Race Report: PF Chang’s Rock and Roll Event Weekend
Last weekend, I took part in one of the Valley’s largest
annual runs, the Rock and Roll series of events sponsored by PF Chang’s.
This event started a number of years ago as a half marathon
and marathon, and over time, they’ve added other distances, including a
“mini marathon.” The “mini marathon” was
actually a 10K, which they started calling a 10K a few years back, thank
goodness (“mini marathon,” my foot; let’s call a 10K a 10K, people). Anywhoo, the event also added a 5K last year,
which runs on Saturday as opposed to the other events, all running on
Sunday. This allowed the Rock and Roll
folks to start offering what they call their “Remix” medal series, where you
run the 5K on Saturday, one of the longer events on Sunday, and then collect an
extra medal for doing both.
As in previous years, my work also allowed runners to join our
Apollo team, and in turn, we received discounted pricing on the races (plus
nifty tech shirts – they were really nice this year). This, plus additional UoPX swag for running
on both event days (which manifested itself in a new drink tumbler - huzzah!), convinced me to tackle running the 5K on Saturday and the
half marathon on Sunday. While I’ve run
multiple events a few times (several Ragnars and once, a half marathon in the
morning plus a fun 5K with friends that night), this would be the first time
I’d attempted running hard and trying to set personal records (PRs) in two
events on consecutive days.
Both events started and ended in Tempe, in and
around the ASU campus and Tempe Beach Park.
I was initially planning to excuse Chris from Race Spouse duty on
Saturday, so he could have at least one weekend day to sleep in (I’m a giver
like that). As it turned out, a Tempe
liquor store was selling a hard to find series of beer from a Chicago brewery,
Goose Island, starting at 8am on Saturday; thus, Chris and our buddy Jake
accompanied me down to Tempe early in the morning, dropping me off for the 5K,
then heading to the store to stand in line.
The 5K, being a newer event in the series, didn’t have a ton of people
running it (though it was still large by typical 5K standards), so I had ample
time and space to wander around the start line area, enjoying the vendor booths
and people watching (also, to go to the bathroom 87 times).
While I was wandering, a shiny Airstream trailer with a line
of people caught my eye, and I happened across the Bigelow Tea folks who were
handing out free cups of tea for the event.
Is it tea you’re
looking for?
Once you got to the front of the line, you picked which tea
you’d like to try (I selected Mint Medley, which was delicious), and the folks
behind the counter made you a fresh, hot cup.
Since it was cold that morning (40 degrees F), the tea was most
appreciated!
Enjoying my free tea!
I finished my cup, shed my warm layers, and dropped my bag
at the gear check, as it was time to start my warm up jog. Next, it was time to head up to the start
line, on the Mill Avenue Bridge.
Here’s a pic of the
start line from last year.
The guy in the white singlet with the red fox
is Luis’ (Coach's) brother in law Jeremy.
He almost won!
The 5K was a great run around the Tempe Beach Park area;
starting on the Mill Ave Bridge, we crossed Tempe Town Lake headed north,
curving along College and then heading through the marina entrance to run along
the north side of the lake. We hit a
hill as we climbed up the bank near the Marquee Theater to hop back on the Mill
Ave Bridge, heading south this time.
After crossing the lake again, we took a hard right on Rio Salado
Parkway and through to the finish line.
While I didn’t quite hit my goal of maintaining a 7:45 minute/mile pace,
I was close at a 7:52 average overall, and I was able to PR by around 12 seconds (hey, a
PR is a PR). According to the event
results website, I was runner number 175 overall out of 2203 people, 5th
in my age group (of 221 ladies between the ages of 35-39), and 41st
out of 1380 women who finished. Not too
shabby!
Some finish line pics:
Finishing strong while rocking my Apollo shirt!
Done!
After the race, I collected my gear, changed, and located
the gentlemen, who were parked in the nearby Macayo’s lot. They had a mostly successful beer run, so it
was a good day for everyone! Once home
(after dropping off Jake and eating second breakfast – I mean, priorities), I
took a quick, easy ride on my cruiser bike to keep my legs moving, then rested
for the remainder of the day, keeping my legs elevated and clad in my
compression calf sleeves.
The next morning, Chris and I woke up early and made it out
of the house by 5:30am, heading south to the Park and Ride for the Metro Light
Rail station at 19th Avenue and Montebello (with a quick stop at
Starbucks for nourishment for Chris and a bathroom break for me). Although the race had several free parking
lots, we knew that the ridiculous amount of people running the Sunday events would make dealing with the car a nightmare, so we figured public transit was
the way to go.
Riding the rail!
We made it to the start line about 45 minutes before the gun
went off, so there was plenty of time to use the loos a few times, warm up,
drop by gear check, and make it into my corral.
Getting prepared to corral up!
I said bye to Chris and waded into the sea of runners, doing
some last minute stretches and gear adjustments.
Can you find me?
I’m in a white shirt near the right of the picture,
and I’m smiling at you.
The gun went off as each corral started, and eventually, it
was our turn. Even after running the 5K
the previous day, my plan was to try to run an 8:20 pace average, as that’s
what I would need in the full marathon to have a time that qualifies for Boston
(yes, I am pondering this.
Crazy, I know). Overall, I was
feeling good, but you just never know each race has in store for you, so
sometimes, you have to roll with it. As
my corral started, I took off at my planned 8:20, dodging walkers and slower
runners.
Time for my annual vent - feel free to skip this bit if you
want, as it’s pretty whiny. Because
these huge events are generally well planned and fun and have great swag and
all that, they attract tons of first-timers.
I truly think this is a great thing; we’re all first-timers at some
point, and running any event at all is a massive achievement. I mean, think of all the people in our
country who sit around and do nothing every day. I support all runners and walkers as well as
all bikers and swimmers and Zumba-ers and everyone who gets up and gets active
in any manner. With that said, I am
going to get seriously pissy if you plan on walking a race and you line up in
front of me. I’m not a super great
runner, but I work really hard at it, and I play by the race’s rules; you tell
the event your expected finish time, and they assign you a corral so that the
faster people can go out in front and race hard and those with longer race
times start out further back in the pack.
If you, as a walker or jogger or even slightly slower runner, start out
in front of them, that messes up everyone’s day. The faster folks can’t compete at the level
they planned to because you are literally in their way, and you get to
experience the not so lovely feeling of being given the side-eye by every
faster runner who passes you (which, in an event this big, will literally be
thousands of people – no exaggerating).
Now, if you expect to run a certain pace and have a bad day or if your
training has gone pear-shaped or you pull a side cramp, that’s not an issue;
start out where you were assigned and move to the right of the course, so
you’re not in anyone’s way when/if you need to slow down. But for the love of all that is holy, don’t
plan to finish a half marathon in 3 hours and line up in corral 5 in front of
me, who is planning a sub 2 hour race. It
will make me want to murder you. It
really will. Again, I’m not talking
about a fun 5K, non-timed run for charity where everyone’s wearing a tutu and
they pelt you with stuffed animals – line up where you want (and yes, I do
those too, and I love them) – but for an event like this that is an actual race
with actual prize money and where they give you your assigned starting place
(like, you just need to put yourself under the giant red sign that matches your
race number JESUS people why is this so hard?!?!?!), please don’t be an a$$hole
and decide that you want to start closer to the front. It’s just not cool.
Okay, vent over. Back
to actual race reporting. So, the race
began and I started out at my planned 8:20 pace. I was able to keep that up for 2 miles or so,
at which point my body started laughing at me and a stitch in my side caused me
to pull over to the side and walk for .3-.5 of the next mile. Okay, it was time to reevaluate things. I decided to just keep moving forward as
quickly as I could, allowing for and accommodating the stress I’d put my body
through the day before, and hopefully, staying on a pace that would allow me to
PR.
The PF Chang’s event folks changed up the half marathon
course a few years back, and this was the first time I’d run the redesigned
route. I have to admit to really
enjoying it; we started on University in Tempe and headed north on McClintock
Drive (past Tempe Marketplace), turning west on McDowell, then north again on
Scottsdale Road. After making another
west on Thomas, we headed south on 64th Street, which became Galvin
Parkway, and then followed that to Mill Avenue, crossing Tempe Town Lake on the
bridge, before making the same hard right on Rio Salado and running across the
finish. Overall, the scenery was lovely,
and the route seemed super accessible for spectators; I don’t think there were
any large stretches that didn’t have some sort of crowd, and that’s really
energizing for runners. While there was
a decent hill on the course at mile 9, it had gorgeous scenery (it was near
Papago Park), and the infectious energy from a local Asian drum group (Tenko,
maybe?) kept us moving up and over the rise (the bracingly cold crosswind that
hit you as you turned around helped, too).
Coming down from the
mile 9 hill.
How gorgeous is that view?
As advertised, the last 5K of the course was downhill, and
we screamed (well, my body was screaming, even if my pace was slower than I
wanted) past the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Zoo, the old Oakland A’s
spring training field, and my team’s old office park (some of these sights are
obviously more interesting that others).
I crossed the Mill Ave Bridge, made the hard right for the second time
that weekend, and zipped across the finish.
A shot from Chris’ perch near the finish line:
Done!
A few less that glamorous shots from the official race
photographers:
Almost there!
Pain face.
Coach: "At least you look skinny."
Thanks, Coach.
Thanks, Coach.
So very pretty.
This is the face of a crazy person.
Overall, my time was 1:53:29, which is an average 8:40 pace;
I didn’t PR for the half, but I only missed my previous fastest time by 32
seconds – not too shabby! I was runner 1682
out of the 11066 who finished the half marathon, 101st out of 1061
in my age group, and 554th out of 6464 women.
After the race, I reunited with Chris, changed into less
gross clothing, and had some pretzels before hopping back on the light rail and
heading to Angel’s Trumpet Ale House for some well-deserved carb
reloading.
Velvet Merlin on
nitro!
Awww yiss!
We caught the first half of the Seahawks/Panthers game and,
as we ate, beheld what may have been my favorite race weekend memory. As other folks were being seated for lunch, a
party of 8-10 was being escorted out to the back patio (the weather was
gorgeous the entire weekend, thankfully); one of the members of the party was
an older lady, moving slowly along on a cane.
As she prepared to step through the sliding door onto the patio, she
caught the score of the game, which at that point was 31-0 in favor of
Carolina. As someone who apparently has
lived in the Valley some time, she stopped, stared at the score on the tv,
pointed at it, and started laughing in a way that I can only describe as a hearty,
loud cackle. We hate the Seahawks
something fierce around here, y’all.
Later!
Amy
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