Tucson Marathon 2009 Race Report

Sub-4 marathon!!!! Woohoo!

Had to get up at 3:15am and drive to Oro Valley to catch the bus at 5am that takes us to the town of Oracle, where the race starts. There, we sat on buses for 1.5 hours  and had ample time to stand in line at the porta potties (twice!) I mostly hung out with Boone and Steve, which was a lot of fun. I still can't believe you ate a can of corn before the race, Boone. Here he is ready to race:

Here I am, fresh and ready to go (my upper arms might look lumpy because I have gels in my sleeve pockets):

It was packed at the start of the race - took almost a minute to cross the start line. Here are the stats (Hey, I'm an accountant, what do you expect?!?):

Total Time: 3:59:20

Total Average Pace: 9:08

Age group (40-44) place: 26 out of 73 (36th percentile)

All women placement: 155 out of 520 (30th percentile)

Overall placement: 520 out of 1,246 (42nd percentile)

I like percentiles. I may not be first, or even close; but hey, I beat 70% of the women on the course, and 64% of those in my age group! I'm thrilled with my time to say the least.

Well, my goal was 3:50:59, which would have qualified me for Boston.  Obviously, that didn't happen. Here is some breakdown:

Overall pace at 6.6 miles: 8:44

Overall pace at 10.8 miles: 8:46

Overall pace at 19.2 miles: 8:51

Well, you can probably see what happened. I went out a little fast. My quads locked up at mile 18. The headwind started around then and did not let up for the rest of the race. It was hard to run at times because the wind was blowing so hard. I was at 8:48 pace exactly at mile 18 or so and did not have enough gas in the tank to keep up that pace for the next 8 miles, which is the pace I would have needed to BQ. Maybe next time. My 2nd goal was sub-4, and I got it! I told myself to not be too hard on myself if I couldn't BQ with everything else going on in my life. I still did awesome!

Me, at the finish with my copper cactus medal:

Racing a marathon is hard. Pavement is unkind. But, gosh darn it, I did it! :) :)

Funny that I'm standing next to an ambulance at the end. Good thing I didn't need one.

They had tortillas with Nutella on them post-race along with other good stuff. Yes!

I also drank some whey protein afterwards for muscle recovery and I'm now drinking turmeric root (fresh) tea for inflammation.

Congrats again to my friends Shari, Boone and Steve. What a feeling of accomplishment.

This is my 5th marathon and fastest to date (4:19 was my previous PR).  I've now done 9 marathons/ultramarathons (I did 5 this year alone!) After March, it will be 12 total! I have 3 more big races coming up: 5 weeks from now, Ghost Town 38.5; 4 weeks from then, Pemberton 50k; finally, 3 weeks from then, the Old Pueblo 50 miler. The countdown is on.