Detroit Marathon: A Prelude

This past weekend I traveled to Michigan to participate in the Detroit Marathon. My parents picked me up from the airport thirty minutes late from the airport because my mom dumped Coke on my dad’s lap (he had it coming) and they had to stop. Due to their marital shenanigans, I arrived with five minutes before the Expo closed.

I rushed through the snaking merchandise booths until I reached the back where the packet pickup was located. I handed them my passport and they gave me my packet and goodie bag. I still wanted to get another shirt, so I went to the New Balance booth, who sponsored the event, and purchased a t-shirt that looked like this:

Saturday came and went. I tried to stay off my feet and not walk too much. I also didn’t want my legs to atrophy either, so I took some short walks and a 2 mile slow jog. That day I specifically requested that my mom not make anything with onions because I didn’t want to ride the fart train to the finish, and neither did I eat meat because I didn’t want to vomit. Meat makes runners vomit the day before. Or so I’ve heard.

I had a few stress dreams before the Marathon. The one I specifically remember concerned not being able to find my parents to take me to the finish line. Midway through the dream I realized that it was only a dream, and that I should wake up. I think I slept a total of five hours that night. Luckily I slept for ten the night before.

We left the house at 5:15AM, which meant that I had to wake up at 4:30 in order to get ready. That is an ungodly hour to do anything, no matter what. I do always get a rush of adrenaline that doesn’t go away, which helped me make it through the morning routine. I laid everything out the night before which serves the double purpose of calming my nerves and cutting down on preparation time the day of the race.

We picked up my friend, Craig, and drove to the Westin Book Cadillac where his friends had a room that we could chill out. It was nice having a space where we didn’t have to stand or huddle, and the bathrooms were immaculate. I tried to eat a bagel, but I really couldn’t finish the whole thing. I already had some fruit in the car. Maybe I needed some slow release carbs during the race that I didn’t get pre-run. More on that later.

The only complaint that I would have in terms of logistics is that the bag drop off should be a place where you can drop off your bag, not wait twenty minutes in line. That was a little ridiculous. I appreciate all the volunteers, but twenty minutes before the race! The port-o-potty line wasn’t even that long. I ended up just leaving it by the entrance since I was in the first corral, and hoped that my stuff would be there when I got back. Spoiler alert: it did.

I lied. The other complaint was that it was very hard to get to the corral due to the amount spectators at the start. I had to literally run around the block just to get to the start, and I didn’t really want to run more than I had to that day.

The “Lose It” song by Eminem was playing because it is ubiquitous in the Dirty. The weather was perfect, I was feeling good, and the race began!