drive to Seattle for an overnight flight to Washington, D.C., and then another down to Orlando. (Of course, I called United Airlines from Vancouver and asked about flying, instead, from Vancouver to Orlando. They said it’d be about $250 to change, so I stuck with my original plan, regrettably.)

The flight from Seattle was delayed about 50 minutes so, when I landed in Washington, D.C., I was sure I’d make my connecting flight, but my luggage wouldn’t. But, as I sat in seat 2D, I was thrilled to watch my bags being loaded onto the Orlando-bound flight.

Sadly, that was the last I saw of my luggage. Somehow, my luggage wasn’t on the carousel when I got there.

And when the United agent in Orlando told me that the same thing happened a day earlier on the exact same flight – a customer’s bags show scanned in Orlando, but were no where to be found – we both knew it was time to get the local police involved.

My bags have still not been found.

So, when I start the grind for my next marathon – wherever it will be – I will be wearing new clothes and new Brooks shoes.

On May 22, I ran a 5K race in suburban Chicago, marking my first race ever of that distance. It was a fund-raiser for Save-A-Pet, the former home of my buddy “Chuckie,” who ironically shares his birthday that day with my Mom. The course went through a local forest preserve and featured runners, walkers and plenty of four-legged friends along the way. It was a fun little run.

Send me your suggestions for my next marathon, please. And if you come across my sweaty, smelly clothes from the Vancouver Marathon …

Ross.












No comments: