The first annual Fat Ass Shoreline Marathon was literally born over a couple of direct messages on Twitter. My buddy Kevin sent me a DM a few weeks back and the exchange went something like this.
Kevin: Sure thing. BTW, thinking about my Shoreline Marathon in February...what's better: Friday 2/3 @ 8 pm or Super Bowl Sunday (2/5) at 7- 8am?
Me: I'd be down for 7 am on 2/5 since I am not running the Super Bowl 5k ( Besides that, I didnt want to miss a new episode of Spartacus, that aired at 10 pm on Friday)
Kevin: Ok..I'll throw it out there and see what happens. My guess...you, me, and Ryan
And just like that a Fat Ass Marathon was born.
With a few tweets and some Facebook action the number grew to 7. Where else can you find a race where the living room of someone's house is where the pre race meeting occurs with a box of donuts and some gels for another race to fill your bag if needed, and the starting line is in the driveway?
Near perfect temps (27 degrees at the start) welcomed us as we ambled along the pancake flat, sidewalk and bicycle path route. I decided that I merely needed this to be a training run and quickly fell in step with Kevin. We decided that we would run the first 1.75 miles of each 2 mile segment and then walk the rest.
A gorgeous sunrise over Lake St. Clair was our guide and we made our way to Metro Beach and the turnaround overlooked the lake and a small cairn. Being a Fat Ass event where there were no aid stations, I did have $10 in my pocket, but used a bathroom sink in the Metropark to refill my bottles. I felt really good the entire route and even though the sun came out and the temps rose to 37 degrees at the finish, I had enough tops with zips to regulate my core.
7 starters, 7 finishers with an unofficial winning time of 3 hr 26 min. I finished up in 4:09 with an average pace of 9:31. Up before the sun and home before noon. Not a bad way to start off the day.
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