Run. Walk. Crawl. Just finish.

Final Post. After running hundreds of miles this year in anticipation of the Detroit Marathon, and waiting and waiting, it finally came. I was hoping for around 4 hours, 30 minutes. Final time: 5 hours, 16 minutes.

I was up by 4am this morning, and down to Detroit around 6am. Rachel and Trevor were there also; all of us nervous for the run that we have been thinking about for the last 5 months. We knew there were so many things that could go wrong during the run, but we were staying positive. We worked for this, and no matter what, we were going to cross that finish line.

We could not have asked for better weather. It was cool when we started at 7:15; well, cold actually. I had on running pants and gloves. The gloves were gone at mile 3, and the pants were gone at mile 8. (I did have shorts on underneath.) We started smooth and tried to stay around a 10 minute 30 second pace. The Ambassador Bridge was around mile 2 or 3, and it was beautiful to see the sun coming up over the Detroit River. The bridge was warmer than I thought it would be. I was expecting a lot of wind and cold breeze off the water, but it was warm. Maybe because of all the bodies around each other at the beginning of the race. Running along the river in Windsor was also beautiful, and the sun was shinning brightly by the time we made it through the underwater tunnel and back into MI.

We had Chris, my mom, Trevor’s mom, and Jacque greet us outside of the tunnel, which was about mile 8 1/2. They held up signs for us, and we were feeling pretty pumped at that point. We stopped to use the restroom, and some guy cut in front of me in line (not a friendly runner thing to do) , and we lost about 10 minutes of time on that break.  But that was ok, we continued on, past the 11 (where a group was handing out M&M’s that tasted so good at that point), 12, 13 mile mark. We ran through Mexican town, Indian village, and several water and aid stations.

We were feeling pretty good, and then around mile 17 or 18  Rachel’s knees starting hurting her, and she said that she was seeing stars. We tried to walk for awhile, but she was still not feeling well, and being the sweet-heart she is, she told us to go on ahead without her. She did not want to hold us back. We said OK, told her to keep going and don’t give up, and we started running again. Then it hit me. She is the reason I am in this race. She asked me if I wanted to run in it with her back in about March, and I had thought she was crazy at the time, but I signed up anyway.  Then I got Trevor to sign up. She was the reason this run got started for us, and there was no way I was going to keep going without making sure she made it to the finish line, so I started crying (emotions run high at this point in the run), and I told Trevor good luck and he told me that he loved me (which, being my brother in law, was a very sweet thing to say. I am very weird about saying I love you to people, and it really touched my heart that he said that),  and I walked back to get Rachel.

For the next 8 miles, we walked, ran, took a few breaks, but we stayed side by side. Rachel was still not feeling well, and I questioned myself whether I should keep telling her to run, but I did. I can’t say that I was not a little disappointed that we were walking, because I wanted to give it my all today and cross that finish line with nothing left.  But now I look back, and I feel like I gave my all to my friend, and that means more to me than my pace in the race.

We crossed the finish line holding hands, and I started crying.

It was a great year training, and I am so proud of all the people that I know who ran in the race; including Rachel, Neal, and Trevor.

I am icing my legs right now, taking pain meds, and feeling terrible, but I am finally done. The movie I watched last night “The Spirit of the Marathon” said that there are only two types of runners: non-marathoners, and marathoners, and now I am forever in the marathoners group, and I think it’s pretty cool.

Running a marathon is like a metaphor for  life: you will meet rough patches along the way, and there are times when you will want to give up, but you WILL keep going, and you WILL do your best, and you WILL finish.

I’m resting for the rest of the year. Love, Jen

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