Andy Olson - Aurora, IL

I would like to start out by thanking everyone who donated to the Vascular Disease Foundation. I really do appreciate it greatly. It helped me and the money went to a great cause. I also considered myself privileged to be a part of the 30th Anniversary of the Lasalle Bank Chicago Marathon.

This past year and a half has really been a long journey for me. In the middle of 2006, I lost two of my greatly missed loved ones; my uncle then my Grandma. I still think about them as it was truly a big loss for me. They had a great life and passed basically due to their age. The other thing that I have had to overcome during the course of this year is a fire in the apartment that I had lived in for the past 12 years. I lost all of my personal items including running awards, medals and pictures I have gained through the past twelve years. Then of course I experienced my first move several months later making it a hard for me to leave the general area where I grew up and had lived
for the past 22 years.

This year in running has been great sometimes because it seemed that I had nothing else going, so at least I had running. In my main training that started on the first day of May, I never felt so good about getting started, in fact I wasn't even as sore as previous years. This is when I realized it would be a special season. I ran hard for 23 weeks in preparation for the Marathon. I started with 10 miles for my long run at the end of my first week of training. I continued with building up every Sunday getting to 20 miles twice. I went from 10 to 12,13 back to 10 then 14 working my way up and so on.

This year was quite the journey as well, as many of you know, your long runs sure took some time and I ended up going places I never ran at before. Once I ran to practice 9 miles away to get with the team, the Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove, Illinois. I also did several double runs and had a pair of back to back 15+ mile days of work in. That means I ran a total of more than 1,100 miles this year!

I can say I believe I gave my best to this year's marathon and want to share a few sayings; from Matt Sinnott West Aurora High School in Illinois,"Think to yourself what can I do every day to get better." This really got me going because I would go regularly 20 days or so without giving myself a day off. I went with the theory that every second counts. As for the last quote from my best friend Mike Higgins from Geneva, Illinois, he said, "you got it in you man." This was always said at the right time.

As for the Chicago Marathon, I went in knowing it was hot out and tried to get hydrated going in to the race. I hit every water/gatorade stop along the way. I also took Gu gels about every 5 miles. I started out at the right pace I wanted to be at, which was 7:00, and then 3:10:59 to 3:20. It went well until mile 25. I think the reason I felt okay was because I ran a few long runs in the heat performed generally well. I ran the first half of the race off of pride, and the second half off of belief. My calf cramped at mile 25 at about 3:06:00. Then I drank some water, and walked and jogged, and ran in. I finished in 3:22:09, 746th place, 641st male and 73rd for male athletes 20-24. I beat previous times of 2005 3:30 and 2006 3:33:51.

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