Phoenix Rock N Roll Marathon 2010

(“The last race you ran was in October! What happened?” “The economy got in the way of my racing. I had to take some time off.” “Well I’m glad you were able to rest up; but your fans have been waiting to hear about your running!” “I did write that New Year’s Resolution post.” “Yeah, three weeks ago!” “Well, now I’m ready to tell the tale of my first marathon of 2010!” “But that was almost a week ago! What do you think this is, the chronically-late Tisdale Family Christmas Letter™?”)

I flew into Phoenix on Friday afternoon. Incidentally, this was my first time flying Southwest Airlines. A longtime United (and occasional Frontier) passenger, I was amused to discover that Southwest doesn’t have seat assignments. Instead, I was assigned a number when I checked in, and stood in line preparing to board. An interesting way to do it, but I was able to snag an aisle seat. (“And a good lesson for the flight home: check in at the earliest possible time to assure a spot closer to the front of the line.” “Wow. Shades of grade school. Did you have to face forward and keep your hands at your sides?”) After a short and uneventful flight (the best kind), I landed in Phoenix and caught a shuttle to my hotel. I called my baby sister, who was going to drive from LA on Saturday morning, and touched base with her before going to dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. Then it was back to the hotel to rest and get a solid night’s sleep.

Saturday morning, I caught a shuttle to the nearest light rail station to take the train to the Expo. I got to the Expo shortly after it opened that morning, so there was a comparatively small crowd. I picked up all my essentials and some souvenirs, then spent the rest of the morning wandering up and down the aisles and checking the various sellers’ wares. I even saw Frank Shorter and got his autograph! (“Wait, you got his autograph at the Nashville Expo.” “Yeah, but he didn’t remember me, so it doesn’t count.”) Before I knew it, I’d been at the Expo for almost three hours—and had foolishly spent virtually all of that on my feet! Plus I was hungry. I grabbed some lunch and sat watching a video course tour for a while, before returning to my hotel.

My sister arrived late Saturday afternoon, and she and her friends picked me up at my hotel and took me to dinner. Her friends told me they were excited to see me run, and asked me a lot of questions about my training and my plan for race day. My dad, who flew in late Saturday, had spent some time pouring over maps of the Phoenix area trying to determine where the best places to spectate would be. (“Actually, he probably spent most of the day working it out.” “Must be nice to be retired.”) Since their hotel was within a quarter mile of the finish, the plan was for them to pick me up at my hotel Sunday morning and drive me to the starting area. They would then drive to the first place they would wait for me—near mile 9. (“My dad chose that spot for sentimental as well as practical reasons—it’s near where he went to grade school.” “Is there any place he didn’t grow up?”) After I passed that point, they would wait for me under the Mile 26 sign, then we would reunite in the Family Reunion area.

Sunday morning I was up before my alarm and ready to go! My dad, sister, and her friends picked me up on schedule and we drove to the starting area. They walked with me to my starting corral, and they kept me company for a while and took some pictures. After they left, I realized I had broken one of the cardinal rules of marathon racing: I hadn’t gotten in line at the portajohns! Now the lines were twenty people deep, and the race would start in less than half an hour! I nonchalantly strolled around looking for other options—an open building, a tree, a shadowy corner. Behind a museum dedicated to mining, I saw a group of about eight portajohns tucked away in a semi-secluded area and virtually deserted, of which I quickly made use. (“I commented on my luck to a runner standing nearby. She told me she thought they were the VIP toilets.” “Well that worked then, didn’t it? It was Very Important that you P.”)

I had three pace bands: one for a four hour finish, one for 4:05, and one for 4:10. I figured if I ran the 4:00 pace, my regular short walk breaks would average the miles out to about 4:10 pace; maybe slightly faster as I was going to shorten the breaks after the halfway point. At 7:40 the starting gun fired and the (considerable) crowd made its way through the start line. I crossed at about 7:42. As I approached the timing pad, I saw Senator John McCain (R-AZ) waving to the participants along with the race officials! (“Don’t tell me, you recognized him from his two-second cameo from 24 Season 5.” “Well, he kinda looked familiar…”) Conditions at the start of the race were letter-perfect: very cool, with a slight breeze, and a somewhat overcast sky (making for a very pretty sunrise to boot).

I felt fantastic! After a couple of warmup miles I picked up my speed just as planned. I hit the first 10k split and crossed the timing mat after just over 1 hour. However, I found out after the race that the race’s tracking service, which sent texts to people to alert them of runners’ splits, incorrectly identified that as the 5k split! (“So my family thought it took an hour to run 3.1 miles!” “When they saw you at mile 9 half an hour later, they must’ve thought you’d caught a cab!”) Seeing my family and my sister’s friends just before mile 9 was a big boost for what was already turning out to be a perfect race. I smiled and slapped five’s with them as I passed.

I stayed strong for the rest of the first half. I was feeling very good and confident that I would have enough energy to shorten my walk breaks as planned. However, the first mile I did that, mile 14, was a real challenge. I rethought my strategy to alternate short and long walk breaks every mile. (“You were going to be able to keep track of that as you were going?” “Well, it was nice to have something to focus on other than my feet. Mental acrobatics is a great way to keep myself distracted.”) The new strategy worked well enough for me, and at mile 20 I was still on pace to finish between 4:05 and 4:10. Then, it happened. I bonked. Hard.

I hadn’t really hit the wall in either of my last two races. Things got tough in the last 10k, to be sure (especially dealing with the fierce wind in Oklahoma City), and I had to work for it; but I was able to hold to my pace in each of those races. Not so in Phoenix. Although I felt like I was running as hard as I had been for the last 20 miles, I was starting to slip. My 9:15 average fell to 10:15 for mile 20, then continued to slide down until I ran the last full mile in 12 minutes and 12 seconds! Not helping matters was the sun, which chose to burn through the clouds as I was finishing mile 22. I kept pushing as hard as I could. Although I had given up hopes of a sub-4:05 race, I was still certain I’d be able to set a new PR. Seeing my family at the mile 26 sign was a big boost. (“They told me later there was a big difference between the upbeat and strong version of me they saw at mile 9 and the broken and shuffling creature they saw near the finish.” “Good thing you wear a distinctive running shirt!”) I was able to push a little more, knowing that I had “less than once around a track” to go.

The course zigzagged a handful of times in the last half mile. At every corner, a spectator would say, “It’s just around the corner!” After about the fourth time hearing that, I said to the guy running next to me, “Next person who tells me that, I’m gonna punch him in the mouth.” With a smile, he said, “Well, it actually is just around this next one.” I turned that last corner and, sure enough, there was the finish line! I poured it on as much as I could with what I had left, crossing the finish line in 4:14:54, setting a new PR by 9 minutes and 40 seconds!

Official Time: 4:14:54
Total Races: 1
YTD Race Miles: 26.2
YTD Total Miles: 71.1
Answer to PHX TSA agent's question "Whose bag is this?": "Mine. I ran the marathon earlier today, and that has my race clothes in it; so if you're gonna open that, you better move back."