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It’s not even 8 o’clock on a brisk Saturday morning and Melissa Nardi has already run 8 miles before most of the city has wiped the sleep from its eyes. Nardi and a group of runners with the Chicago Area Runners Association have been training together over the summer, building up their mileage in preparation for the main event Sunday.

“It’s hard to get up, but once you’re out there, you’re happy you did it, and the group makes it easier because there’s some accountability,” said Nardi, a 34-year-old Lake Shore East resident. “You’re always happy you did it once you’re out there.”

Nardi will be one of around 45,000 people taking to the streets Sunday to run the 38th annual Bank of America Chicago Marathon. It’s a field that includes runners of varying experience, from relative newcomers like Nardi, who will be running her second Chicago Marathon, to experienced veterans like Trisha Palma and Stephanie Lo, who will be running in their 11th and 15th Chicago Marathons, respectively.

“I mainly run Chicago because Mile 26 is literally two blocks away from my house, so I can’t even let it pass by on the years that I thought about passing it by,” said Lo, a 46-year-old South Loop resident. “I know that weekend will come by and I will be so pissed off if I have to see anybody running by. I guess I’ve gotta move if I wanna take a break.”

Palma will be running as part of a pace group with the Chicago Area Runners Association, or CARA.

“I love running on the pace team for the marathon,” she said. “I get to relive the first time with other first-timers.”

That’s because while Sunday’s race is old hat for veterans like her, it’s uncharted territory for rookies like Julie Flutterman and Kari Berglund, who will be running the marathon for the first time this year.

A couple of weeks ago, the CARA group completed a 20-mile run, farther than Flutterman and Berglund ever had run before. At that point, for the two of them, it became real.

“It was the first day I thought I could run a marathon,” said Berglund, a 26-year-old Logan Square resident. “The 20-miler was the day where [I realized] it’s going to happen and I can actually do the entire marathon distance.”

“The last two miles were not so great,” said Flutterman, a 28-year-old Gold Coast resident. “I was just exhausted by then and it was hard to keep pushing but I did it.”

It is around that point, the 18- to 20-mile mark, marathon veterans say, where your body and mind start to realize just how far you’ve run.

“[At Mile] 18, you’re starting to have a sense of awareness of how difficult it is,” said Phillip Sitar, 42, who lives downtown and will be running his ninth Chicago Marathon. “By 22, you start to pray. You say to yourself, ‘You’ve gotten through 20, you’re at 22 miles, you’re almost there,’ and that light at the end of the tunnel is what helps get you to it.”

“I feel like that stretch is where most runners start to lose it mentally, where they feel like they just can’t keep going,” Palma added. “Mile 23 is another one where I fall apart again mentally. At that point, you make that decision to walk or keep on going.”

What helps many marathoners keep on going, they say, is the enthusiasm of the thousands of spectators lining the route.

“It is like a 26.2 mile block party,” said Kristan Huenink, a 34-year-old West Loop resident who will be running in her sixth Chicago Marathon. “[My] favorite stretch has got to be coming through Boystown. It’s just crazy. You never know what you’re going to see. My first year, I had Gatorade handed to me by a bearded Superwoman.”

“The crowds are a huge help,” Nardi added. “It’s just, you’ve done this, you can do this, keep putting one foot in front of the other like you have all summer.”

Matt Lindner is a RedEye special contributor.