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Tucson Marathon Report - Long Overdue

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Tucson Marathon Report - Long Overdue Empty Tucson Marathon Report - Long Overdue

Post  Ben Z Mon Jun 03, 2013 2:00 pm

Having just finished a 50k this past weekend I decided to finish off my Tucson report from late last year. I'll try to get the 50k report up soon too as it was a tough experience.

Race: Tucson Marathon 2012


Location: Tucson, AZ


Date: December 9, 2012


Short Version

Near perfect race conditions, a very fast course and multiple in-race decisions allowed me to PR by 5 seconds today. Looking back on the race I’m very proud I didn’t pack it in when I hit those tough stretches that come with every race attempt.

Official Results:

Time: 2:55:31 (previous PR of 2:55:36)

Place: 21st (of 1,051 finishers; and yes, I did get ‘chicked’ by one woman)

Long Version

Training Highlights

The targeted buildup for this race began in August. I raced to a 2:58 in May at the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon and then just did base building / easy miles from then until August. I did not feel over-trained this cycle unlike the previous training cycle. But as usual I didn’t get in nearly as many miles as I had hoped to run. Highlights/lowlights included:


  • Inconsistent weeks in terms of mileage. Sometimes I would be in the 70s, sometimes in the 40s or 50s. My main ‘excuse’ for this is a conscious decision to spend as much time as possible with my fiancée Wink
  • No injuries – still staying healthy
  • The usual 8 or more 20+ mile training runs
  • A handful of 15-18 mile runs at 5-10% slower than goal marathon pace
  • Specific focus on all key workouts being at marathon pace the last 6-8 weeks and not much faster or slower (i.e., no faster intervals at 10k or 5k pace)
  • My general easy/moderate paces were basically the same as last cycle. I was doing most of my easy runs at 7:30 pace where before they might have been closer to 7:45. Probably too fast when I compare it to what I was able to sustain in the marathon (yet again)
  • I relied somewhat on the Canova’s approach to training again. The focus was on developing leg speed with workouts like 20 * 1 min very fast early on in training during the base phase. Then the key workouts during the transition phase were longer intervals and faster, harder long(ish) type runs.
  • A two-week taper
  • No tune-up races yet again (this was a mistake I feel)
  • Some continued focus on strength training for my weak core (including specific hip, hamstring and glute work)

The Race

Worrying about the heat race organizers announced the start would be at 7:00am instead of the typical 7:30. Thankfully the heat never materialized and we were blessed with near perfect race conditions. I’ll guess it was in the mid 40s at the start and probably upper 50s by the time I finished.

This was a point-to-point marathon course which had shuttles from a handful of hotels all the way to the start. So my two buddies who flew in Saturday morning and I got up early, ate the usual pre-race breakfast (PB smeared bagel, banana and glass of OJ), changed in to our race attire and boarded a race shuttle at 5:15am and headed north towards the start over 35 miles away.

With it being such a small race the shuttles were able to park no more than a few hundred feet from the actual start line which was a nice treat. Arriving at probably 6:30 I found time to use the bathroom one last time. And thankfully since all the shuttle buses had bathrooms I didn’t have to wait outside in line which was also a nice treat. Then just before 7:00 I walked over to the start and was able to easily make my way near the front. No warm-up was necessary though I probably should have woken up my hips a bit more in hindsight.

The Race

The race started promptly at 7:00am. I gave a quick fist bump and good luck to my buddy Justin who was standing next to me at the start and then I was off.

First 4 Miles

I opted not to drive the course with Justin and Scottie the day before but they told me about it. The one thing I remember them saying about this stretch was that the first four miles was rolling and to be careful here. Looking at the elevation profile you can see that from miles 2-4 you actually climb even though the overall profile is a significant elevation loss. However, the first mile drops over 250ft so I opted to take advantage of the downhills when I could and took off right at goal pace. As usual about 50 people shot out in front of me within the first half a mile. Also within the first mile I found myself running next to a woman and I started chatting her up. She said her goal was to run the first half at 6:30-6:35 pace and then drop it down from there if she could. Perfect I thought, we’ll run the first half together. Well obviously she was a different kind of runner than me because once we hit the hills at miles 2-4 she put a little gap on me and I wouldn’t see her again until the second half of the race.

Miles 5-10

I don’t remember much during this stretch except for a lot or downhills on a canted road. The vast majority of this race is run on the shoulder of the road and it’s definitely canted. However, a fellow runner had a much more optimistic outlook when I complained to him about the cant of the road. He told me “Yeah, well at least we are running downhill!”. Fair point man.

Miles 11-15

This was the hardest stretch of the race in my opinion. There is a little out and back section where you detour off the road. This includes a nice, little uphill that forced me to really back off the effort. On my watch I looked at my halfway split and I wanna say it was around 1:27:30. So I was definitely already behind my goal pace but I was hoping to take advantage of the downhills to keep me going. Also, on the way back to the highway I saw my buddies and both were looking pretty good. Justin ended up running a 1 min PR in 3:04 I think and Scottie ran a 15 min PR in 3:23 I believe. Really good effort for those guys too.

Miles 16-20

The usual thoughts crept in to my head at this point – “Why do I do this to myself?”. “You should just slow down and take it easy.” “This is your last time doing this…” etc. etc. I can get pretty negative during races I’ve realized. I’m not exactly sure why but it’s just how I deal with the pain it seems. So I kept chugging along and tried to move forward the best I could. It seemed I wasn’t loosing much time but I tried not to look at my splits as I tried to focus on pushing as hard as I could given the distance I had left to cover.

Miles 21-26.2

The last handful of miles were tough, as usual. I like to say it’s all mental at the end of races like this but it’s definitely physical too. But I made two key decisions during this stretch that I’m really proud of. First, I want to say somewhere around the 24 or 25 mile mark we again detoured off the highway. And there was a relatively short, but steep (from what I remember) hill during this section. I was hurting pretty bad and had a few seconds of thinking that I needed to walk this hill if I was going to finish – but I didn’t. I just kept ‘running’ as best I could. Second, during the final 800m or so I could see a runner ahead of me and I decided to try and beat him to the finish. I think I caught him with about 400m left. It’s because of these two decisions late in the race I was able to sneak in and grab a PR of five seconds. But not without some drama as the overhead clock read 2:55:41 so I thought I might have missed a PR by five seconds. But about 30 minutes after the finish I saw my results in the timing tent and was excited to see I PRed.

Official Results:

Time: 2:55:31 (previous PR of 2:55:36)

Place: 21st (of 1,021 finishers)

Lessons Learned

I think to get myself to the next level I need to do more speedwork. My volume is probably high enough to run a bit faster and I do enough long runs, but I don’t work on turnover as much as I should probably. But I don’t really enjoy that type of training. So instead I’m going to do the complete opposite and turn towards the trails for awhile. I’m going to do two 50ks and a 50 miler in the next 6-7 months I hope. And hopefully lots of vertical ascent and descent. That’s the short-term goal for now at least as I’ll work on my raw endurance.

Mentally I held it together pretty well in this race too. I didn’t check out like I have a tendency to do in patches. So all in all it was a pretty good day when I look back on it.

Still in search of a 2:50…

Happy running everyone.
Ben Z
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Post  Chris M Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:20 pm

Great PR, Ben! I was there too and its a shame I didn't know it at the time or we could have made plans to meet up. I think I saw you and your buddies pre-race at the hotel (El Conquistador) where the shuttles ran from but wasn't sure. Were all 3 of you wearing Goodwill-like flannel PJs pre-race? I remember thinking "is that Ben Z?" but then not confirming you had run the race until after I was back home. It was a great cool day for running and a course set up for a good time. I'm bummed that my knee was already wrecked pre-race and I wasn't able to nab a PR like you did. Those early downhills chewed me up and I was limping before the 3 mile mark. Nice job holding on when those negative thoughts - nice to hear its not just me! - creep in and threaten to derail everything.
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Post  Ben Z Tue Jun 04, 2013 4:41 pm

That's a bummer Chris. Would have liked to have met you in person.
If you are in California anytime soon let me know!
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Post  Michele "1L" Keane Tue Jun 04, 2013 6:01 pm

Thanks for the course description, Ben. Myself and two friends are running the full this coming December.
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Post  Mark B Tue Jun 04, 2013 10:19 pm

I appreciate how you end your race reports with a "Lessons learned" section.

Great job keeping your focus when the mental aspect got rough. You got through it, and still managed to PR. Congrats!
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Post  dot520 Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:00 pm

Congrats on the PR.  Your comments during miles 16-20 sometime appear for me much earlier...even at the start!
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