Race Report: PF Chang's 1/2 Marathon

Last year Zac and I did this race together and finished in 2:29. It was his first half marathon and my first stand-alone half marathon (rather than the half marathon that is included in the half ironman). This year I asked Zac if he wanted to do the race again, and surprisingly he said yes. So before he changed his mind I signed us up. This would once again give me a training partner for some of my long runs in the winter while training for Ironman. Yes, I had an agenda.

This year Zac stuck to the training a bit better than last year, up to the relay race we did in December. He ate the paste on that one and developed shin splints. We quickly made a trip to Performance Footwear to see if anything could be done (inserts, fish oil, magic words, etc) but the owner Kyle told us that he should rest until they go away. Rest or possibly turn shin splints into a stress fracture. So Zac missed out on some of the longer training runs, but the pain from the shin splints went away.

For me on the other hand, IM training is the priority and races leading up to IMAZ are just training. But it's tough to fit in races on weeks where the focus is another sport. This week was a bike-focused week and not a run-focused week, so I still did all of my bike workouts which totaled over 100 miles of riding for the week. My legs weren't exactly fresh out of the box. But this race was a training run for me, with the only goal being DO NOT GET HURT. I had to pick up training again on Tuesday and couldn't risk getting hurt and being out of training for a few weeks. We had put down a goal time of finishing in 2 hrs 15 min. I didn't think we would get there, so our goal was "do better than last year." I was figuring a best time of 2:17 but 2:20 was a more probable time.

Race morning we got on the shuttle bus and rode to downtown Phoenix for the race start. It was much warmer than last year...about 30 degrees warmer. We decided to run in shorts and short sleeved shirts. I went ahead and put on my cycling arm warmers, and with my sleeveless jersey it kind of looked like I was wearing some sort of dominatrix gear. We dropped off our warm clothes at the UPS trucks and got into our starting corral which was Corral 12. Last year we were in Corral 18. If we do this race next year, the goal will be to get into a single digit corral. The reason they call them corrals? You're stuffed in there like a bunch of cattle. Well, if cattle wore neon colors and iPods. While we waited we saw the 2:15 pace guy, who was wearing a Camelbak and a sign on a pole sticking out of it that said "2:15". We decided to keep an eye out for him during the race to see how close we were to the 2:15 finishing time pace.

Finally at about 8:45AM we got to the starting line and our corral was allowed to start. We stayed with our corral herd, er, group for about 3 miles, and then other folks started to pass us and we caught up to slower people. I was wondering how some of the people got in faster corrals, as they didn't look good and were walking at Mile 3. My arm warmers came off at about Mile 2 when I was plenty warm.

Our run went well and we were holding about 10:10 min/mile averages and were in front of the 2:15 pace guy. About Mile 5 I started to feel the effects of the long training week and not being on fresh legs. Uh oh. Not good. My goal was to get to Mile 7, which was over the half way point. I forced myself to eat my Shot Bloks even though I didn't want to. Zac was good about eating his Sport Beans and not spilling them everywhere (although judging by the street others weren't as lucky). We made it through the aid stations, which became a sticky mess of Accelerade. I can't stand Accelerade and when it gets dumped on the street it smells like you are running through a pool of vomit. Ugh. Luckily the water stations were right after, so the water puddles washed some of the stink and stickinessoff our shoes.

We got to Mile 8, which was the milestone for Zac (we don't know why). I didn't care about 8 because I knew the hills started at Mile 9. We hit Mile 9 and the first gradual climb and 2:15 guy caught up to us. We stayed pretty even with him until Miles 10 and 11, when the hills really hit. After we got to the top I told Zac I needed to slow down because all of my systems were redlining. Danger Will Robinson! Time to back off or else I wouldn't get to the end without walking (that was the other goal...not to walk). We leap-frogged a "sweaty guy" who was doing a run/walk routine. We slowed at Mile 11 and that was our only mile that was over an 11 min/mile pace (11:09). But the recovery after the hill was worth it. By this time, 2:15 guy was way ahead and we didn't think we would catch him.

From Mile 11 to 12 we got back on our pace and started to work our way through the crowd. I was breathing pretty heavy at this point, focusing on the exhale which I remember my high school tennis coach teaching me. It's strange what you think about during the last miles of a race. I couldn't even talk at this point. Mile 12 to 13 we sped up, mostly because I was DONE and SO over this race. I didn't look at my Garmin for the pace we were running, I just focused on the finish. We crossed over the Mill Ave bridge and made the turn onto Rio Salado for the final stretch of the race. Oh look, I'm on the IMAZ course. I'll be here in just a few months in the dark and probably feeling WAY worse than this. Good mental note.

We made the final turn and 2:15 guy was in our sights. "Come here 2:15 guy!" I yelled and the finish line was just a short distance away. We passed 2:15 guy and finished in 2:14:40, a total of 15 minutes faster than last year. Zac tried to hug me but all I wanted to do was walk around and catch my breath. I grabbed a water and continued to walk when one of the medic volunteer kids came up and asked "Are you ok?" "Um, yeah, I'm fine" I said and just wanted to keep walking. "Well keep walking and don't stand in line right away. Be sure to walk it off for awhile." "Uh, ok, thanks." Wasn't what I was doing walking? And how bad did I look that he picked me out of the hundreds of people that crossed the line with us? I asked Zac if I looked bad or something and he said "No, you always look much worse after the Half Ironmans."

We got our medals, our finish picture, and then headed to the food corral. They had a ton of food and a huge line. All I wanted was a popsicle that I saw people walking around with. Where the heck can I get a popsicle? It turns out they were at the very end of the line. There was no way I was going to wait so we sort of slipped an arm in there and grabbed 2 popsicles and a bag of pretzels and got out of there before someone could yell at us. I was happy walking back to the parking lot with my little bag of pretzels. Happiness is a bag of pretzels.