Phoenix Marathon - March 2, 2013

Phoenix Marathon - March 2, 2013

This was the marathon that I was most prepared for, my training had all been spot on - and I had hit all the prescribed paces at or faster than needed to hit my goal of under 3:40 (8:23 pace per mile).  This was also another attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon so that I could skip going to run it in 2013 (the race I had qualified for) and run it instead when my husband was going to run it in 2014.

And as you can see the course elevation lends itself to a fast race.

BUT . . . (with these long endurance races it seems more often than not, there is a big old BUT . . . )

I did not anticipate what 4 days (Mon-Thurs) of the week of the race, spent walking around Disneyland and California Adventure, from morning until late night- would do to my run. I thought, "I've trained hard, tapered well, I'm ready. Surely WALKING around all week won't affect my run on Saturday - after all, I'll rest on Friday." Big fat  WRONG!!! 

This IS a great race though! I would definitely consider doing it again! Well run, great course, good temperature (50s to start and 70s at finish). I was great through about half way. Then I started to feel more tired than I should have at that point. You can see by my Garmin stats that it just kept getting slower and slower. By mile 17 I was still on track to make it, but was worried. my FEET hurt in ways they have NEVER hurt during a race (obviously from all the walking around that week prior to the race). By 21/22 I knew it was not happening but still tried to plod on! I finally let myself walk a good portion of miles 24 and 25, then picked it up to run the last little bit (slowly!!)

Official Results:

The day after this race I booked my hotel and flight for Boston 2013, now not knowing if I would EVER be able to qualify again, I had to go and do the race, even if it meant going there all by myself.

Sidenote: We had a WONDERFUL time in Disneyland with our kids and our Lyons extended family - and in the end, that is way more important than a marathon.