Day 1,304: The urban way to train for a marathon

I've always envied my aunt and her city for the ease with which she can train for the Honolulu Marathon each year.

It's so dense in that city that you don't have to run too far without shops and other places to get water or even find a bathroom.

Now that I'm training for the Chicago Marathon, I've been torn between running on a nice suburban rail-to-trail or running around in the 'hood.

The Silver Comet trail would give me the exact distance I would need. There are no cars out but I'd have to make sure I carried enough water.

Today, I ran out in the 'hood. Following the ING Georgia Marathon and Half Marathon routes make it easy, especially the half-marathon route.

At about 5 miles into the run I'm able to duck inside my office building for some water, restrooms and most importantly, a place to swap out my shirt.

Even though it was about 74 degrees out, my shirt was completely done by 5 miles. I now store extra cotton T-shirts at work for whenever my technical T-shirts are too soaked to continue.

At the Highland-Baker/Piedmont intersection, I wavered between continuing on Piedmont to North and back up Central Park like in the ING route. But the truth is, I hate the Central Park hills and was worried that it would stall out my run. One advantage of running to North Avenue is the Publix there, which would provide anything you need.

At times once reaching Euclid Avenue and Little Five Points, I've thought about stopping for Powerade at the corner Chevron. But each time I've talked myself out of it knowing that I can probably make the less than a mile to Buddy's on North Highland and North avenues, or even the CVS on North Highland about a half-mile more away. A little off the course, there's a Publix just west of Ponce de Leon and North Highland avenues.

So I just continued on and ended up stopping back at my place to swap out another shirt before finishing the last mile of the run. I drank a quart and one glass of Gatorade, as an example of how dehydrated I get. I'm glad that I've bought the bulk Gatorade powder from my last trip to the 'Comet and the Hiram WalMart.

At the very end I thought about turning into the park to round out 13 miles but then thought it's unnecessary since I'm going to run in the Rock'n'Roll Chicago Half Marathon on Sunday.

I'm about a week behind where I should be on my running but as long as I find ways to get out there for a long run -- and get out there early enough -- I hopefully will be ok.

Time: 8:15 a.m. (should get out earlier!)
Temp: 74 degrees (increased to 81 degrees by end of run)
Gear: CFSST (New Balance red), SST (Full Tilt), CFSST (Shamrock 5K), shorts, Nike Air Pegasus+ 26/B.