I just got invited to run this two weeks ago by the race director and felt a marathon would be a good break. I have been training for half marathons wchich included occasional semi long runs but mostly fast Tempo runs so I was kind of curious anyway how this training would work for a marathon.
I was lucky enough to get an overnight with work in Phoenix so it kind of worked out. It was such a pretty night I left the hotel Saturday night with a sleeping bag from the manager. I camped out on the ground and slept like a baby until 5am. The morning was awesome! What a cool place to start a race. The scenery was incredible, up at the base of the mountains in Apache Junction. Lots of warming fires and a lot of fun. Only 600 runners in the marathon. They seemed very serious and fit, but having a good time.
I had heard it was a hard course. The masters record was only 2:47. It started out downhill, kind of..with rolling hills on a dirt road for the first 8 miles or so. I had no idea how to pace since I had no real long run experience yet this year but there were 4 of us doing about 6 minute pace and it felt all right so I stuck with it. The hills started about mile 10 so I knew the pain would be starting soon. I came through the13 mile point right at 1:18 so still sticking to 6 minute pace. I felt a bit intimidated at this pace since I knew I had 13 still to go so I backed off a bit to around a 6:13 pace. The scenery was so cool honestly I lost track of the miles a few times, after all I'm used to running in the snow right now. After mile 20 the hills begun again and i think I lost about another 10 seconds a mile from there to the finish. I was real happy with the time and how good I felt the whole race. I did beat the masters course record by 4 minutes and then bumped into the guy in front of me in the corral and he was a masters runner from Boulder that kept that 6 minute pace we started with almost to mile 22! I'd have never caught him, even if I'd have known he was a master. It really turned out to be a masters race with 6 of the top ten guys being over 40! Not particularly fast but well worth it.
All in all a fun run. I took out of this one that I believe the fast Tempo runs medium distance at 30 sec per mile faster than marathon pace can really help. For the first time in a marathon for me the pace felt slow, it's just the distance that sucked.. | 