Race Day...Over!

Another race day is history. And I'm the proud owner of a new t-shirt and a medal. Can't ask for more than that...well, I suppose I could ask for more but won't.

In case you hadn't heard, Sunday morning was cold and at 7:30 I was out and among the thousands of racers all trying to warm up under the clear Phoenix skies. (27 degrees) I was wearing shorts and two shirts and that seemed to be fairly normal, though in the minority. I did a lot of walking about and hopping in place, anything at all to keep the blood flowing. Despite that, my legs were soon numb and that helped. The real problem lay in the fact that we all had an hour to wait before the scheduled start of the 1/2 marathon. I was ready right now!

(I was unprepared for the numbers of people that were doing this race; there were 37,000 total for the marathon and the half marathon. That's a lot!)

The race started late and that meant an additional 10 minutes or more of hopping about in the now confining space of the "corrals" where we had to wait. They use a wave start with corrals moving forward at about 1 minute intervals to cross the starting mat. I was in corral 18, which meant I had about a 20 minute shuffle before I could see the starting line. And then we were off...

I got off to a fast start, probably too fast; the first mile was completed in 12:43. I kept trying to slow down a little but the crowd was moving at about the same pace or faster, so it was easy to be led into a faster pace.

The race course was soon an obstacle course as well, as people began shedding their warmup clothes and these accumulated in piles on the road. Hats, shirts and gloves...thousands of them! Interesting; the most common piece of clothing to be found on the street were the "bunnysuit" pants used in cleanrooms. These probably came from the many employees of Motorola and Intel; they both have large cleanroom facilities in this part of Arizona.

Except for the large numbers and the fact that most were first timers, the race was normal enough. But the first timers made navigation tricky at the water stations because of their habit of slowing down as they approached and then strolling through the water station, cup in hand and chatting. I had to weave in and out between them to grab my water and go. Another unfortunate habit was that they would drop their cups in the center of the road as well as off to the side. Pretty soon the road was a sea of paper cups that the cleanup crews couldn't rach because of the numbers of racers.

Since I had no injuries, I was certain of finishing...but what was my time going to be? I kept trying to slow down a little so that I would have plenty left at the end and I suppose that was a good decision, though I wish I had been a little bit faster. At the 12 mile marker I began to speed it up again and then at about 12.75 I started sprinting for the finish...just because it's so much fun! I ran across the finish line at what I thought was 2:54. 9 minutes short of my intended goal of 2:45. Pacing was my problem and there were very few racewalkers around me to help with that, so I'm sure my pace was erratic.

Before this race, I thought the Portland marathon was big...with 12-13,000 contestants...but this was on a far different scale! It was great experience...but I'm looking for a smaller race for this time next year. The Sedona 1/2?

Well, I guess I had better check out the website for my official time for Sunday...