Tucson Marathon

Michele "1L" Keane Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:58 pm

Tucson was my last race for 2013 and it was nice to go out on a positive note. No, it was not my fastest race of the year, but it certainly was a wonderful weekend spent with a summer running friend and her son and daughter. Back in June when we originally decided to go since her son was going to Grad school at U of A, my friend was going for her BQ. She turned 50 in October, and her last two attempts were a bust due to hot weather. I had already committed to trying to go for it at Monumental, but I needed Arizona in my state quest, so why not join her and see how things shaped up. After all, Monumental could have been a bad race or cancelled or hot or whatever with some of my luck Wink

. As it was, she went for it at Philadelphia (it was supposed to be her last 21 miler) and ran her BQ too (apparently it was a perfect day, so I had convinced her to go for it if it felt right, and it did). I figured she would run the half with her daughter in Tucson, but she decided that she wanted to see if she could do the "multiple marathon" thing and run Tucson on only 2 wks rest. Being that I'm crazy enough to have already run marathons close together and for fun, we decided to have a solid long run and enjoy the day.

Of course, the weather this past weekend was wacky as we all know. Tucson (Houston and Cleveland seemed to be the only places without delays) was cold (only a high of 50), and the start on race morning proved to be 43F with a little drizzle. The drizzle subsided around mile 3, but the wind was in our faces for all but the last 5 miles when we turned off the highway into a sub division. And it felt damp and cold. We kept our "throw away" shirts on until mile 21 (after the turn) and even then we probably could have left them on, but we wanted to get in some pictures. I took us out very slowly and we made sure to drink and walk through the water stops because 1) we were at altitude - 4800 ft); 2) although it felt damp, it was also "dry" in a weird way. We had a potty break at mile 11 or so that probably cost us 4-5 min, but since there was no time pressure it didn't really matter. Our first 12.5 miles was at an average 9:54 pace, and we finished in 4:17 with an overall pace of 9:50. Honestly, I could have run a few minutes faster, but Mary Pat struggled from about mile 18 on. There was even a point where I ran up a hill at mile 23 to get water for us and waited for her at the top. But she hung in there, and we finished strong even "racing" down the chute to the cheers of the crowd.

We met and talked to a ton of people on the course and after the halfway point, not a single runner passed us, we only passed them. We even were accused of having way too much energy and looking too good both at the mile 21 water stop and the mile 24 turn. All in all, we had a great time and plotted how we would run Boston together for fun in 2015. We finished 15th and 16th in our AG, but more importantly, upright and smiling.

Mary Pat's daughter ended up running the half marathon. She was a bit scared to do it by herself, but she met up with another young college age girl (she is 17), got to talking and the girl helped her to a 1:41 PR and 1st in her AG. She was ecstatic.

Six marathons in one year is actually a lot for me these days, and the last 4 were all additional states which was great. I also can tell today(and could tell while running) that I'm in pretty decent shape to get going in a couple of weeks for a strong Boston. I never really had to walk yesterday, we just chose to, and like I said above, I wouldn't have stopped at all past mile 18 or 19 if I had been running alone. I'm pleased how it all turned out, and I'm looking forward to things to come.