Race Recap: Detroit Free Press Relay – Part 2

This is a continuation of Part 1 of my Free Press Relay recap.

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I put in one earbud as I ran down toward the MacArthur Bridge, passing over the “leg 5 start mat” that would read my chip to calculate my start time.  Within seconds I was approaching the bridge, and I decided that I wanted to enjoy the experience of running over that pretty bridge without the distraction of music, and so I pulled out the earbud and wrapped it around my bra strap.  I never did turn my music back on, which just tells you how much I enjoyed the run!

Running over the bridge was cool—it really is a beautiful bridge. (It even has a website http://www.historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=other/belle/!)

Because you know I’m all about the visuals, here’s a great picture that I am totally stealing borrowing to show its beauty:

Source:  http://greatlakesislandescapes.com/2011/07/26/belle-isle-breezes/

I sourced it, that makes it okay, right?;)

Once I made it over the bridge, what followed was probably the best 4.4 miles of my life. 🙂  I simply cannot describe how awesome it was to run through Detroit, a city that I have come to love with a fierce passion in my 34 years of living in Southeast Michigan.  I never knew Detroit as the world class city that it was from the 1930s to the 1960s, when the auto industry was at its height.  I have heard stories of what an amazing city it once was, but in my lifetime, it has been pretty much exactly the opposite.  There was a time when I lived in the city, from 1997 to 2001, and believe me, I saw the decline, up close and personal, every day.

Detroit is still a long way from anything remotely resembling its amazing past, but on Sunday, when I ran from Belle Isle to the corner of Fort St and Second Ave, I saw glimmers of hope.  And every bright spot was in the form of the people that lined the streets for the marathon.  I couldn’t believe just how many of them were there.  I’ve heard so many people who swear they will never set foot in Detroit because it’s a “dangerous” or “dirty” town, so to see all those people on the streets of the city, in areas that I would not call the best, was really heartening to me.  It gives me hope that our town’s best moments might just lie ahead of it instead of behind.

We ran along East Jefferson for a short while, maybe a half mile or so.  This was my first “big race” experience, and I was astonished to see not only all the spectators, but all the signs!  Some had general words of encouragement, some had the names of specific runners, but the first of my two favorites were right there on Jefferson.  It was so different from the other signs that said, “Good job!” “You can do it!” and all that.  It said:

“Hurry up! I’m sick of holding this sign and yelling about running!”

I laughed out loud at that one, and I yelled out to the lady holding it, “Great sign!”

As I ran along Jefferson, I checked my pace and saw that it was sub-10.  Suddenly, even though I had not had any kind of goal prior to running other than to finish, I decided I wanted to try for a sub-10 pace for the entire 4.4 miles.  This would be a pretty big stretch for me, since I’d never run less than a 10:30 for anything four miles or more up to that point.  But I decided that I wanted to do my best to make my team proud, and I put forth all the energy I had in me to make it happen.

A little over a mile in, we turned onto Mt. Elliot heading toward the Detroit River.  I ran past lots more folks and made a quick turn before ending up on the river walk.  I’d never been on the river walk before, so that was a neat experience.  It was quite beautiful.  And here’s another stolen picture to prove it!

Source:  http://www.detroitriverfront.org/east/talonomni/

We ran along the riverwalk until just past the two mile point, and then it curved around the Rattlesnake Club (high-end restaurant I went to once for a work function).  We went down Joseph Campeau St for a short bit and then we ran down Atwater and another section of the Riverwalk for nearly a mile.

On this leg, I saw something pretty amazing, not once, but twice.  In two separate instances, I saw a runner who stopped suddenly with some kind of obvious pain or injury. Both times, before I could even think of what I might do, a different runner stopped and turned around, immediately offering their assistance.  “You okay? Do you need some help?” they quickly asked.

Both times, the injured runner waved off any help and encouraged the other runner to continue on, but I was just astonished at how quickly and self-lessly those two runners acted to help out someone they obviously didn’t know.  I really think it just shows what a kind, caring group of people runners really are.

Back on the race course, I could feel myself getting tired, and my left thigh began to hurt right about the 2.5 mile mark.  I pressed on, though, still intent to finish sub-10.  We passed Chene Park, a small harbor, and the Tricentennial State Park, all on our left.

Right around the state park was when I saw a really funny sight: there were people lining the course, handing out little cups of beer.  Yes, beer!  I laughed so hard when I realized it!  Considering I was at mile three and getting really tired and pretty sore by that point, the humorous diversion was much appreciated.  There were five or six people right in a row that were handing it out, and they tried really hard to get me to take some.  I honestly wanted to, just to say I drank beer while running at the Free Press marathon relay, lol, but since I don’t like beer to begin with, I decided that beer and running would be a bad mix for me. 😉

Right after the beer “station,” we turned onto Rivard Street, and the minute we made the turn, I groaned. Ahead of me was a huge incline.  (Being from the flatlands of Monroe County, Michigan, I would actually call it a hill, but folks who live in real hilly areas would laugh at me. 😉 )  Most of Detroit really is pretty flat, but, being the history geek that I am, I knew that this hill was actually the rise of land that extended up from what used to be the Savoyard Creek, which had been covered and turned into a sewer in the mid-1800s.  The fact that I was about to pass over a cool piece of Detroit history didn’t change the fact that I was still going to have to run up that damn hill, though! 😛

The look on my face must have said it all, because one of the many onlookers/cheerlearders immediately began to yell out encouragement to me: “It’s okay! You’re almost there!” he yelled.  “Just this one last hill, and then it’s all downhill and flat land from there on out!  Just get to the top.  You can do it!”  I smiled and waved in thanks as I ran past him, though I would have really preferred to curl up into a ball at his feet. 😉

I did eventually make it up the hill, and almost immediately after I reached the top, we made a left-hand turn onto Larned.  I checked my pace, and I was bummed to see it was about 10:07 for that mile, so I drew upon my reserve energy as best I could and picked it up a notch.  At this point, we were getting into the very heart of downtown, and I passed lots of beautiful old buildings as I ran through the University of Detroit Mercy campus. I did my best to really look around me throughout the race, and although I know I missed a lot, I did get to see a good bit of the city, and it was fun to see it from this new perspective.

Larned St. runs under a building called the Millender Center, which put us through a tunnel, of course.  I honestly can barely remember this, but I do remember looking at my Garmin right after Randolph Street and realizing that my GPS signal was lost.  Stupid me, I thought it was due to the tall buildings…that’s how “out of it” I was when we went through that tunnel, lol!  I was bummed, but I figured I would just run my best at that point.  When we crossed Woodward, I was surprised to see that they were actually letting traffic cross.  The police were letting one car at a time go through, based on the timing of the runners.  One guy waited waaaay longer than he should have, and I thought for sure I was going to have to stop because he drove right in front of me, but he just made it across before I got in his path.

There were plenty of cops at the Woodward/Larned intersection (Woodward is the main street in downtown Detroit), and as I passed by them, several of them were high-fiving the runners as they went by, me included.  That was pretty cool. 🙂

We hit the four-mile mark right after Woodward, and the spectators were really cheering at that point.  I heard plenty of people calling out “four miles—you’re almost there!” and other such things.  By that time, my Garmin had come back to life, but the timing was skewed due to the missing data.  I just ignored it and came up to the corner at Larned and Washington Blvd.  It was at that point that I saw what I decided was the best sign of the race, and will be the sign that I hold up someday when I am a race spectator.  It was being held by a lady probably in her 50s, who looked like she had probably run a race or two in her day, and it was, to me, very powerful:

“I’m a stranger, but I’m proud of you!”

Although I didn’t feel that it really applied to me, since I was only running 4.4 miles, I thought about how powerful that would be to see if I were a marathoner or half-marathoner, and I actually got a little choked up when I saw it.  I gave her a thumbs up as I went by.

Right after I passed her, I turned onto Washington Blvd, and saw—another hill!  Not as big as the other one on Rivard St. a mile earlier, but definitely not flatland.  As I ran toward it, I remembered the guy that had yelled encouragement to me as I turned onto Rivard, and I couldn’t help but mutter the first thing that came to my mind: “That bastard lied to me!”  😛

I managed to drag my @ss up that hill and then go another block to Fort Street and turn again.  I can’t deny I was bummed that the big Start/Finish arch was still three blocks ahead of me. 😉  But by this time, the crowds were huge and the atmosphere was just electric.  It didn’t even occur to me that I was running down the same street that I’d stood upon at 5:30am that same morning—it looked totally different in the daylight!

The cheers of the crowd really fueled me, and I picked up my pace even more as I ran down Fort Street.  A couple hundred yards before the finish, I heard my name being called—my whole team was on the side of the course, cheering me on! Jessica managed to snap a few pictures of me as I ran past:

The announcer called out our team name as I neared the finish, although he got it wrong. Then he tried again, and got it wrong again.  I think he tried four times, and never got it right once.  Really, how hard is it to say, “Your pace or mine?” LOL

I crossed the finish line and was so happy to stop.  I was tired! I had no idea what time I’d crossed, but I actually did remember to stop my Garmin right at the 4.4 mile mark, which was actually even before I saw my team, and so I took a moment during my cool-down walk out of the exit chute to reset it and see what my general pace was.  I was so excited to see that it was 9:48! I knew I’d lost some data under the tunnel, but I also knew that I had to be fairly close to that.  That made me feel so good!

I was handed a bag and was told to grab some of the free food, and I figured I might as well! I grabbed bananas, apples, pretzels, and even some free single-serve containers of hummus (whose idea was it to give out hummus?! LOL!).  I saw Reanna from my team, but I wanted to go back and get another banana, so I hurried up to do that and then look for Reanna.  But I couldn’t find her!  I looked all over, but there were just so many people.

After a few minutes of searching, I went to the designated “relay reunion” spot and waited.  And waited.  And waited, lol!  I was there for at least 30 minutes.  The problem was that I didn’t have any cell service with my old phone, and there were NO hotspots near me to send an email!  I was afraid to wander off too far to look for a hotspot, so I just stood there, chatting with people as they came by, and enjoying the experience of being “at the race.”

Eventually, I began to be concerned that they were probably searching frantically for me and getting ticked that I was keeping them from going home. So I found a kind stranger who was surprisingly willing to let me use her cell phone to call Jessica.  So willing, in fact, that she handed it to me and then walked away, lol!  Jess didn’t answer, so I left a message telling where I was.  Then I hunted down the lady who’d given me the phone! Another ten minutes passed and I got a bit nervous, so I tried again from a different person’s phone—finally, I got an answer!  Turns out Jessica hadn’t answered the first time because she didn’t recognize the number and didn’t know that my phone had died!

I finally found them, back by the finish line, cheering our friend Katie and all of the other runners across the finish line.  Of course! I should’ve figured that’s where they were!  I was bummed to have missed Katie, but I did stay and cheer on a bunch of other runners as they made their way to the end.  It was a great experience!  Then we found another stranger to take a group picture of us.

It was a beautiful day to be in downtown Detroit!  Eventually, we made our way back to the car, although I had to stop and take a picture or two on the way. 😉

They drove back to the commuter lot where I’d parked my car, and from there, I went immediately to a hockey game for DS#2.  I swore I wasn’t going to run back and forth taking pictures, but of course I did.  😉  By the time the game was over and we got home, my husband and DS#1 were back from Traverse City.  And guess what they brought me?

And not just any fudge, but dark chocolate fudge—my favorite!  I love that my husband knew I would want a little post-race reward for all my hard work. 🙂

Later that afternoon, I hung out with some friends who had done the race, including Katie, her husband, and Jessica, as well as our friend Renee and some of Katie’s other friends from her Ragnar Relay team.  It was really fun to talk about the race with those who had been there, and with those who have run marathons before.  This time last year, I never, ever would have pictured myself sitting around in a group of people, talking about running–and doing it with enthusiasm, lol!

The next day, I was able to look up my “official” pace, which was 9:52.  I was thrilled with that!  It was my best pace by far for anything that long, and I was really proud of myself for putting forth the extra effort to help my team finish well. Our final time was 4:20:31.  Yay, us!!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I am positive that I will participate in this race again someday, depending on how it works out with the dates.  I might even do the half-marathon someday.  Someday. 😉

Thanks for reading!!