Rochester Hills' Davila drops out of Olympic race: "You can't fake the marathon"

London — Stopping was the hardest part. Never before in her distance running career had Desiree Davila ended a race with “DNF” – Did Not Finish — next to her name. But Sunday morning, Davila, 29, of Rochester Hills, simply had no choice as she pulled out of the Olympic women’s marathon after just one mile.
Davila, who moved to Michigan to train with the Hansons-Brooks team in 2005 after graduating from Arizona State, has known for weeks now this was a possibility, if not a likelihood.
A hip injury suffered in training more than a month ago didn’t allow her to train on land in the run-up to London. She worked out on an anti-gravity treadmill, underwent daily therapy for the injury and even took a cortisone injection last month before heading overseas. An MRI had ruled out a fracture, but she’ll go for another when she returns home.
None of that was any help Sunday, though, as she walked to the starting line for the marathon on The Mall in London, with the stunning backdrop of Buckingham Palace behind her.
“That was one of the hardest things, getting to the start knowing there was a really good chance I would DNF,” said Davila, who established herself as one of the world’s best with a second-place finish at the Boston Marathon in 2011. “I’ve never done that before. I don’t even know how to do that.”
So when she felt the sharp pains as she made the first turn on the history-laden London course, she knew “it wasn’t gonna be right today.”
“And you can’t fake the marathon,” she added.
That meant she had to call it quits.
“I just sort of stopped and said, ‘What the hell do I do?’” she said. “I don’t know. ‘Can I step off here?’ I don’t know what that’s about. So that was really hard for me. It was hard starting knowing that that was a possibility.
“But I guess the ultimate reward is that I’m now an Olympian because I crossed the start line. If you have to DNF, I guess that’s a nice fallback.”
Ethiopia’s Tiki Gelana went on to win the marathon in an Olympic-record time of 2:23:07. Kenya’s Rita Jeptoo took the silver in 2:23:12, while Russia’s Petrova Arkhimova was the bronze medalist in 2:23:29. Davila’s U.S. teammates, Shalane Flanagan (2:25:51) and Kara Goucher (2:26:07), finished 10th and 11th, respectively.