Better Late Than Never

Glass City Marathon...the marathon that wasn't.

Short Version - DNF.  Did.  Not.  Finish.

Longer Version:

In October I made a commitment to this marathon because a friend was planning on running her second marathon.  Just happens that she lives 3 blocks from mile 21-ish of the course for the Glass City Marathon.  It would be perfect for her (she has some real life things to deal with that complicates undertaking such an endeavor) and since she's someone I like running with I told her that I'd run with her - she could pick the distance, half or full.

T and I spent the weekend with her, the rest of her family, and a host of friends.  Best pre-race dinner I've ever had (thanks again Kath and Brian!!!!) at her house the night before.  It was nice not to have to rush and get ready to only stand around for 45-60 minutes at the start line.

T, and another friend were running the half so they were dropped off at the start of that race (at the 13.1 point of the full course) and Kath and I made our way downtown, parked and started towards the start line...okay, so we were running a few minutes late but still I wasn't expecting what happened next.

We arrived at the hotel (the starting line was directly outside of it) to meet some friends...went up to their room and she wasn't there...went back to the front desk and retrieved the key she left.  Dropped off some stuff for after the race, used the bathroom one last time.  Arrived in the lobby, hooked back up with Kath, dropped the key off at the front desk and headed out to the start.  Neglected to notice that the door I tried to exit through wasn't a door, but a window.  Loud thump as the window stopped my progress.  I saw some heads turn, and heard some laughs, but hell I deserved it.

Made it outside only to discover that we missed the start.  Head to what we thought was the start only to find out it was behind us.  Turned around and headed to the start.  By the time we "started" the race we were 9 minutes behind everyone.

Hit the starting line on the street, started my garmin and we were on our way.  Only we had to make it through the people that were running the 5k.  Up on the sidewalk, past the motorcycle escort and continued on our way.  We got some interesting looks from the police holding traffic back, yeah we knew we were behind everyone.  About 5-6 minutes later all the 5k people started passing us.  Finally made it to the point were we turned and left the 5k folks behind.  We think the police (or someone) radioed ahead to let the people know there were two more marathoners coming because as soon as we got to the high level bridge in town and turned on it, the sag wagon fell in behind us and they opened the bridge to traffic.  Great photo of this below.

It was on the bridge that we finally saw some other marathoners.  Made it over the bridge and as we turned onto the road by the Maumee River it felt like someone turned the fan blowing hot air on in our faces.  Did I mention that the time of day was 8:45 a.m. and the temp was 80F?  Yeah.  Fun.

Passed our first runner around mile 7 (he was running the relay) and we were finally able to ditch the sag wagon.  It was about this point that I started to think "I'm not having a lot of fun right now" and started to slow down.  Kath moved ahead of me sometime around mile 9 but I managed to catch up with her at the 2nd relay zone - she was talking to a couple friends of ours - and we set off again.

Did I mention it was really hot?  I had some stomach issues between mile 10-12, nothing too serious but I felt like I was gonna throw up (which has never happened on run/race).  We stopped right around mile 12 because Kath's sister was waiting for us with some water and food for Kath.  I think it was at this point that we both started thinking "today ain't our day".  I noticed Kath seemed a bit "off" but didn't say anything.  Hell I probably seemed "off" too.  Had my second bout of I'm-gonna-throw-up right after stopping.  But we kept going.

Hit a water stop right before the halfway point and I knew things weren't good when Kath went to thank the young man for the water and some gibberishy words came out.  We both sort of looked at each other and knew the day was done.  So we stepped off the course and walked about 1.5 miles up on the course where her husband was waiting for us and went home.

And I don't regret it at all.

Now, keep in mind what my profession is (for those of you who know):  I'm convinced had we kept going there was a trip to the med tent and possibly the hospital for one or both of us.

We did the smart thing.  Thing is, a friend of ours was also running the full.  She stepped off the course at mile 15.5 for the same reasons.

So that's how it became the marathon that wasn't.

On the bright side of things:  T ran a 2:25:something HM, which was only about 1-2 minutes off her PR.  On a really hot, shitty day she ran well, and I'm proud of her.