Army veteran Joe Wezner, of Chesterfield Township, crossed the finish line Sunday of the 44th annual Detroit Free Press Marathon — the last marathon that he intends to run — after having carried a raised American flag the entire 26.2 miles.
Wezner, 35, performed this difficult act to honor the servicemen and servicewomen who never returned home from overseas deployments. He has been carrying the same flag for the past five years in every road race he has run, from marathons down to 5Ks.
For the sake of his own health, Sunday was Wezner’s final full marathon because of painful and chronic neck injuries dating to his deployment to Afghanistan that ended in 2013.
“Words can’t describe right now what I feel. I’m glad it’s over, and I’m sorry it’s over at the same time,” Wezner said, moments after finishing the race in 5 hours, 4 minutes and 8 seconds. “My body is just not holding up like I thought it would.”
Wezner was one of 12,849 who participated in the 44th annual Detroit Free Press Marathon lineup of races over Saturday and Sunday.
Because of COVID-19 border restrictions, the Detroit marathon did not cross into Canada this year and instead followed new routes in the city. Race organizers hope to bring back the international courses in 2022.
Wezner said he still intends to run shorter races, but no more full marathons.
Even after multiple surgeries, his everyday level of pain on a “good” day is still about a 6 on a 1-10 scale. And on bad days, his wife needs to help him out of bed. So he can’t take many more chances.
“I am only 35 and I have two young kids,” Wezner explained before the race. “As much as I want to keep going, I have to look at my long-term health as well.”
Sunday’s marathon also marked 19 years to the day since the Oct. 17, 2002, death of Wezner’s father after a battle with cancer. He was 16 at the time.
Wezner said the anniversary motivated him to run this weekend, and during the race when he had to take a walking break around miles 13 and 14, thinking about his dad helped to get him running again.
“Once I started walking more frequently, he was the reason I got through it,” he said.
He also used the occasion of the race to raise nearly $1,700 for the Michigan Warriors Hockey Program, a nonprofit that helps disabled veterans have an active and healthy lifestyle through the sport of hockey.
Wezner is a 2004 graduate of Sterling Heights High School and an alumnus of Central Michigan University. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2010, the same year he ran his best marathon time of 3 hours, 44 minutes.
His initial back and neck injuries came on gradually during his Afghanistan deployment and happened from carrying heavy gear day after day.
“I was a medic in a platoon that would go outside the wire,” he said. “I’m a small guy, about 5-8 and at the time 150, 160. So I was carrying nearly 250 pounds of gear 15 miles a day through the mountains, every day.”
“I knew something was wrong, but there was nothing I could do or say that would get me to leave my platoon behind,” he explained. “There were too many girlfriends and wives who came to me crying before l left, asking me to make sure I brought their husbands and boyfriends home, so there was a lot of pressure and stress.”
After returning home, Wezner had an MRI scan done that found three bulging discs in his neck that were pressing on his spinal cord, causing pain and numbness in his fingers.
He underwent a first surgery in 2013 that removed discs and fused several vertebrae. The surgery wasn’t expected to entirely stop the pain, but aimed at preventing the pain and the condition from getting worse.
Soon afterward, he received a medical discharge from the U.S. Army. He is now employed as a human resource analyst for the Army.
Wezner had a second surgery in 2019 after he was involved in a fender-bender that flared his injuries and caused more bulging discs.
These days, when he is running long distances, the pain usually starts to build at about mile 6. “That’s when my shoulders start tightening up, and that’s when the pins and needles start in the fingers,” he said.
Sunday was Wezner’s fourth time running the full Free Press Marathon, and his first live marathon since the start of the pandemic.
Carrying his flag, Wezner stuck out from the crowd on Sunday and he recalled hearing lots of encouragement yelled his way from bystanders.
“A lot of people couldn’t believe that I was going the whole way with it,” he said. “And I don’t think that I could do it again. As much as I love carrying it, I don’t think that I could do 26 with it again.”
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