Detroit Free Press Headlines: 1989:
Not Too Late to Train for the Detroit Free Press International Marathon
The ensuing article included a chart with the week’s daily mileage quotas and space to record actual miles run. Updated charts would appear every Sunday of Monday for the remaining ten months before the Marathon. My mother had passed the winter before and I harboured a growing need to honor her life and to thank her for the life she had given me. I don’t know if it was coincidence, fate or a sign from God but that headline became my marching orders: Run this marathon and dedicate it to your mother.
I followed the mileage charts to the inch except when it came to the mega runs, the 18-20 milers. My longest non-stop run was fifteen miles and change, three times around Bell Isle. At that point another time round was out of the question. It would be hard enough walking back to my car. So my willing spirit had to come up with a compromise that my weak flesh could deliver. I called my compromise Cross-Town Traffic: 20 miles with Jimmie Hendrix. The plan, drop the car and bust out the bike. It broke down like this: bike five miles to Belle Isle (TD5); Run the island twice (TD 15); five miles home and there’s your twenty miles. With Jimmie in my head, I completed this workout a number of times. Unfortunately the last time I couldn’t carry the load. I had to peddle home against a headwind so strong I had to get off and push the bike the last couple of miles.
Race day morning I was up at 4 AM to catch a cab to the marathon staging area in Windsor, Canada. To be honest, I don’t remember what I did from check-in to race start. I do remember the throngs of runners flowing about in gray clumps that slowly evolved into brightly colored bipeds as the day broke. Also, I was impressed by how nonchalant everybody seemed. I know the elite runners had to be, “Wait, I have to throw up” nervous. And I doubt I was the only person beginning to think she/he had bitten off way more than she/he could chew. But the game faces did not appear until moments before the race-start countdown, and even then people seemed remarkably chatty.
“First marathon?” a greyhound type female says to me.
“Does it show?” I replied.
“I just noticed you weren’t warming up,” she continued.
“I figure it’s a long race. I need to conserve my energy,” I replied lamely.
“Well, it’s a crap shoot you know, your first marathon. How long did you train?”
“Ten months.” I didn’t like where this conversation was going and regretted not stretching the truth to shut her up.
“Wow,” and then a pause. “That’s not much. But look on the bright side. You still have a 50/50 chance to complete.”
“Guess you better wish me luck then,” I said in cavalier fashion.
“Everybody needs luck to finish a marathon. Can I give you some advice instead?” Greyhound didn’t wait for me to reply. “Start walking before you get so tired you can’t do anything else.” Whatever that meant.
After some obligatory meandering around a few Windsor streets we entered the tunnel that would take us under the Detroit River before we spilled out on the Detroit side. We seemed to run through the tunnel apologetically, as though we felt guilty for breaking its hallowed silence with the plop-plopping and muted thudding of our footfalls. Then suddenly we burst into the light at the end of the tunnel and are greeted by throngs of spectators looking as though they were warming up for Rio Carnival. I divided my energies between bantering with fellow runners and waving back at the fans. It was like stepping on board a cruise ship bound for exotic shores. Anticipating surprises at every port, expecting to gather antidotes at every water station.
I carried this enthusiasm through mile 12. I was doing 9-minute miles with seemingly no effort at all. I even amused myself with imaginary conversations I would have with friends after I finished the race. “You know, this whole marathon thing highly overrated. If you’re in shape, it’s nothing more than a long 10K,” I would scoff.
By mile fifteen I had changed my tune. It wasn’t so much fatigue or pain, more like an attitude shift. My feeling of indomitable well-being had somehow evaporated. It was being replaced by a strange foreboding. Maybe those faux 20 milers I did in training were about to expose me.
By mile 18 I had flat out hit the wall. I slowed to a walk only to learn that it hurt just as much to walk as it did to run. The words of the greyhound rang in my ears like a prophecy scorned. “Start walking before you get so tired you can’t do anything else.” Too late for that now. There was no way I was going to do another 8 miles. I would bag the race and dare anybody to say anything. Victory & defeat were no longer on the table. I had to remove myself from this suffering the best way I could.
In hindsight, the decision to quit was only the dropping of the first shoe. The second shoe dropped on me like a snaring net for a Rhinoceros. Quitting was one thing, but how would I get back to my personal belongings, namely my clothes, my wallet and my house keys. I was half naked in a strange part of town, I had no money, and I had no identification. Clueless and nearly broken, I found a store-front stoop and sat down with my head between my legs.
It could have been minutes, hours or the next day when an obstreperous female voice roused me from my stupor. “Hey, buddy, what do you think you’re doing there? You can’t finish the race sittin’ on your ass.”
“I don’t need to finish the race; I need to find my way home.”
“Bullshit! You need to stand up and get moving. Here take my hand; I’ll run with you to the next water station. I’m a race Marshall.”
She took hold of my arm at the elbow and lifted me like a plastic beer pitcher. She had to be a head taller than me. There was nothing greyhound about this lady. I figured her for the Heptathlon, or maybe a nickel back on a men’s football team.
“Seriously, though, I need transportation back to the equipment pick-up. Can you help me?”
“Oh, sure. I’ve got a bus for you.”
“Great!”
“It is great! It leaves Belle Isle every half hour. All you have to do is get to the finish line. So come on.”
I did “come on” because I was afraid that if I didn’t move under my own power, this female force of nature would drag me into her idea of “pace”. She continued to cajole me all the way to the water station where she admonished, “Alright now, I’ve got other people to look after. So keep moving. No more sitting. You can do this. You need to do this. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”
The Race Marshal from Hell was barely out of sight when I hatched a new recovery plan. In order to avoid another encounter with this over-zealous Amazon I needed to get as many blocks off the course as I could manage before I collapsed. Turns out I was in a residential neighborhood with no storefront in sight. Also, no bus stops. Not that it mattered. No self-respecting bus driver was going to give a man in his underwear a free ride. Neither would a cabbie. I concluded that my best bet was a police patrol car, but the way things were going the cop would probably site me for loitering on a public street curb.
I cast my eyes around the neighbourhood, well-kept brick homes, tons of fencing, no human comings and goings, silence punctuated by the occasional territorial bark of large and likely lethal dogs. Comforted only by the fact that I probably did not look like a Jehovah Witness, I seized on my game plan. I would just go up to a house, ring the doorbell, and ask whoever came to the door to please call my live-in landlord Clyde and tell him Garry was stranded at the intersection of such and such. As unrealistic as this plan was, it was comforting to know that my heat exhaustion had not reached an acute confusional state; I could still remember my phone number and address.
I eased myself down on the curb and assumed the head in lap position. I would execute the plan after some of the ache left my body. The last thought in my head before I dozed off was, “At least I can’t be robbed.”
I woke to the shriek of the avenging angel inside my skull. Was I having a nightmare in broad daylight?
“There you are, Mr. wanna quit. I knew you were going to pull something like this. Get off that curb before you get hit with a car.”
“Do I look like I care?”
“How about if you don’t get up, I’m going to kick your ass? I’m here to help you, and you’re starting to piss me off. You started this thing and you are by God going to finish it.”
Again she hauled me up, more like a rag doll this time. “Walk with me now,” she said, with a gentle push to my lower back that belied the ferocity of her demeanour.
“Listen to me now. You’re not the only one having a tough go here. But let me tell you something. You only think you’re exhausted. You don’t know what real exhaustion is. I’ve seen people walk in the desert for days with no food and water. When you’re dehydrated, starving and walking on bloody feet, then you can talk about exhaustion. And those people didn’t quit. Hell you got less than 8 miles to go. And I gotta believe finishing this thing must mean something to you, or you wouldn’t be here.”
Neither of us said anything as she walked me back to the course. “Ok, now run as much as you can. Walk when you have to. So give me a little trot.”
Miraculously I did. “I’m going to ask you something, and don’t bullshit me. Why did you decide to do this marathon?”
“My mother died. It was the only thing I could think of to do.”
“You think she’d be proud of you for this?”
“Pretty sure she would. And that’s two questions.”
“So you do have some spirit left. You’re gonna be alright. What’s your name?”
“Garry”
“I’m Pam. Garry, just keep putting one foot in front of the other until you cross that finish line, you hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“I’ll say goodbye now Garry.”
“Goodbye, Pam.”
I never saw her again but I did cross the finish line. I doubt that would surprise her. Looking back, it doesn’t really surprise me either. Few of us know what we’re truly capable of doing. But our mothers probably do.
