Detroit Women’s Half Marathon Report

Forgive me if you’ve been checking for this report, but I ran a half-marathon on Sunday and felt like I deserved a few days off! 🙂  But I’m back, and I’ll try not to make this too much of a novel. (That’s a lie, by the way. 😉 )

The race was on Belle Isle, which is an island in the middle of the Detroit River. It only has one bridge to get on or off and, well…if that doesn’t sound like a logistical nightmare, I don’t know what does. :p Add to that the fact that the road crew decided to tear up Jefferson Avenue (the main route to the bridge) on Saturday afternoon, and you can imagine what a PITA it was for race day.

We’d gotten an email about the road work late Saturday night, and Toddra (our driver) had already been concerned enough about parking to suggest we meet at 6am to drive up.  I was game and so was Ann, so at 6am, we were on our way.  We made it to the island by 6:30am and got a sweet parking spot.  Yes, we had plenty of time to kill, but it was nice to relax ahead of time; we chatted, hit the portapotties (twice!) and even watched the sunrise.

It was a beautiful morning, chilly at 50 degrees but clear and, thankfully, not windy!

As race time drew near, the traffic was looking pretty bad.  We were so grateful that we’d arrived early. The race start was delayed, so we sat in our car a little longer and then made the short trip to the start line.  Ann and Toddra had matching headbands, and they’d even bought me one, too, so we could get a nice pre-race photo of us “Wonder Women.” 😉

I’m not going to lie…I’m terrible at wearing head bands. :p Mine came off within the first mile, ha ha!

As we made our way up to the starting point, I looked for the pacers. My goal, as stated in my last post, was to try to beat my best time: 2:09:04.  I was really unsure about it, though; that time was achieved almost two years ago, when I ran the Monroe Half with Katie as my personal pacer.  I remember it being hard then, and I was 9 pounds lighter at that point! 🙁 I tried to beat that time last year for my August half, but it turned out to be a miserable race and I actually added 20 minutes to my time for that one. 😮

Still, I figured what was the point of running the race if I didn’t try to improve my time, right? Even if I didn’t make it, I figured I could try to have my second best time (sub-2:15), and even if I didn’t do that, I was sure to beat last year’s (2:29!).

So, with that goal in mind, I had spent much of Saturday trying to determine if I should hang with the 2:10 pacer or the 2:05 pacer.  I didn’t know if I should try to go out fast and give myself a cushion with the 2:05 group, or if I should try to save my energy for a sprint at the end with the 2:10 group. Decisions, decisions. I talked to Katie about it when I stopped by her house on Saturday, and she thought that running with the 2:05 group would be okay. I ended up having dreams about it on Saturday, and when I woke up Sunday, I decided that if I was that panicked about it, I should probably stick with the 2:10ers.

I mentioned my goal to have a personal best to Ann and Toddra on the drive up to Belle Isle, and as I made my way toward the start line and headed to line up behind the 2:10 pacer, Ann said to me that she would “give it a try, too.”

Now, you have to understand, Ann is pretty fast most of the time, so when she said that, my eyes got wide and I blurted out, “If you’re going to just “try”, then I’m screwed!” She laughed and assured me that I would be fine, and she reminded me that she was still recovering from her injury. Seriously, though, a little part of me was really panicked to know that Ann wasn’t positive she could even maintain that pace.

Toddra lined up with us, too, but she warned us that she wasn’t confident she could hang for the whole race, which of course was fine. It’s always more fun to start out with friends than alone, right?

I don’t remember what time we actually started, but it was probably close to about 8:15. There was a pretty good-sized group of us who started out with the 2:10 pacer.  Her name was Kelly.

(Note: the pictures below were either taken by the official photographer or after the race, when I went back because I was too focused on running to take pictures during the race.  One nice perk of this race is that all the photos were free!)

You can see me lined up with the other 600+ runners in the photo below, taken by Greg Sadler. (Since I got them for free, I figure I should at least give him props, right?)

The Wonder Woman headband makes me pretty easy to spot, but I added the red arrow to help you find me.  I’m in the shadow of the 2:10 pacer sign, ha ha, and looking at my watch, of course.  (Just a note, I did a really awful job being photogenic for this race. I’m normally much better than that!)

We were crowded together for the 1st mile or so, as we ran through the woods there in the middle of Belle Isle. It was quite pretty, actually. When we hit the 1st mile marker, we could all hear our watches beep pretty close together, and Kelly, the pacer, mentioned that her Map My Run app hadn’t started on time.  She said she was about half a mile off, but that we shouldn’t worry. Actually, that did worry me; I think the pacer is the one person you really want to make sure has accurate data, am I right? She relied on us to tell her when our watches were marking the miles, since hers was off. Obviously, everyone’s watch was a little bit different, but we did find that, like most races, our watches were off from the marked points by anywhere from .05 to .1 mile. Several of the runners commented on it, as did Kelly, and expressed their frustration, but it didn’t really phase me. I’ve done this enough to know that it’s never going to be exact. Yes, that means your average pace according to your watch is going to be off, but you just have to account for it.

As we began to come out of the wooded area, we heard a big cheering section up ahead, and I said that must be the first water station. As I had done for my marathon earlier this year, I typed up the mile markers for the water stations and then used tape to “laminate” the paper so that I would have easy reference to where the water was. The first one was slated to come at the 2 mile point, which would coincide with the yelling. But when we got to that corner, there were plenty of people cheering—but no water!! I have to tell you, as a runner, that is one of the most frustrating things about a race: if you tell me there’s going to be a water station somewhere, dammit, there’d better be a water station!!

It turns out that the first water station wasn’t until about the 3.5 mile marker, which is an awful long way to wait before water in a half marathon, I think. I had asked Kelly ahead of time if she was going to walk to the water stations, but she was rather noncommittal. I got the feeling that she didn’t want to, but that she might feel the need to if everyone else wanted to. Once again, I go back to the pacer from my first half marathon, who was so great about making sure that we timed our running so that we could walk through every water station, and just keeping us motivated and informed. I swear, I will never have another pacer as good as him!

At any rate, most of us walked through the water station, so she was forced to slow down a bit, or basically run by herself. And I’m pretty sure a pacer doesn’t want to be seen running by themselves! Once we all got started up again, we rounded a corner and had a lovely view of the downtown skyline:

Soon, we were turning around the Eastern point of the island, and we saw the fountain in front of us.

At that point, we were on the Canada side, with more gorgeous views on that amazingly clear morning.

Before we turned north, we passed Lake Okonoka, which was just lovely.

We also passed the Coast Guard station, which I had no idea existed!  Then it was back around past the Detroit Yacht Club (another thing I didn’t know existed there on Belle Isle) and we had a stunning view of the downtown skyline.

Every time we hit a mile marker, I checked my lap pace, and it seemed like we were going awfully fast for a 2:10 finish. That averages to a 9:55 pace per mile, and we were consistently coming in it anywhere from 9:35 to 9:44. Yes, I knew we needed a cushion to account for the distance being off on our watches, but it sure felt fast.

A few other ladies called out the lap paces as we went along, and Kelly did tell us to slow down a couple times, but just a bit. I don’t know if it was truly challenging for me, or if I was just imagining that it was because I knew we were going faster than I expected, but by the time I hit mile five, I was feeling it. I remember thinking that the last time I ran a pace run, 5 miles was as far as I went, so at that point, I was headed into territory I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. That was pretty daunting to think about. 😮

I had mentioned in a previous post that I did some volunteer work through my company and I ended up working most of the day with a coworker of mine named Shawn. Shawn sits next to me, and he is quite the athlete.  He runs super-fast, and although he has only run one marathon, he finished in in somewhere between 3 and 4 hours, so that tells you how speedy he is! (I want to say it was something like 3:20, but I’m not positive.) Last Friday, before I left work for the weekend, I stopped by his desk and asked if he had any words of wisdom. One suggestion he offered was one that I guess a lot of runners do.  He suggested I dedicate each mile to someone who I love and/or who inspires me, and to think about them in that mile when things get tough. He suggested dedicating the last mile to my kids, for example.

I thought it was a great idea, and I asked him which mile he wanted.  He waved me off, saying he didn’t expect I’d dedicate a mile to him, but I just laughed and said, “Shawn, I’ve got 13 to choose from—I can spare you one!” 😉 He told me he didn’t care, as long as I wasn’t cursing him during that mile, which of course made me laugh and then tell him that he was getting mile 12, and I promised to curse him the whole way.  He joked that I’d probably run farther than 13 miles because I’d be so busy cursing him at the end that I’d forget to stop.

I really did think it was a great idea, but I knew I’d forget in the heat of running 13 miles, so I did my “tape lamination” trick.

I won’t go through every mile and person, but I will tell you that while they were all motivating and inspiring to me, there were a few that were especially poignant.  One of those was mile 7, which I like to call the “Jesus Mile.” I thought a lot about Jesus and His sacrifice and how my race was nothing in comparison, and then, when I crossed the halfway mark (at 6.55), I offered up a prayer: “Jesus, you’ve gotten me halfway; please help get me through the rest of the race.”  It probably sounds a bit corny, but it was actually very uplifting and spiritual in that moment, I assure you. 🙂

Once I passed mile 7, I was really starting to feel it. I stopped at the water station at mile 5. 5 and walked through it, but because our pacer wasn’t stopping, I decided to just slow down and do the “choke drink” for the water I grabbed at mile 7.5. Or at least, I thought I was grabbing some water. When I went to take a swallow from the cup, I tasted something really sweet. It was a clear liquid, so I knew it had to be water, and that made me think that maybe someone had rubbed some gel on the cup or something. I was thirsty enough that I didn’t care, and I just want ahead and drank a little more before I tossed it aside.

It was probably within another half mile to three quarters of a mile that I got a terrible cramp in my left side. It hurt like heck, and it was hard to run through it, although I did try for probably a good quarter of a mile.  At that point, I was still keeping up with the 2:10 group, but eventually, the pain got to be too much, and I slowed to a walk for about 15 or 20 seconds.

That walk helped a little, and I found myself with enough energy and determination to start running again. Luckily, there was another water station just up ahead, and most of the runners in the group stopped or slowed for it, and I was able to catch back up with the 2:10 pacer, Kelly.  When I caught up to her, she was by herself again, because she had chosen to run through the water station while everyone else slowed to take water. When she saw me next to her, she asked how I was. I told her not good, and that I had a cramp. She asked me how bad it was, and I told her it was bad enough that I had walked for a little bit. She was surprised, and praised me for being able to catch up despite that. Then she told me to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth repeatedly to help the cramps go away. I must’ve looked at her like she was crazy, because she said, “I know it sounds hard, but it’s the best way to alleviate the cramp.”

So I did that for probably a good half a mile at least, and while I won’t say that it was a miracle cure, I did start to feel better. While I was doing that, she slowed enough to allow the rest of the group to catch up, and I heard them start talking about the “water” at that other aid station and how it didn’t taste right. Someone commented that it must’ve been the sports drink that they were giving out, and that they must’ve messed up since both of them were clear. (As tired as I was, I didn’t even connect that sports drink with my cramp until we were on the way home. I would never have taken it had I realized it was a sports drink, because I don’t ever drink those. And I am smart enough to know you never try anything new on race day!)

When we hit mile 10, I remember seeing a photographer, and I worked really hard to put on a smile for him. Unfortunately, it’s the picture with the worst resolution of all the ones they have of me.

But I did try! :p

It while we were in mile 10 that I discovered that Ann wasn’t next to me anymore. In fact, she wasn’t even right behind me. A part of me wanted to slow down to hang with her, but the other part of me realized that I might actually have a chance to beat my goal, since we had started out so fast, and that Ann wouldn’t want me to give up. So I kept going.

Mile 11 is when it got really hard. By that time, my legs were really hurting, and I was losing energy pretty quickly. I had taken some espresso Gu a couple of times during the race, but I was finding that it wasn’t helping as much as the race wore on. I wasn’t getting that burst of energy from it that I had gotten earlier.

I was continually looking at my watch, and I could see that I was doing about a 9:55 to a 10:00 minute mile.  When I crossed mile 10, and started on that 11th mile, I started doing “runner math.” The nice thing about running 10 minute miles is that it’s pretty easy to do math, even when you’re both physically and mentally exhausted. :)When I hit the 10 mile mark, my time was 1 hour, 38 minutes. The math was easy to do: 10 minute miles times 3.1 miles to go equated to 31 minutes added to 1:38 gives you exactly 2:09.  Talk about cutting it close!

At that point, I knew that it was going to be extremely, extremely tight. I was so tired, the idea of trying for a time that wasn’t even close to guaranteed at that point was starting to sound less and less appealing. But it just so happens that Mile 11 was the “Renee mile.” Renee is a longtime friend that I met at church, and both she and her husband have been incredibly supportive of me in my running endeavors. In fact, they supported me even when I swore I would never be a runner! Renee ran the New York Marathon last year, and she has run several others besides that. She is an inspiration to me, and I knew if Renee were actually running beside me, she would tell me not to give up. So I didn’t.

After mile 11 came mile 12, Shawn’s mile. Just thinking about Shawn made me smile a little inside, because, as I promised him on Friday, I was already cursing him and his stupid 12^th mile.  I walked right at the beginning to take some more water, but I counted 12 seconds and then kept going…because I couldn’t tell Shawn I gave up on his mile!

After that, it was mile 13, and that mile was for my boys.  I was so tired, and my legs hurt so much, but at that point, all I could think was that I would be damned if I was going to give up in the last mile! I kept thinking that if I just kept going, soon I’d be done, and how awesome would that feel? So I just focused on my boys and how hard they work with their running, and I somehow managed to speed up and make that my fastest mile!  They got a picture of me in that mile, and I have to say, I do look like I am working hard.

When I hit mile 13, I immediately heard Jamie in my head. On Saturday night, before he left for a church youth group lock-in, he said to me, “Mom, you have to sprint that last tenth of a mile for me, because you know if I were running it, I would.”  I turned that last corner and gave it everything I had.  And while I wish my finish line pictures showed a picture of me gloriously crossing the finish line, arms raised, smiling bright, instead, they show me pretty much at my worst—exhausted but determined to meet my goal and not caring about anything else in that moment.

Yeah, those pictures suck.  But the good news? I came in at 2:08:30!! Here’s what I looked like on the frame by frame shots (look for me on the left in gray, way in the background to start):

Ugh!  I am not a pretty runner.  At least not when I’m tired and focused with every fiber of my being on finishing.  And you know what’s really funny?  After all that time silently cursing Kelly during the end of the race (for running so fast at the start), she’s in my finish line photos. :p

That 2:08:30 finish was a whopping 34 seconds faster than my Monroe Half finish, thus giving me a new PR!  Honestly, that makes me kind of shake my head, because, towards the end, when I knew it would be close, I actually told myself that it was ok if I just missed it, because I honestly didn’t even know if I’d even get in the ballpark when I first started training for this race back in the summer, and with the extra weight I’ve been carrying, I really just wanted to prove to myself that I could still run in that general range. Had I been 34 seconds the other way, I would’ve been a little disappointed, but it wouldn’t have ruined my race.  I truly am so happy to know that I have not lost my ability to run a 9:50 half marathon, despite all my weight issues! 🙂  This is the photo of a happy girl, right after collapsing to the ground with a medal and a bottle of water.

Yay me!! 🙂

Ann crossed not long after me, at 2:09:55…we laughed that she should’ve been the 2:10 pacer. 😉 Toddra came along at about 2:22, and she was very happy with that.  We all took a moment to breathe and then we grabbed our free goodies.  There were a lot!  I was too tired to be hungry, though, so I went to the finish line and looked for my friend Meg.  Unfortunately, I missed her, but I hope to see her at the next race!

At that point, it was time to go, since Ann had a baby shower and I had to take Jamie to hockey. :/  We made sure to get a post race photo before we left.

Aren’t we cute? Notice I no longer have my headband on. 😉 The medals, by the way, are actually quite cool. I’m not a fan of pink, but these are pink with a little “D”-troit bling, and I’ll take that. 😉

All in all, I have to say this race was much better than I expected.  I was grateful for the perfect weather and for the ability to run with a pacer. (Whom I actually kept up with for 10+ miles, and whose stated time I actually did beat!)  I am still kind of in shock that I actually got a PR…I honestly had no idea what to expect, and after last year, I wasn’t holding out too much hope.  But if I’ve learned anything about myself in the last three years, it’s that I am one determined bitch when I want to be. 😉

Thanks for reading!