Official Time of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon

Wanted to add some more pics and notes about the whole Marathon experience. It started of with dinner at a restaurant in Vancouver with Mandy. We headed to Nadja's house to stay there as we needed to be at the Vancouver airport way to early in the morning. Her house is a little closer to the airport. She had offered to drive us to there as we had to be there very early for our flight. Thanks Nadja!!

Nadja eating a late dinner Mandy prepared for her.



We got to the airport very early>
There are no problems getting on the plane. Mandy and I are seated togeather for the flight. We land in Chicago and jump on the train that takes us to downtown Chicago. We head to the hotel. Kathy arrives a little later, and we all head out to pic up are bib's and shirts and all the pre marathon stuff.











We wake up way to early in the morning. Mandy and I had gone shopping for some breakfast to have in the morning before the Marathon. I didn't want to change my meal to much from what I had used when I was training. So we eat a quick breakfast, and head out to the start line.



After waiting to long to take a pee we say goodbye to Mandy and try to find our pace group section. We get in the group at about the 4:45-5:00 group. The gun goes off!!! The Marathon begins!!!

The next four hours and fourty nine minutes are a mix of excitement, smells, pee breaks, gel shots, and thousands of people all doing the same things. We manage to keep pace with the 4:45 group, and seemed to fluctuate between the 4:00 hour group, and the 4:15 hour group. At some point I realized that passing people was going to be hard. I thought that I could pick up the pase to try and meet the 4:00 hour time I was planning on. I looked at my sister and I relax. Fuck the time. I am running a fucking marathon with my sister!!!! that really hit home about 20 minutes into the marathon. All my training, all my planning, all my work, had come together. Running through Chicago with my sister is beyond my laboured brains ability to express in words. I had achieved something I never thought I could do.

It amazes me when I think about the last 7 years. I never would have thought I would be running a marathon, in Chicago, with my sister, when I was a drug addict. To anyone who is ever been down and out, you know what I mean when it all hits home. The drugs wear off, you have that moment that it all hits home, how did I get here? What am I doing? Why am I doing this to myself, to those that love me? This is not me. I am better than this. All those nights of thinking so little of myself. Doing things I never thought I would do. I did allot of things I am not proud of, I did allot of things I will never forget, brain injured or not. Who would have thought that the guy with no future, no education, no job would get clean and sob re, get a decent job, meet the love of his life. Have his skull removed to stop his brain from exploding inside his skull. Loose his memory, his home, and his job. Spend a year in recovery. Propose to Mandy in Toronto. Get his sorry ass into college and now here he is. Running a Marathon with his sister in Chicago!!! I need to type that again. Running a Marathon with MY sister in Chicago. Life is so amazingly bizarre sometimes.

Mandy is meeting us along the way to try and take pictures.

We finish the Marathon. We are tired, sore, hungry, excited, enjoying the runners high. We cross the finish line and get in line to have the chip removed from our feet. We collect our medal, we get wrapped in a special blanket to keep us warm, we get some banana's and quickly get out the street. It's over. It happened so fast, one minute I am giving every last bit of physical and mental energy I have. The next I am wearing a metal, wrapped in a blanket, and eating a banana. The Marathon is over. I did it.

We start walking back to the hotel. Already talking about the next marathon!!! Perhaps Hawaii, or Disney land......how about a triathlon. God what have I done to myself!!!

We head out to dinner, we went to a fondue place called "The Melting Pot" that was amazing. You get a big pot of oil and veggies, and fruit. Then for the desert CHOCOLATE FONDUE. It was fondue heaven. We were so hungry, so sore....our dinner was incredible, fantastic restaurant staff; who took some pictures for us. What a day!!

We head back to the apartment tired and full.


The strangest thought just went through my head. What if my injury, my memory being wiped out, has somehow giving me a mulligan or a restart on life? I mean I was clean for several years before the injury, met Mandy, had a job. But since I woke up I have gotten engaged, gone back to college, run a marathon. Maybe some of the brain damage somehow took the fear out of me, or flicked some sort of ambition switch. What caused the drive? I mean I have the same ambition I did before. I want the same things. Why do I get it down now? as aposed to before?

I just did alot of whining before the injury, I could find something wrong with everything, lots of reasons as to why I couldnt do things. How life was not working out for me. Since the accident I have the same consequences to my actions, I have the same challenges. I would say even more challenges. Yet I accomplish more! Strange. I don't know what I am trying to say, but as I was editing this post. I started to think about what I have done post injury? Maybe I should have had my head explode years ago...maybe not!!