Bang! The Detroit Marathon has begun, and adrenaline is rushing through all the runners as they are about to run a total distance of 26.2 miles. Their anxiety leaves them with a new feeling of excitement as they all wonder how well they will do in the marathon.
Teacher Clayton Sumner ran in the 2024 Detroit Free Press Marathon making it his first marathon, and completing it was no easy task. Running 26.2 miles on a flat course alone is difficult, but with quite a few hills, twists, and turns added into the mix, it makes it much harder.
“For my training plan leading up to the marathon I trained 6-days a week,” Sumner said. “With Monday, Tuesday, and Friday being slow-paced, Wednesday being speed training, and Saturday being my long run.”
Even with all this training, due to his inexperience Sumner’s first marathon would have multiple ups and downs.
“For the marathon overall, I did well until 18 miles,” Sumner said. “Then I got a hamstring cramp and tried pickle juice to relieve it, but it continued to hurt for the rest of the miles.”
An important goal of this journey was to soak everything in, from the crowd’s cheers to the beautiful sunrise.
“As it being my first marathon, I made sure to soak everything in,” Sumner said. “I also made sure to fuel with fruit snacks and goo’s.”
For the Detroit Free Press Marathon it had about 26,000 runners, including the other events such as the 5k and 10k. The marathon also required waves so a group would go one at a time.
“There were waves of people going through the alphabet,” Sumner said. “I ended up waiting for about 20 minutes trying to stay as warm as possible.”
Even though it may not have gone the way he hoped Clayton Sumner got to do an incredible thing running 26.2 miles, which few people can say in their lives.
“I was happy to be able to finish,” Sumner said. “I passed people laying on the ground assuming they were not able to finish.”
Sumner plans on running more marathons in the future to keep working towards his goals. A big lesson to be learned is to never give up and just keep running. No matter the time Sumner is a person who ran a marathon which 0.01% of people in the world run.
