This past weekend I participated in the Detroit Free Press Marathon Relay with a number of friends that I met while training for the Bayshore marathon through Team in Training (well, plus my friend Matt that I’ve known for a while and ran the Bayshore half marathon).Participating in the relay was certainly a different experience than any of the events that I’ve done previously (5K, half marathon, marathon). There was quite a bit of logistics involved in preparing for the race… who needed to get on which shuttle, how would we pass the time while waiting (before and after our segment), how would we hand off any bags containing warm-up gear/time wasters, how would we meet up again, when could we expect the runner of the previous segment to arrive at the hand-off area. After the race was done, we felt like we had performed more in the way of mental gymnastics than a physical feet (considering we had all done marathons/half marathons previously)… especially with all of the half and full marathon runners around.Our team was called Dino Might… a play on words with TNT, the acronym used for Team in Training. SIDENOTE: Our team name was listed by one of the Free Press sports writers as an “interesting” team name.We decided to get t-shirts made, which was another fun logistical exercise in itself – one person bought some nice synthetic athletic t-shirts at a discount, I designed the artwork (the dinosaur graphic came from a clip art website), another person arranged to have the artwork printed. The final result was close to what you see above, which is mock-up I sent to the printers. The t-shirts that we were able to get for cheap were black, so I figured the orange might be appropriate considering the proximity of the race to Halloween. The orange is darker than what is shown above and I had to get rid of the weathered look to the font, but I think it turned out pretty well.With the exception of strong winds, we lucked out with the weather. We could potentially have had rain or snow as was predicted in the days leading up to the race but were graced with clear skies. Such is Michigan weather. Still, I’m glad this marathon was not my first. From what I understand the winds were brutal across Bel Isle and did not let up the whole way back to the finish (the hardest part of a marathon anyway).Due to a case of “runner’s knee” that I’ve been dealing with for the past few months, I decided to run the shortest segment (3 miles). I believe the runner’s knee was a result of pushing myself too much, too quickly in my training after the break I took when Amelia was born. As a result, the muscles around my left kneecap have become out of balance. My knee makes a grinding noise when I climb stairs, can be quite painful if I’m not careful about warming up before running, and can also be sore after running if I don’t stretch and ice it. So while I was waiting to begin my segment, I ran back and forth along one of the nearby streets for about 10 minutes, streched, then jumped up and down a bit to keep my muscles warm. It seems to have paid off, as I didn’t have any knee pain while running nor did I have much after the event. In fact, only my quad were sore the next day, likely because I had only been doing a small amount of running leading up to the race to maintain a minimal amount of fitness without causing more harm to my knees.We ran fairly well, finishing 42nd out of 194 co-ed teams with a time of 3:49:40. A friend of mine also ran the relay with some friends of his with a team name of *cough* Twigs and Berries. They finished 12th out of 34 in the all-male division with a time of 3:39:57.I’m still waiting for photos from the event to be posted. I’ll be sure to update this entry when they become available. UPDATE: Official photos have been posted.SIDENOTE #2: Included in our registration packet was a copy of Michigan Sports & Fitness magazine. My coach from Team in Training mentioned to us a few months ago that a friend of his wrote for the magazine and was soliciting “Sage Advice from Marathon Host Clubs”. I passed along a bit of advice about answering Nature’s call before hitting The Wall… and it was selected for the article! Here’s how it appeared on page 20 of the October 2006 issue:

“You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do.” These words from famous military leader General Patton keep DTRW member Bridget La Forest going. And a bit of practical advice came from Brahm Windeler, who wishes he hadn’t experienced the discomfort first-hand: “Try to use a porta-potty before mile 18 or whenever you expect to hit The Wall, even if you don’t think you really need to go.”

Of all the things to be quoted on. 🙂