Race Report

Wow, what an experience! This is probably the largest event I'll ever run in. There were 19789 people running yesterday. In a race that has you crossing the Canadian/American border two times, it simply amazed me at the amount of people...you are never last.

Yes I did run with my sister and it worked well, but I know she could have gone way faster and she wanted to stay with me. She actually had an injury and didn't think she would run. She had physio 2x a day to do the race. So here she is making me go with an injury and I was dying!!! because my bowels decided to wake up at the wrong time. And that is all I'll say on that.

My husband and girls waited in Windsor to see me. He said he was getting nervous because there were so many people and he just couldn't see anyone. But I found them!

Mousearoo said it best if you ever get a chance to cheer people on go do it! I got teary thinking of me seeing my family and everytime I saw a mom run up and hug her kids I'd get teary again. I ran hugged and kissed them and off we went. Spectators are awesome, it really keeps you going.

The first 12km were easy relatively speaking because there was just so much to look forward too. Our time was great till we got to the bridge and actually lost 5min waiting, walking and at some points stopped. That was frustrating. This was at 5km, we were running around 7/7:10min km till than. Then we got stopped and went to 9:40min for two kilometres :(. We picked it up once we hit the Canadian side of the bridge 'yeah!' because the Canadian side opened two lanes for us, where we ran 2km at 6:40min. The bridge crossing was a great highlight, at sunrise, just beautiful. Once we were off I looked forward to seeing my husband and kids and anyone else I knew. Found them and we were halfway through Windsor side. Next to look forward to was the tunnel (well a little scared too) but it was good. It was warm in there though. When we got out of the tunnel (mile 4) there were hundreds of people to cheer on runners, for at least a mile the road was full of people. I took some jelly beans, put on my headphones and tried to endure to the finish but I wasn't as successful as I had hoped. My stomach issues were terrible and I really wanted to just stop. My sister kept me going but she didn't want to walk and at times I really needed to because of stomach cramping. So I'd walk for a few seconds and then pick it up again.

We finished together and she was very proud of herself.  I'm happy for her and for us doing it together. I was disappointed that I didn't have a good run. Time matters to me, but not more than having a good time. So I was bummed about that. It took us 2:41:56, 2min faster than my Waterloo half. But I know I could have been 10min faster, that is the competitive me speaking. Still a great experience and wonderful pictures to show for it. I never thought I'd be able to run a half marathon 3 years ago when I started running and thought a 5km run was impossible. But it certainly is possibly. My sister feels the same, she never thought she could do this. I'm sure this is a statement many people say because the Detroit marathon only had 4000 participants in the year 2000 and almost 20000 in 2010, crazy! IT really is amazing to think about how far I've come and how far I can run. I'd like to do a marathon one day but its really not something to think about halfway through your half marathon because all I could think about is 'marathoners are effin crazy!' lol. And pretty effing amazing at the same time!

Well this has been super long, if you made it to the end you are a marathon reader, lol!

Off for now and thanks so much for your comments and support, definitely something to share with many :)