To Canada and Beyond

Detroit Free Press Half Marathon
Detroit, MI
7.4 Mile Split: 1:08:23...On pace
Underwater Mile Split: 9:30...Still doing OK
Overall Time: 2:15:02 (2743/4722 OA, 1246/ F, 190/409 AG)....I blew up

Pre-Race Goal: 2:00:00 or less
Breakfast Report: Multigrain bagel w/ peanut butter, Coffee, about 8 oz Cascade Rush Gatorade
Fashion Report: FreeLove GymGirl skirt, purple Zoot SS top, coordinating black Adidas visor, and my faithful Asics GT-2110s (I did get several votes for the cutest outfit on the course. :))

Sometimes things are just not meant to be but all you can do is learn from the experience and move on. I had set the bar pretty high for my first half marathon and my longest run ever. Coming off a successful tri season, I was the fittest I had ever been in years and feeling very strong during training and I still have no doubts that I have a sub-2 hour HM in me. Just not today.

We had flown in on Thursday night amid the storm of the season. Tornados, wind, rain. You name it. West MI saw it. Miraculously, our flight took off from Minneapolis and landed in Kalamazoo on-time, just as the winds whipped up and the rain started pouring. The winds would remain a constant threat through the whole weekend as would the rising air temperatures. To make it more interesting, my body was staging a revolt, feeling the aftereffects of eating too much chili in the week leading up to our trip. That certainly made staying hydrated more challenging. After a leg-stretching 4-mile run and a short visit with the families on Friday, Chad and I left Nathan with the Grandma & Grandpa and headed off to Detroit for a few days to ourselves before race day.

Race morning dawned….a balmy 59 degrees (UGH!) with a steady 10-15 mph wind gusting up to 25 at times. We’d have a headwind running towards the bridge, a crosswind over the river, and a tailwind in Windsor. We get to the start line in plenty of time to use the facilities and find our corrals – Chad in corral B with the elites and other fastholes, I in corral O with the people shooting for 2 hours. After a few words from Mayor Kwame and Haile Gebrselassie who was running 10 miles for charity, they sang the Canadian and US national anthems, and we were off. It took me two minutes to cross the start mats and we wind through downtown in the predawn light. The wind seems to have died down as we run on the brick roads in front of the old Tiger stadium. I find a group of people wearing Bally pace bibs reading 1:57 so I hang with them for about two miles until I realize they were on pace for a 1:45 HM, way too fast for me so I decide to back off when the girl pacing the 2:00 group blew by me and the “1:57” folks. HUH?!? I decided to forget the pacers and run my own race. We run through Mexican town where the aroma of fresh-baked corn tortillas fills the air. Not so nice for my chili-plagued tummy but it passes quickly as we head up the ramp to the Ambassador Bridge as the rising sun peeks over the horizon. Gorgeous! I was maintaining a comfortably hard pace of about 9:15-9:20, right where I wanted to be before I planned to turn it up after the tunnel. We crossed over into Windsor marking my first ever International run and turn down the riverfront. I can’t say enough about how welcoming the citizens of Windsor were. They lined the roads and cheered their hearts out. After about two miles in Canada, a platoon of Marines running in formation and in cadence caught up with us. The cadence call gave us civilians a great lift and we were a bit bummed when the platoon had to detour to the blue thrones right before the tunnel.

Ah, the tunnel. The start of the underwater mile and unbeknownst to me, my undoing. I entered the tunnel with about 1000 of my fellow runners and hoots and hollers echoing off the walls. This is going to be fun. Or so I thought. Who turned on the sauna? The air temperature rose about 30 degrees as you ran further into the strength-sapping tube. It was uncomfortably hot and stuffy. As I cross the line marking the border, my heart rate spiked and stayed there for a few minutes and I began to taste my breakfast again. Uh oh. This is definitely not part of the plan. I slowed to an easy jog and managed to recover the heart rate a bit just as we exited the tunnel right into a brisk 20 mph headwind. OK, now who turned on the blast chiller? Time to turn it up…or not. The combination of the heat of the tunnel followed by the chill wind made both my calves painfully seize. YEOUCH!!! I kept running albeit at a slower plod because I wasn’t sure if I could get going again if I started to walk. Sheer stubbornness got me to mile 10 when I had to give up on the “Walk/Don’t Walk” fight and kissed my goal good-bye. My legs just couldn’t go anymore. I ran/walked the last 5K, walking every aid station and for a minute every 1/3 mile or so. I turned down Woodward and helped by the cheering masses, dug down and found another gear to sail to the finish. I did it. In retrospect, after sulking about my result for a while and mulling over the day’s events, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I left everything out on the streets of Detroit. I was unprepared for the opposing conditions of the tunnel versus the outside. It was a hard fought race.



There are a few things I would do differently next time:

1. Extend the length of my taper to 2 weeks and run my last 11+ long run 2 weeks out and maybe do an over-distance long run about a month out
2. Don’t pick another race with such a long enclosed space
3. Lay off the chili the week prior.

It was a learning experience and as such a good race.

Now it’s time for a short unfocused *off-season* before I start base for next year. I still have a score to settle with this distance. Bring it on!