Three weeks have passed. Recovery stands at about 95 percent, though I still ache in my left shin when I extend my foot too far. My finish time: 5 hours, 22 minutes and 32 seconds.

The Trail Marathon sits in a well-earned first place among the most demanding physical acts I’ve done. I started out slowly, actually following the plenty of advice I’ve gotten on running races. A few miles in, I resigned myself to just finishing, scrapping any pretense or hope of a sub-four. (I’ll always have Detroit, I reasoned.) I settled into a pace of just over 10-minutes a mile, trudged up the hills and worked downhills in the best controlled descent I could muster.

Despite the slow pace, I felt good. The leaves had peeked out since a test run a few weeks prior, and thunderstorms in the forecast held off, leaving a mild, cloudy day — perfect for a long run.

Dark moments in the woods

Then, just shy of Mile 11, I caught my toes on a root, landing with a thud that took the wind out of me and the skin off both knees. When I got to my feet, my dirt-caked knees protested. Fifteen more miles? You’ve got to be joking! I ignored the protests, and ran injured.

The full marathon consists of two 13.1-mile laps. As I neared the midway point, I really thought about quitting. Banged up pretty good and running slower than planned, I thought Mrs. Blocletters might have checked out of the bed and breakfast and made it to the park to cheer me on as I hit the split. I’m glad she wasn’t there. Bruised as I felt, I could easily have stopped and demanded she take me home. I wanted to quit, and might have had she shown up.

A second dark moment came around Mile 19. I don’t know if it’s what you call the wall, since it wasn’t mental, but my on-board fuel couldn’t keep up with the hills. On a wicked uphill, both calves seized up at once and I dropped again. Agony. I stayed on my back for several minutes, unable to move without twitching pain. After that, it took several more minutes of deep stretching to even walk.

All uphill from here

The next few miles sucked. Hard. I walked much of it. Tenderly. Hoping my calves would take me even to the next mile marker. I stopped at Mile 21, fishing a pebble from my shoe. When I got up, I actually felt a lot better — maybe Goo or bananas I’d eaten a few miles back finally kicked in. I wasn’t asking dumb questions. One foot in front of another. Repeat.

Somehow, I could now manage a trot, at least on downhills and the rare level terrain. Each mile, I told myself, got me closer to seeing my girls again. I wasn’t going to keel over in the woods and be picked apart my scavengers. I kept it up to Mile 25, which is all uphill. Where I bounded, despite injury, during the first lap, I now walked.

After that, I knew I could finish. I trotted as best I could, knees singing an aria of pain. On a long wooden bridge about a third of a mile from the finish line, a race volunteer says to me: “Hang in there, man, there’s a cold beer waiting for you.” I imagined a cooler of Coronas just the far side of the finish and was really disappointed to not find one. (Dear race volunteer, don’t say such things to a delirious runner after 25-plus miles.) But I finished. And I wanted to see my girls so badly I almost walked past the woman handing out the medals.

I finished the second half in 3:08:05, a 14-plus minute pace. In addition to being no fun, injuries apparently wreak havoc on your time.

Recovery is a four letter word

I felt great that day. Wrecked and wracked, but great. The next day, I felt even better. On day three, I could barely walk. I don’t know what I did to my shins, but the right stayed angry at me for a few days and the left for more than two weeks. Lots of ice packs and Alleve later, the mending continues. I look forward to running again, probably this week.

One thing’s for sure: The Trail Marathon will make the Detroit Free Press Marathon look like a cakewalk. And for an extra twist, the goal for Detroit is to run in the new Vibram FiveFingers.