Track and Field Blogs - Chad Johnson

My race with Nick Stanko in the Detroit marathon will obviously never be famous like Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley in Boston, but on a smaller scale it gave me a little taste of what it would be like. Even though I didn't win and it wasn't one the of major marathons I had a great experience. I still had pace vehicals leading the way through the city, good size crowds coming out the the tunnel from Windsor to Detroit, and all my Hanson teammates cheering me on on the bridge to Bell Isle. The day started off with a rookie mistake, my teammate Nick Arciniaga who was going to pace and I sat in Kevin Hanson's car as long as possible to stay warm. Well, I made it to the start with about 2 minutes to spare, and my teammate didn't make it. The adrenaline rush of almost missing the start carried me though a 5:05 first mile. About a mile later he caught up to us after having to weave his way though half the field. We set out over the Ambassador bridge just as the sun was rising and started clicking off 5:20 per mile pace in Canada. Nick paced Stanko and I though 15 miles at which point Stanko asked me if I wanted to switch leads every mile. This worked well to keep the pace going but at some point we knew we would have to start racing. I felt like maybe he started doing the same thing, but eventually when I took over the lead each mile I would try to push a little and hope he would let me go. I gave one last all out effort on Belle Isle and back up the bridge into Detroit but couldn't shake him. Ever so slowly he started to inch away at 23.5 on the board walk. With a mile to go he still only had 10 seconds on me but I could only manage a 7:00 last 1.2 and he went on the win by 31 seconds (2:20:22 to 2:20:53). I knew I had given everything as my body shut down on me on the home stretch. At the beginning of every race I tell myself as long as I can honestly say I gave it everything I can't be disappointed with myself, and I knew that was the case that day.