HEALTHY LIVING
“My wife looked at me like I was crazy”
TEAM WORK: Chris Sorensen, above left, and Dr. Jim Shaffer traveled north to compete in the Chicago Marathon on Oct. 11. For Sorenson, it was his first marathon, and for Shaffer, his 29th.
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA– Suntree’s Chris Sorensen remembers the first 15 miles of this year’s Chicago Marathon as like a giant block party, but on a metropolitan scale. Everywhere he ran, people cheered him on.
“Every single step I took, there were hundreds of people on my left and on my right cheering me on,” Sorensen said of his first-ever participation in the 32nd annual Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Oct. 11. He ran with Health First colleague Dr. Jim Shaffer, a distance running veteran who completed his 29th marathon.
“The city just lit up,” said Sorensen, 37. “And, each part of Chicago had a theme. If you ran through Chinatown, they had a party with that country’s theme. If you ran through Little Italy, they had a party with that country’s theme. That kept me going for the first 15 miles.”
Sorensen, who is Vice President of Corporate Risk Management and Chief Compliance Officer for Health First, even made it through every runner’s main obstacle: the 20-mile barrier, where the physical and emotional strain of a race begin to take its toll. By the time he reached the 25-mile point of the 26.2-mile race, he was struggling to even run slowly.
At race time, temperatures registered below 40 degrees.
“It wasn’t hard to breathe,” he said. “What was tough on me was my knees. It felt like bone on bone. But, my main goal was to not walk.”
The toughest part of the race for Sorensen, however, came a little more than a mile later. “There was a hill at the end of the race,” Sorensen recalled with a laugh. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Somehow, Sorensen willed himself to the finish, marking the first time ever he had completed a marathon. The longest he had ever run prior to that point was 21 miles.
“I was elated,” he said. “I had worked really hard for four months. You spend a lot of time by yourself in your mind (when you train). You can’t imagine what the finish line feels like. The finish line was the most amazing thing I had ever felt.”
Competing in the Open Race, Sorensen finished with a clock time of 5 hours, 47 minutes and 49 seconds, good enough for 29,129th place out of a whopping 33,701 finishers.
Shaffer, himself, was equally as elated for Sorensen. “Chris did an awesome job,” said Shaffer, who finished in 2,333th place (3:21.05 clock time) while competing in his third consecutive Seeded race. It was Shaffer’s fifth Chicago Marathon.
“Few people make a decision to complete such a task and then follow through on their first attempt,” Shaffer said. “Chris did the training and ran a smart race. Most importantly, he came out totally uninjured.”
Persuasive Speech
Chris and Cindy Sorensen, above, and Jim and Andrea Shaffer, below left, enjoyed all the best that the “Toddling Town” had to offer during their trip to the city to compete in the Chicago Marathon.
Sorensen can thank Shaffer’s persuasive speech abilities for getting him to run in this year’s Chicago Marathon.
“My wife, Cindy, and I, and Jim and his wife, Andrea, actually started talking about it one day,” Chris Sorensen said.
“My wife looked at me like I was crazy.”
Cindy Sorensen’s reaction certainly was justified. Although Chris competed on the track and field team at Auburndale High School in the early 1990s, his specialties were the long jump and 440-yard run. He didn’t run in college, and his best attempt at distance running was a 10-kilometer run (6.2 miles) two years ago in the Health-First Triathlon.
“I kind of figured for the whole thing that I would do some research,” Chris said. “I knew it would be hard running it. But, my ultimate goals were not to walk and to make it across the finish line before the Kenyans made it back to Africa.”
Under Shaffer’s guidance, Sorensen trained for the race in increments, working his way from running in time allotments (10 to 45 minutes) to miles.
“Your body gets used to it,” Sorensen said. “I didn’t get an injury. You have to do it the right way. If it hadn’t been for the schedule that Jim gave me, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
“Chris is one of those adventure-minded guys not afraid to try anything,” said Shaffer, a Viera resident. “I figured this would be one of the safer things he’s tried out, plus we had a great time training.”
Training has become second nature for Shaffer, who started running while in college to keep his weight under control. His first marathon was the Columbus Marathon in 1991 when he finished with a time of 3:40.
“I actually had been fascinated with running long distances since childhood,” Shaffer said.
Shaffer’s current running regimen prepared him well for this year’s Chicago Marathon. He runs most days, maintaining a comfort level of about 15 miles. He began to ramp up for Chicago about three months in advance.
Although his time in this year’s Chicago Marathon wasn’t a personal best, he enjoyed the race. “This year’s race was a pleasure,” said Shaffer, whose best time came about 10 years ago in the Boston Marathon, where he ran a 2:57.40. “It was cool, but that works to your advantage.”
Shaffer, who is the Medical Director of VitalWatch, Health-First’s eICU program, certainly knows how to differentiate between the advantages and disadvantages in a marathon. Among the craziest obstacles he and others typically face include: “GI distress, muscle cramps that come out of nowhere, hitting the proverbial “Wall” around mile 20, and, sometimes, just battling negative thoughts that creep in about the same time fatigue develops,” he said.
Having overcame the latest set of obstacles in finishing the Chicago Marathon, Shaffer and Sorensen plan to team up again for another challenge: the Ironman in New Zealand in 2011. “We’ll do a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and a 26.2-mile marathon,” Shaffer said.
“I’m going to do it,” Sorensen said.
Nobody doubts Sorensen, anymore. After all, he probably can already hear the cheers from the New Zealanders in his mind.
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