When you get mad at someone in a hotel for setting their alarm at a ridiculously early time: watch out, it might be you. I purposely set an extra alarm on my tablet for 4:45 am on marathon day. I just didn't realize that without reliable wifi access, my tablet couldn't update the time. Therefore, promptly at 4:45 am CST (which is 3:45 am in Arizona), my tablet tried to wake me up. I swore at the neighbors. Then I swore at myself. Another hour or so of fitful dreaming and marathon day had arrived.
I had laid out all my stuff two days before so I wouldn't be dumb and forget anything. I forgot my chapstick in spite of this and had to walk back to the room to retrieve it. I arrived in the hotel lobby in plenty of time to catch one of the first buses up to Mt. Lemmon. My seatmate said that this was not a very scenic course and that made me a little sad (turns out she was wrong: for a flatlander, mountains on the horizon are plenty scenic). It was a pretty long drive up and still pitch dark, so I dozed a little bit. We waited on the bus until about 20 minutes before the 7 am start time, put our warm clothes in drop bags and lined up at the start. There was a Marathon Maniac near me who was running this as her 250th marathon. Umm... ok. They don't call themselves maniacs for nothing.
They'd rescheduled the marathon start time half an hour early because of northerners and record heat. Well, it was in the low 40s at the start and maybe 60 degrees when I finished around 11 o'clock. So much for heat. My "run a mile walk a minute" plan depended on my phone app beeping in my ear, so I was plugged in for all but the last 2 miles. Next time, if I'm running injured again, I think I'll skip the app and just walk for a minute at each mile marker. The first couple miles were indeed downhill as advertised, but the rest of the course was generally rolling or descending so gradually as to be imperceptible. Running uphill at altitude is not something at which I excel. Everything felt pretty good until past 20 miles, when my right hip started complaining in earnest. My ankle was fine the entire way. I stopped the walk breaks after 24 miles because I was afraid that I'd never start running again. My pacing was much better than Pocatello last year, when I blasted down the mountain for a half marathon split of about 1:45 (and a finish of 4:11:50, talk about positive splits!).The course wasn't too spectator-friendly. I'm going to make sure that the next one is, because my sherpas were bored and I missed them. If you're going to drag someone along while you're running for 4-odd hours, at least give them something to watch! My sherpas were worried when I wasn't showing up after 3:50 or so and debated whether I was out somewhere walking or in the medical tent. I just got slow. I didn't feel too awful afterwards, but I don't recommend spraining your ankle 6 weeks before a marathon, having a 6 week taper and running your last 20 miler two months before the race. Just FYI. Splits below.
Mile 1 - 8:05
Mile 2 - 8:30
Mile 3 - 8:46
Mile 4 - 9:29
Mile 5 - 8:24
Mile 6 - 8:39
Mile 7 - 8:22
Mile 8 - 9:08
Mile 9 - 8:33
Mile 10 - 8:53
Mile 11 - 9:49
Mile 12 - 10:35
Mile 13 - 9:07
Mile 14 - 9:40
Mile 15 - 9:05
Mile 16 - 9:34
Mile 17 - 9:17
Mile 18 - 9:38
Mile 19 - 9:42
Mile 20 - 10:17
Mile 21 - 10:41
Mile 22 - 10:11
Mile 23 - 10:52
Mile 24 - 11:30
Mile 25 - 11:08
Mile 26 - 11:12
0.2 - 2:10
Finish time - 4:11:12
