Finally, we congratulate Doug Kurtis for turning his world class vision into Detroit's world class event. Race director Carey Pinkowski developed some interesting strategies designed to achieve a competitive race. Elite runners receive the top bonuses from sponsors for running a certain pre-arranged time. Bonus guarantees depend on the pre-arranged time rather than place. Pacers for the men were arranged as part of the strategy to achieve fast times.
Any marathon is a collection of many individual stories.
At Chicago, I was as interested in the elite race at the front as I was in my own effort to run this event. I didn't want to miss the action at the front, so I decided to run with my walkman tuned to Creigh Kelley's broadcast of the race. As the leaders are flying through the miles in world record time the radio broadcast connects me to their event. The news of that record certainly energized those of us who were still short of the half-way point. About a mile later, I realized that I'd been doing something closer to sprinting than marathon pace.