Race Report: Sedona Half Marathon - 2/9/08

A few months ago I decided to add the Sedona half marathon to my Ironman training preparation. I figured the more I got used to the half marathon distance before the race, the better. And I refuse to do a stand-alone full distance marathon until Ironman. PF Chang’s was last month, so the Sedona half fit well in the schedule. Besides, I figured the views of the red rocks would help take my mind off of the fact that I was running a half marathon.

Zac and I arrived in Sedona on Friday afternoon and went to packet pick-up. We checked into our hotel, changed, and dropped by the pre-race pasta feed. It was at a restaurant, and as soon as we went inside there was a huge group of people waiting. As soon as we heard the wait was an hour, we turned right back around and walked out. We weren’t waiting an hour to eat $10 pasta. We went to Troia’s instead for some pasta and had our food by the time we would have gotten a table at the pasta feed.

The next morning we got up at 6AM and made the short drive from our hotel to the parking lot of the race. The race didn’t start until 8AM, so we waited for about 30 min in the warm car before deciding to hop on the trolley to ride from the parking lot to the race start at the high school. I got in the porta potty line just at the right time, because the line had tripled by the time I got out. I wasn’t in there THAT long. We ran into Joyce and Nikki and hung out for a bit until it was time to get ready. I peeled off my layers when the full marathon people left at 8, and froze in line until our start at 8:15. I opted for shorts, a tank top, and my arm warmers. I was cold at the beginning but knew I’d warm up. The gun went off and we slowly moved forward to the official line and started running. We hit a little dirt hill that led us up from the track to the road, and people started walking. I followed Niki’s line through the crowd and made it on the road where we could spread out. We wandered on some residential streets before finally hitting Dry Creek Road, which would be the main part of the race.

Freezing in the morning before the race. No, I don't want to take my warm clothes off!

Starting line.

The start of my race (and possibly throwing gang signs).

My stomach was bouncing a bit, so I started in on the Shot Bloks at 15 minute intervals along with my water. As we ran, I realized there wouldn’t be any flat spots. The course was constantly climbing or descending. I knew it would be hilly, but I wasn’t sure how hilly. We didn’t drive the course the day before, and I figured ignorance was bliss on that one. With the hills and elevation I didn’t have a time goal. I told Zac to expect me somewhere around 2:20 or 2:30 finish time.

Zac played on his trials bike while I ran.

My main goal was to make sure I didn’t walk. I would run really slow up some of the climbs, but I didn’t walk. This caused me to constantly leap frog the same group of people who would walk up the hills and then sprint on the downhills. Just before mile 4 we hit a really long downhill that got steeper and steeper. I was having a great time looking around at all the rocks and cruising downhill until I realized we would have to come back UP this hill at mile 9. Oh well, don’t think about it until later.

I chatted with some of the other runners and met Tri Girl Colleen out on the course, who was one of the people I was leap frogging with. She had done this race the previous year and knew where the turnaround was. We turned off of Dry Creek Rd and I went on ahead. The hills got really rolling in this area. I kept looking for the turn, but everytime I figured it would be right up ahead I would see a string of runners in the distance. Finally we hit this crazy steep hill and I chugged up it, hoping the turn was at the top. It was, and Niki came into view as she had just passed the turn. Finally I was on my way back to town. I cruised down the steep hill and had to back off the pace a bit as my stomach wasn’t feeling well. I decided to increase the time between Shot blocks and drink more water to help my stomach empty. Later I started eating only half blocks to help.

We made the turn onto Dry Creek Rd and I started getting ready for the big climb at mile 9. Sure enough, when it came into view, everyone was walking. Not me! I leaned into the hill and chugged along. It wasn’t a fast run, but it wasn’t a walk. I passed a ton of people on the hill and finally made it to the top. The terrain flattened out a little before the next small climb, so I used this to recover and let my heart rate slow a bit. I hit the mile 10 aid station at the end of the major climbs. Just 5K left! I kept telling myself that over and over.

The last few miles on Dry Creek Rd were mostly easy downhill. Then we hit the turn on Hwy 89A and hopped up onto the sidewalk and started to climb again. This hill was a gradual climb, but it was still long. We had to stay on the sidewalk, which made it tough to dodge around the people walking. The course turned onto the residential streets again, and I was less than a mile from the end. Unfortunately there was a hill in the way. Of course, why wouldn’t there be? As I made the turn one of the volunteers yelled “one mile left” which made me mad because there was 0.3 mile left. Little things like that just set you off when you’re tired from running for over 2 hours. But I had a hill to climb. And this one HURT. The wheels were falling off the wagon at this point, but I swung my arms and powered up the hill. I hit the top and my heart rate redlined. The saliva in my mouth increased and came with the taste of Shot blocks. My body was screaming “Slow down now or I’ll make you puke and it won’t be pretty!” (As if puking is ever pretty). So I backed it WAY down but kept running. I wasn’t able to sprint to the finish, but I was able to run the entire way. I crossed the line and hit the timer on my Garmin to see 2:17. Wow! That was only 3 minutes slower than PF Chang’s last month. I couldn’t believe it.

I grabbed some water an my finisher’s medal and a space blanket and started walking. I ran into Niki, who was feeling pretty bad and said something along the lines of “Oh my god that was horrible and I feel like I’m going to die!” So I made sure she walked with me. We turned to walk down a road a bit, and chose the flattest of all the roads around us (for some reason there were still hills everywhere!). After walking for a few minutes she started feeling better, so we grabbed some food and sat on the curb to stretch. We felt much better and made the car trip back to the hotel, where I got in the hot tub, which was the best thing ever!

Niki heading towards the finish.

I'm alive! (barely)

Niki and I after the race, where she no longer felt like she was going to die.

I was really glad I had stuck to my training and that my training runs normally have hills. The hills in my training weren’t as severe as the ones in the race, but it was better than nothing. I still can’t believe my time was only 3 minutes slower than the PF Chang’s half a month ago, which was a flat and fast race. So that gave me the boost to keep up this crazy training as it is paying off for race day.

Update: I just checked the official results and I finished in 2:17:25. I placed 10th out of 30 in my age group of F30-34! This is by far the best finish I've ever had in a running race, since I'm not a runner. I finished 243rd out of 517 racers overall. So I'm pretty jazzed about that!



Here ends the regular race report. The remaining is just about the rest of our trip in Sedona.

Sedona is great for Zac and I as there is no shortage of vegetarian restaurants. This was the first time we had stayed in west Sedona, and there was a vegetarian restaurant directly across the street from our hotel. After some time in the hot tub we cleaned up and hit this restaurant where I inhaled my veggie burger. I was still hungry afterwards, so we made a trip to the Black Cow Café. No trip to Sedona is complete for us unless we visit the Black Cow for ice cream. Zac got the Black Cow (a rootbeer float) and I got the turtle sundae. Soooo good. By the time we got done at Black Cow it was time for me to go to my massage appointment. I had made an appointment with a massage therapist (Jyoti Rawlinson) because I haven’t had time to get a massage ever since my training started. I was feeling cumulative muscle fatigue from 8 weeks of training. She worked on my for an hour and I felt SO much better afterwards. The strange thing was, I didn’t need a nap after the race. I was all wound up. We went to dinner and stayed up to watch a movie. Normally watching TV sends me right to sleep at night, but not this time.

Zac and I, somewhere in Sedona.

Mmmm...Black Cow ice cream.


The next morning we got up early to hit the mountain bike trails. We got up at 6:30 AM and were out the door by a little after 7. The sun wasn’t even up yet. Our plan was to ride the Girdner trail, which started about a mile from our hotel and led to some other loops around the Cockscomb. This was all fine and good for about 2.3 miles of the ride until we hit Dry Creek, which wasn’t dry. It was flowing like crazy with 35 degree snowmelt water. We looked at different options of trying to cross, but the water was too deep and fast for us. And the last thing I wanted was cold, wet, numb feet. It wasn’t too wet for 3 other guys, who decided to go ahead and cross. After seeing how deep the water was, I was glad we decided to turn around. I really didn’t want to slip and fall in that water.

Hitting the trails early enough to catch the sunrise.

Zac next to the not-so-Dry Creek.

Some guys illustrating how to flood your bike frame with water.

This guy opted to go barefoot in 35 degree water to wash his bike.

We climbed back out and rode down the road a bit past the highschool and found the trailhead to the Old Post Trail. We decided to take this trail back to the area where our hotel was. Once we got on the trial we wished we could’ve found the other entrance which was somewhere near the school as it was all climbing. It would’ve been a really fun trail to do in the opposite direction and ride down. But we climbed anyways. Surprisingly I made it over quite a bit of the trail on tired legs. We stayed on the Old Post trail until the intersection with the Carroll Canyon trail. We had plenty of time, so we decided to do the Carroll Canyon loop. This loop crossed a few dry creeks several times before skirting along the canyon. At one point I had a grammatical error in Body English and where the trail zigged I zagged and fell sideways on the downhill side of a hill. My left thigh slammed into a rock as I fell a few feet down. Oh yes, it will definitely leave a mark. It took me awhile before I could get up and walk it off. Now in addition to being sore from the half marathon, I was banged up from a crash. We continued the ride and I forced myself to ride as much as possible to keep the sore leg moving. I haven’t crashed in quite awhile and this one is going to leave a nice bruise.

The sun is out!

Up next: 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo mountain bike race. Hopefully I got crashing out of my system and I’ll be able to stay upright the whole time.

A few closing pics of Sedona. Not bad for taking them from a speeding car!