Chicago Marathon 2009: my first marathon, split by split

On 11 October 2009 I ran my first marathon in Chicago. I was 23, I had started training about three and a half months earlier, much of it while backpacking through South America, and I finished in 4:25:55 net time. I wrote about it two days later on a travel blog, and I published the official results table alongside the photos.

The original story of how I came to be in Chicago is already on this site in how I ran my first marathon in Chicago. This page does something different. It takes the split table I saved in 2009 and reads it the way I would read it now, after 30-plus marathons and two 2024 Centurion finishes: what the numbers say about pacing, what I wrote at the time, and what a first-timer can take from it.

The official record

These figures are copied from the results table I published on 13 October 2009. I have not adjusted or re-timed anything.

Gun time was 4:47:50: the 22-minute gap is simply how long it took to shuffle across the start line from a corral at the back. Placings in the same table were 17,525th overall, 11,782nd man and 929th in my age group. The per-5K column is my own subtraction of the published splits.

What the splits actually show

Read straight down the right-hand column and the race tells its own story. The first 25K were remarkably even, every 5K between about 28:51 and 30:15. That is roughly the pace of a 4:10 marathon, which matches what I wrote at the time: "First 17 miles I wasn't too bad – running for a 4 hour 10 minute finish."

Then the column changes. 31:56 from 25K to 30K. 34:45 to 35K. 37:54 to 40K. Each block is two to three minutes slower than the last. Nothing dramatic happened; there was no fall and no single bad mile. It was a slow, steady loss of pace, which is what running out of fuel and fitness tends to look like on paper.

The mistake I named myself

In the race-day diary I admitted it plainly: I had no idea how to pace myself and set out for the first 13 miles quicker than I should have, "aiming to beat every 2nd man". Picking off other runners in the early miles feels like progress. The split table shows the bill arriving after 30K.

The fair way to read this is not that the first half was reckless; 2:04:44 is not wildly fast. It is that the first half was set for a runner with more training than I had. Three and a half months of inconsistent running across several countries built enough to finish, not enough to hold 4:10 pace.

What I wrote about the day

Most of the 2009 diary is about the experience rather than the numbers, and a few details have aged well:

• The size of it. I described limbering up with roughly 40,000 other runners as "a sea of runners, with an ocean of support at their sides".
• Drinking on the move. I chose not to stop at aid stations and noted that half of every cup ended up on my face. I stopped only three times, for toilet breaks.
• Discarded clothing. For the first several miles runners shed layers and you spend time hopping over them.
• The last 3.2 miles. The friend I was staying with joined me for the final stretch. I was not gracious about it in the moment, but I wrote afterwards that having someone alongside helped me keep working, and that a running partner would make me faster.
• The finish. My legs cramped badly once I crossed the line, and I turned down an offer of medical help.

I also called it "the most intense and painful thing I have ever done", despite years of football, weight training and rowing. That line is the honest centre of the whole story: general fitness from other sports did not transfer to 26.2 miles as well as I had assumed.

Why the race was in Chicago at all

I ran to raise money for a charity supporting underprivileged South Asians, and I committed publicly before I had done the training. The full background, including how little running I had done beforehand, is in the original first-marathon story. The training itself happened largely on the road in South America, which is a separate story: training for my first marathon while backpacking through Bolivia.

What I would tell a first-time marathoner now

These are reflections from my own experience, not a coaching prescription.

• Pick your first-half pace from your training, not your hopes. My first 25K belonged to a better-prepared runner.
• Expect the second half to be slower and plan for it. A small, deliberate slowdown is very different from the 38-minute 5K I ran between 35K and 40K.
• Practise drinking while running if you are not going to stop. It is a skill.
• Company helps late on. I said so in 2009, and I have relied on support in every long race since, most of all at the Winter Downs 200.
• Finishing counts. My last line that day was a target: come home under four hours in 2010 or 2011. Five months later I ran Barcelona in about 3:45.

Questions readers ask

What was your Chicago Marathon 2009 time?

4:25:55 net (chip) time and 4:47:50 gun time, bib 21910, in the 20–24 age group, from the official results table I published on 13 October 2009.

What was your half-marathon split?

2:04:44, which put me on course for roughly 4:10 before the later 5K splits slowed from about 29 minutes to nearly 38.

Was Chicago your first marathon?

Yes. It was my first marathon, run aged 23 after about three and a half months of training.

Is this a marathon training plan?

No. It is my own race analysed after the fact. Use a qualified coach or an established plan for your own training.

Sources and notes

• Official time and splits (my 2009 travel blog)
• Race-day diary, 13 October 2009
• Closing post, 14 October 2009

Per-5K times are my own arithmetic from the published elapsed splits. Quotations are from my own 2009 posts.

Written in October 2026 from my own contemporaneous records.