Today I ran my 48th state, at the 48th running of the Detroit Free Press Marathon, and it was also my 75th lifetime half marathon. Whoop whoop!

I actually tried to run this race in 2020. I was signed up – but it cancelled due to covid. I chose it because it sounded cool – you start in Detroit, run to Canada, and then run back. Pretty awesome.

I flew here yesterday morning, meeting my sister in Chicago before continuing on to Detroit. Once we arrived, we headed straight to the expo to get our bibs. Due to it being an international race, it was a bit more strict than most other races -you had to show your passport to get your bib, and were told to run with it as well. I honestly didn’t realize how close to Canada that Detroit is – but you could literally see Canada from the expo hall.

After that we headed to have lunch – I figured I should have Detroit style pizza since I was in Detroit and all. We went to a place called Union Assembly – which also happened to be between Mom’s Spaghetti (Eminem’s restaurant) and Little Caesars World Headquarters (I thought that was cool since I was a delivery driver for them all through high school.)

The pizza was pretty good, but I prefer New York style. It was a memorable visit though because while there Andrea said to me “You’re a really smart dumb person, dude.” after I accidentally sanitized the air and my water with sanitizing spray instead of my hands. Facepalm. In my defense, I had been awake since 4am. And I made her laugh so hard her nostrils fluttered, so always happy to entertain.

After that we just wandered around the city. I was impressed with how clean and walkable it is.

This morning dawned with some really crappy weather. There were wind gusts up to 40 mph and it was raining. I’m being dramatic but all I could think in my head was the quote from Armageddon where Oscar said “Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks. That’s all you gotta say, scariest environment imaginable.” The thing about races though is you get what you get with the weather… and you just have to deal with it.

The first 5k was pretty brutal. The rain felt almost like needles because the wind was pushing it directly into my skin. In addition, my ponytail became a weapon of mass destruction – it kept whipping me in the face with every step I took. I had a time goal initially, but I quickly abandoned that plan and decided to just enjoy the journey. We crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Canada and all of sudden things were a lot more peaceful (just referring to the weather).

There was great crowd support, and the rain stopped and the wind died down. This was from miles 3-7, so a good reprieve.

Then we headed into a tunnel to run an underwater mile and head back to the US.

I spent a long time in that tunnel – it was only a mile, but it was really fun to be underwater and of course I had to get a photo of myself standing in the United States and Canada at the same time.

I made it through the tunnel and was greeted by a welcome back sign as well as border patrol with some sniper rifles.

The last 5 miles were not great again – it’s odd how different the weather was in Detroit and Canada even though they are so close. The winds picked back up again, and it rained off and on. The worst thing about running in the rain is wet feet – mostly due to the risk of blisters. It’s a common concern of runners. In fact in the hotel elevator this morning there were about 10 of us riding down to the lobby and some random lady said “I hope everyone is lubed up.” I responded with “This is probably the only situation where it’s not abnormal to hear that from a random stranger.” And if you don’t know – Vaseline is your friend when running to prevent chafing and blisters.

I finally made it to the finish line. I couldn’t see it – and then realized it was because they had to take down the signs due to the high winds so we just had a timing mat to run over.

I also realized that I had a situation – a bad one. My hair had turned into a tangled mess. I typically wear it in a bubble braid when I run to prevent this sort of thing, and I did again today, but the apocalyptic weather combination of wind, rain, and humidity won.

After I won the battle against my hair – which included a supremely large amount of conditioner, Andrea and I headed to lunch. We found a place that was giving away free mimosas for race participants AND they had homemade pop tarts and huevos rancheros. Win win.

We’ve spent the rest of today walking around, plus a short nap, and finally dinner at a local pub. It turned out to be a great place, we actually met the race directing team, they were unwinding from their crazy day of putting on such a giant event.

It’s been a really lovely trip and we head back early tomorrow morning.

Up next – West Virginia in a couple of weeks.