Race Report: Tucson Marathon
Last Sunday, on December 8th, I ran the Holualoa
Tucson Marathon. Overall, I was really
happy with my race. I ended up setting a
personal record (PR, in runner-speak) and taking about 30 minutes off my
previous best time; my finishing time was 4:13:28.* Below, the blow-by-blow account of the day…
We drove down to Tucson on Saturday afternoon, taking the
opportunity while in the southern hinterlands to eat lunch at Z Tejas, drive by
the Casa Grande house (which was looking good, thankfully), stop for a
milkshake, and wave as we flew by the Ostrich Farm at 80 mph. We headed straight to packet pick-up at the
Hilton El Conquistador, which was easy, if a bit crowded, since all the vendors
were squished into a small-ish indoor space.
After grabbing my race number, we drove the 20 seconds to our lodging
for the night, the Fairfield Inn and Suites, right off Oracle Road.
Truly, the Fairfield was awesome; our room was clean and
spacious, the bed was comfy, and it was a convenient location. Since it was one of the official race hotels,
we got a slight discount off their normal (reasonable) price, they let us check
in early and check out late (although we didn’t need quite this much time, they
gave us until 2pm on Sunday to check out), and shuttles ran from the hotel’s
front doorstep to the start lines of both the full and half marathons. Last year, we stayed in another location and
took the shuttle to the start line from a parking area at a nearby high school;
the transportation worked well, but the buses were standard school buses. Riding school buses is not a big deal, but
the buses from the Fairfield were the fancy motor coaches that even had
restrooms in the back. This made it
extremely pleasant to stand in the bathroom line on the nice, warm bus instead
of in the 30 degree temps at the start line for a port-o-let.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. To summarize, the Fairfield is great, and I
highly recommend it. After checking in,
we had a few hours to chill out in the room.
I planned on taking a nap, but after Blazing
Saddles ended on tv, the next movie up on IFC was something that couldn’t
be missed – R. Kelly’s masterpiece Trapped
in the Closet. I’ve seen bits and
pieces of this, but Chris has never witnessed any of it. After a few minutes of trying to doze while
he kept gasping for air at the amazing sight before him, I gave up thoughts of
sleep and joined him in his viewing.
As you can see, he’s gob smacked.
As he should be.
R. Kelly finally finished singing his “rap opera” at us
right as we needed to head out to dinner.
Like last year, we were able to meet our friends Bryan and Jenny (who
live in Tucson) at North, an Italian restaurant on the north side of the
city. The food is great, but it was even
better catching up with the two of them; Bryan was Chris’ boss when he started
as a Pharmacy Tech at CVS when we first moved to Casa Grande, and we don’t get
a chance to see the two of them nearly enough since we moved to Peoria. Since they have a new lab puppy (Bogey –
eight months old and already 75 pounds!), they’re thinking of coming up to a
dog park with a lake in southern Phoenix** sometime over the next few months,
so we’re hoping to see them then. After
dinner, we headed to the Fairfield; I went to bed and Chris read a bit, while
flipping between the FSU (yeah!) and ASU (bummer!) games.
The next morning, my alarm went off at the ungodly hour of
3:45am, although I had been awake a few times during the night already. I tried to prep quietly, as Chris was trying
to grab a few more hours of sleep, and overall, I think I succeeded.*** Being
the Type A spazz-wad I am, I organized everything the night before, and with a
small puzzlement over why I wandered around with my right shoe untied for about
15 minutes (still no clue on that one), I was ready to go. As noted above, the bus ran right from the
Fairfield to the start line, and after using the bathroom on the bus and
putting on the rest of my gear, I headed out into the cold and dark to the
start line (dropping my gear bag of warm clothes for after the race with
volunteers).
I found my Coach, Luis, who was also running the race, along
with his wife Emily and their friends Sara and Ed, and we exchanged greetings
while waiting in the port-o-let line (this is where you find many friends at
the start of races). As we were
chatting, rain started to come down, or at least what we initially thought was
rain. After catching a bit of the
powdery rain on our gloves, we realized this might actually be snow. Holy crap.
Since the start line for the race is on Mount Lemmon Road, and the temp
at the line was in the 30s, snow was certainly a possibility. Thankfully, the race started soon after that,
so we were off and running (figuratively and literally), warming up as we went.
My general plan was to run my first mile at a 10:30 pace,
followed by a 10:00 pace for my second mile, 9:45s for miles 3-12, 9:30s for
miles 13-20, 9:15s for 21-23, then 9:00s (or as fast as I could at that point)
until the end. The first 5 miles of the
race wind around the Mount Lemmon area, exiting onto Oracle Road and heading
south along the road for the majority of the run; there’s a small detour onto
Biosphere Road (where the Biosphere is located, possibly obviously) for 4
miles, and this is where the half marathon start is located. Chris was able to find a good parking
location outside a Ford dealership, so I saw him around mile 7 (he was planning
on taking some of my gear from me, but I still needed all of it since it was so
cold). Here’s a mile 7 pic:
Cold but smiling. Story of my life.
The weather was generally overcast and cold all day, and
since we were running on the shoulder of a road on the outskirts of town, we
experienced the added benefit of bone-chilling bursts of wind that would come
sweeping through every now and then (hence the still wearing the warm gear
throughout most of the course). We’ve
run this race a few times (both the full and half marathon distances), and the
weather is generally good, so this year might have been a bit of an aberration (the bicycle race in Tucson, el Tour de Tucson, had rain for the first time in 35 years a month ago. Climate change, anyone?). Overall, the race was well organized, the
volunteers were friendly, and the aid stations were plentiful (even if the cups
of water at the first aid station were slightly frozen).
Behold the glorious weather!
I was able to see Chris again around mile 19, at which point
I ditched my arm warmers. Mile 19
picture update:
The lady in front of me is reaching for Oreos,
which are on the cooler to her left.
She might also be ducking to stay out of our picture,
but honestly, it's probably about the Oreos.
It would be for me.
but honestly, it's probably about the Oreos.
It would be for me.
For the most part, things went according to plan until the
last 3 miles of the race, which isn’t too bad, all things considered. With the paces I figured on, I was hoping to
run 4 hours and 15 minutes. At the start
line, I saw that there was a 4:15 pacer, and I was keeping an eye on him
throughout the race.**** As I planned, I
started behind him, but since I increased my pace throughout the course of the
race, I ended up passing him around mile 21.
Generally, pacers are running at a race pace that is quite comfortable
for them, so they chat with the people around them, making conversation and
whatnot. As the distance I’d put in
caught up with me a bit, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to run faster
than 9:30 or 9:20 for the last few miles, but I thought I could still make my
4:15 goal. Since the 4:15 pacer was
pretty chatty, I would slow down to recover just a bit, and when I’d hear him
get closer to me, I’d speed up again.
Although not my original plan for the race, it seemed to work pretty
well. You can see him – and his cute
little yellow sign – in some of the finish line pictures Chris took (he's on the left side of the shots below, in a long sleeved white shirt and black shorts):
That's the face of determination, people.
Also, relief.
Holla!
I was really happy to run like I did and to be done with the
race, mainly. A huge thanks to Chris for
following me around the entire day and catering to my runner needs and general
spazziness on a day to day basis.
Another big thanks to Luis, who coached me for the past 16 weeks so I
could meet this goal.
Coach and I after the race.
This was also after he ran a 3:28 on the same course.
We look okay farther away, but if you look close, we really look gnarly.
We look okay farther away, but if you look close, we really look gnarly.
Next up? Resting and
eating/drinking carbs! Hooray!
Later!
Amy
PS – Another perk of being at the Fairfield Inn was that’s
where they were handing out the free, post-race beer. Although Chris didn’t run, the guy gave him
one, too. Hooray, free, teeny-tiny cans
of Michelob Ultra!
Hooray, beer! Kind of!
** Hoping this will wear
him out. Fellow lab owners, can I get a
“whoop, whoop” here?
*** I’m pretty sure I
heard snoring coming from behind the pillow wall he built between the bed and
the rest of the room.
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