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FLRC Newsletter - February/March 2005 |
| Tucson Marathon | |
I ruminated for a while on my experience in Tucson and had decided not to write an account because it was not the glowing success I had trained and planned for. However, at Lorrie's prompting, I agreed that it could possibly be enlightening to readers, and, who knows, you may find yourself in Tucson the first week of December some year and want to know what their marathon is like before you try it. So here is my race report, along with some lessons I've learned.
I had been looking for a gently downhill marathon to end the year with hopefully a new PR of 3:24:00. I looked at St. George, Utah, but it was too early in the fall, and so decided on Tucson, Arizona. Besides, we had lived in Southern California for eight years and have grown to love the southwest deserts in the winter. The host hotel was the very impressive Hilton El Conquistador golf resort in the Oro Valley just north of Tucson. For the size of the marathon, the expo was well done. I heard the pasta dinner was very good also. There were about 1900 entrants at this ninth running, and never did it feel too crowded.
Lesson #1: You cannot travel cheaply and expect a peak performance. I found some great $187 tickets for my wife and me—perfect for going together. The two older kids stayed with grandparents and we took the 15-month-old. We were looking forward to a nice weekend getaway to the sunny southwest, with a good run tucked in on Sunday. The problems began Friday morning when traffic backed up just outside Philly (the "cheaply" part of the trip required that we drive to Philly, then fly nonstop to Phoenix, then drive to Tucson). Unfortunately, we also found that Philly's long-term parking is simply atrocious (BWI is infinitely better). Anyway, we missed our flight by 10 minutes, had to stand by for several hours, endure a layover in Pittsburgh, and then drive the last hour-and-a-half from Phoenix to Tucson, arriving at our hotel just before 2:00 am EST. So gone were the dreams of a "restful" get-away. Gone too were our dreams of sunshine as we woke up to an all-day rainy Saturday. We scrapped our plans to go to the botanical gardens, which is our habit when visiting a new city. Instead, we enjoyed a soak in the hotel's outdoor hot tub in the rain—something even the baby enjoyed.
The course is point-to-point, starting at about 4600' elevation to the north in Oracle and ending around 2400' back near the hotel in Oro Valley. I calculated this as a 1% grade. This should have translated into a fast PR at best. Quads were never a problem as the incline is so gradual. They don't really have "hills" there anyway. Just mountains punching up out of gently sloping desert plates. Being the desert, spectators weren't exactly abundant or motivating, if that's something you need to keep going. The majority of the time we were running on highways, and I wasn't prepared for the incessant noise of passing cars going 60 mph, but the scenery of the mountains and cacti were pleasant and distracting.
All 34 shuttle buses left about 5:30 am from the finish area to take us up to the start. Start time was 7:30 am, just before sunrise. It was a brisk 47°F and partly cloudy. The first two miles are on dirt road heading out to the highway. Instantly I knew I was in for trouble. Lesson #2: Only eat familiar combinations of familiar foods prerace. Yes, I knew not to eat new foods on race day. But I didn't expect that unfamiliar combinations of well-tolerated food could be just as volatile. Peanut butter is okay, bananas are okay, grape juice is okay. But PB, bananas, and grape juice together is not okay. I paid dearly for that mistake with 10–11-minute miles the first 4 miles as Mother Nature disciplined me periodically for my ignorance. But then I settled into my 7:45 goal pace for a revised expected finish time of 3:32:00—still plenty of glucose to perform mental calculations. Things went very well from miles 5–23. The weather was marathon perfect, 45°F at the start, and 50–57°, partly cloudy, with a light crosswind after sunrise. I drank well, paced well, and felt pretty good. However, there was another annoying complication I hadn't anticipated. Lesson #3: "Taper and rest" means taper and rest. Not taper and do yard work, or taper and work late, or taper and stay up late. I new I was not well rested about mile 6 because I just felt tired and unmotivated. My body felt good, but my mind just felt slow and tired. The harried trip out was partly to blame, but I had only netted about five hours a night the week before because of work and family obligations. So all you peak-performance chasers—don't forget to sleep 7–8 hours a night the week or two before! Then there was the usual and expected slowdown from miles 23–26, where I dropped to about 8:30/mile then 9:00/mile the last mile, but I finished feeling pretty good. The $20 professional massage was worth every penny. My shoulders usually are tense or frankly cramped up when I run more than 20 miles, and the massage really worked out the knots nicely.
And we did get to go to the botanical gardens after the marathon before driving back up to Phoenix for our redeye flight home Sunday night. They were having their annual Illuminaria show that night. That's when they light all those candles in paper bags and have musical performers, baked goods, and warm drinks to celebrate the desert in winter.
Driving back to Phoenix and the flight home was very tiring. Thankfully, our adorable daughter slept most of the time! But by far the most painful part of the whole experience, and most dangerous, was the drive up from Philly to home after two hours of sleep on the plane after the marathon. But we had to get back to relieve our baby sitters.
So, you can take a weekend and run a marathon 3000 miles from home. Sure. But pay for a good flight from nearby home, eat familiar foods in familiar combinations, and get plenty of rest first! You might try Tucson some year. It is a well-organized, downhill course, in a beautiful place. But would I do it all again? Not as a short weekend trip. I think Wineglass sounds pretty good for next year.
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