Chicago Thought

Well first I would like to thank everyone that encouraged and coached me along the way. Without your help I wouldn't have even tried.
Before the race even started I managed to break my earphones and could only use one side but that was ok. I had an old pair of sunglasses to use when it got sunny, I lost those at mile 5! As the race went on and things got hotter I really doubted if I would finish and that was at mile 7. There seemed to be no water stop between 4 and 8 or something like that. I carry a huge jug but even that was almost gone. I never seemed to find my groove. My Garmen was not able to give me an accurate reading because of the buildings so I tried to watch my pace group as best I could. Later the Garmen was fine.
As the temperature rose the water stops took more time to get through and the runners were slowing. About halfway I would run as far as I could then walk a little then run again. I made it to mile 20 doing this. My time was really slow at this point but I knew I could make it now. Then the police announced that we had to stop running and could only walk the rest of the race because of the extreme conditions. I really was drained at that time. Another runner asked me if she could walk with me because her foot really hurt and needed some encouragement. I'm glade she did, we walked as fast as we could. At that point the race looked more a sea of refugees. She ran in the last mile and I ran in the last half mile.
Even though the weather conditions were extreme bad, It wasn't something I could look back at and say " what a great race I did". It was hard and ugly but I'm glade I was able to finish. And to see so many people struggle and help one another was really amazing!
Will I do it again? I think so, Thanks, Mike