So this was meant to be my goal race. This was going to be my attempt at redeeming myself from my first Marathon performance that left me crawling into the finish line. To keep the suspense from building too much, there was no redemption on this day, but there was a feeling of pride.
I had not had the best training session for this marathon. I know everyone has things come up, but for some reason I had a lot of things that just caused me to make it to the starting line thinking “What am I going to do”. I knew I didn’t have the distance in my legs as I had only run 236KMs in 2 months leading up to the race and I knew that I was currently battling a little bit of a bronchial infection.
Even the morning of the race I was questioning wether I should run it, but with all the excitement I decided to just go for it. Made it to start corral C which was a corral behind my listed corral (I wasn’t delusional of pulling out a goal A race here). I crossed the line around 7:02 into the darkness of a cool Detroit Sunday morning. I have read from others that the start line and running out to the Ambassador bridge had a lot of run-down buildings, but it was so dark and I was too busy questioning myself every step that I didn’t notice.
We hit the Ambassador Bridge at about 5KM’s and while the climb isn’t too steep you do notice it. The opposite decline is a nice way to start off your run along the Windsor waterfront. Detroit looks so nice from Windsor (Grass is always greener). We ran in Canada for about 5KMs which mostly all felt on a decline for me. I think recently I have been feeling flat as decline for some strange but good reason. It is along this portion where you start passing all of the eager beavers of the half marathon and the people holding on in the relays.
At around 11K with make our way into the only underwater mile and it is at this point I feel the old rumbling in the stomach. The decline into the tunnel is a lot greater that you would think and so is the incline out back into Detroit. It is nothing that will kill you but it isn’t flat. I was told that the tunnel would be hot and smelly and that everyone will be yelling making it very loud. I really didn’t notice to much of any of that. Maybe because we were one of the first 3 corrals going through, but only a few people were yelling and it was warmer, but not too bad.
Upon exiting the tunnel you do notice a little gust of cold air, so don’t ditch all the gloves in the tunnel. You run past the armed border patrol for the second time and are now back into the States. This was a little bit of a relief for me as an issue with us being told to bring our passports while running came up at the race expo. We were told that we were cleared by the border patrol but checks could be made and we would have to show our passport to get out quickly. Well I don’t have any spot for a passport in my running gear, as I am sure not many of you do either. I also didn’t want to worry about losing it while I was running so I made the decision to take my chances. I am glad I did as the only thing I saw border patrol looking for was to see if you were wearing a number.
So we make our way back into the states and I see some porta-potties that I was tempted to stop at, but decided that I would fight my stomach and hope it went away. I have never stopped in a race to use the bathroom and I didn’t want to start today. Well, at about 16K I couldn’t fight the fight anymore and made a porta-potty stop. For those interested, it took me 2 minutes and 37 seconds lol. Then I was back on the road trying to find my pace again.
The half cut off was a hard part of the race for me. I always had in the back of my mind that if I wasn’t feeling it that I could just finish the half and call it a day. I put this thought back into the part of my brain where I store my childhood pain and just kept running.
It was soon after the half way point that I told myself if I wanted to finish I was going to have to take some walk breaks and I decided on doing 4Ks of running followed by 200 metres of walking. This worked fairly well until I got out onto the Island at about 31KM’s. My legs were done. Not just in the “they were hurting” meaning, but in the “who put 20 pounds of concrete in my legs” meaning. I wasn’t even able to make it 2K without needing to walk let alone 4. It is at this point where all the fresh relay runners pass you and you start to curse them silently in your head.
1K running, 100 Metres walking.. This is what my race came too. I am not even sure if I still classify as a ‘racer’, but I really needed to get to that finish line. Was it determination, was it the medal or was it because that is where the hotel was? With 3 miles left every spectator could see the pain in my face and would yell out things like “only 3 miles left, how many times have you ran 3 miles?”. It is so hardening to not be able to just run the 5K into the finish. It is such a small distance and you would never think it would stop you, but they are right in saying that the last 10K of a marathon is pure guts. With about 2K left to go there was a table set up giving out shots of beer and I thought to myself “why not” and helped myself to a nice dark ale. Cheers to you for somehow getting away with breaking so many obvious liquor laws lol.
I shuffled my way into the finish in a time of 3:48:XX. Not even beating my PB from the first marathon, but I was so proud of what I just did. I didn’t care that my time wasn’t better, I cared that it actually was in the same ballpark. I finished a marathon I had no business running and I came close to setting a PB. Wasn’t an ideal performance by any means, but I can’t say that I didn’t give it all I had as the 1K walk back to the hotel was the most painful walk I have had in my entire life.
I actually enjoyed the Detroit course. I found it very flat and there were enough turns that you kept your sanity, but not too many that you felt you were going through a maze. The medals were amazing. Each year they choose a different Detroit made car to highlight on the medal. This year it was a corvette (not sure which year). The ribbon had the stars and stripes on half and the Canadian flag on the other half with 26.2 written on it. The weight of the medal was crazy, I almost tipped over when they put it on me.
Sorry for the long race report but I hoped you got something out of my ramblings of what to expect if you decide to run Detroit. And a little tip, don’t run a marathon feeling sick. I ended up getting pneumonia in my left lung and have been shuffling around the house for 2 weeks. It was worth it though.
