The pain screamed through her belly and Margit Mikkelsen was forced to surrender herself to the emergency room. She is a single mother of two, a resident of Palatine, an office manager for a corporation in Bloomingdale and one of the unheralded thousands who will run in the LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon on Sunday.
She had been dreaming of the race, training for it for nearly two years. But as she awaited a doctor’s verdict in a sterile hospital room, she suddenly realized that chance might be stripped from her, so she found herself cutting a deal.
“God,” she said silently, “if you want me to be sick, let me be sick after the marathon. Let me run the marathon.”
She describes it as “plea-bargaining with the Good Lord,” as she recalls it with a soft laugh.
Mikkelsen was able to continue her training after that bit of bargaining and come Sunday will be there to start her first marathon. But Tuesday, only five days before the race that has been her grail, she learned the reason behind her pain and it was shocking, terrifying, the worst kind of news.
She has a malignant tumor on her right ovary. On Monday she will undergo surgery.
“The good thing,” she says determinedly, “is I can still run the marathon. The other good thing is, hopefully we found it in the early stages.
“But I’ll deal with that on Monday. Right now I’m too hyped up about Sunday. It’s a dream come true. I didn’t want anyone to take it from me. I can’t wait. I’m not going to let anything take away the excitement from my heart that I feel for the marathon.”
Dripping with legend and mystique, the event can have a mesmerizing effect, which is why there will be competitors with their own stories throughout the Chicago field. Take 35-year-old George Burns, who will be competing in his 10th marathon despite being confined to a wheelchair with spina bifida.
For years he had been hoping for a new wheelchair, but couldn’t afford one on his limited income. His plight came to the attention of the White Sox, with whom he’d become familiar as a Comiskey Park regular, and a member of the organization fronted Burns the $2,500 he needed to buy the wheelchair he will race in Sunday.
The Ronald McDonald House, the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, the American Cancer Society, Chicago Tribune Charities–all will benefit in some measure from the Chicago marathon, as will the Leukemia Society of America. Its Team in Training, a group of runners and walkers and cyclists committed to raising funds for research and patient aid, has selected Chicago as one of the five marathons in which it will participate this year.
Mikkelsen, 48, knew nothing of the event as recently as 1995. But then a friend from Germany flew in to run in it and, as she watched her friend that day, Mikkelsen was transported and transformed.
“The excitement was so catching, the energy in the air,” she recalls. “I hadn’t run a step in my life, but I decided then I wanted to try.”
The next day she went to the library, checked out some running books, studied their suggestions and got ready for her first workout. Jog as far as you can, walk and recover, and repeat for 18 minutes–that was her first workout.
“I maybe went two blocks (running)–that was as far as I could do,” she recalls. “I was huffing and puffing like crazy.”
But in December she finished her first 3-mile run. “I was so excited I felt I’d conquered the world,” she says.
She also joined the Arlington Trotters and trained with the Chicago Area Runners Association, and in September 1996 she competed in and finished a half-marathon.
Her goal then shifted to Sunday’s race, and she has prepared relentlessly. Her 22-year-old son, Brian, will come home from Southern Illinois, and his 19-year-old brother, Erik, will come home from Illinois State, and together they will cheer their mom as she fights through the ravages of the race and the terrible disease that has invaded her body.
“Am I scared?” she says, answering a final question. “No, no. I’m ready to go. I’m so excited I can’t stand it. I dream of it. I think of it all the time. My co-workers think I’m absolutely crazy. Some of them are proud of me, but some think I’m crazy.
“My boss said to me, `I can drive it faster in my Mercedes.’
“I just told him, `Yes, but you won’t have the satisfaction I’m going to have.’ “
