Tucson Half Marathon 2011

Yesterday I teamed up with two awesome runners to run the Tucson 1/2 Marathon. The race started near the biosphere (about 30 miles north of Tucson) and ran along desert scenery before ending in the town of Catalina. The course is mostly flat, with a long downhill stretch for the first 6 miles. I finished in 2hours, 1 min and 13 seconds. Just 1 min and 15 seconds longer than my race in Nov. Some things went better, some worse, here's the break down:

Night Before
I made pasta with a redwine, portobello mushroom, and chard sauce. It was fine and carb heavy but tasted much blander than my previous version than the recipe. It didn't matter for the race, but apparently I forgot to add the 3/4 lb of overn-roasted tomatoes that made up the bulk of the sauce.  Oops. I write it off to pre-race jitters.

Start
This may have been the hardest part. We had to get out the door at 4:30 am to drive north and catch the race bus. That meant 1) being up early, 2) sitting in the desert in December for a hour waiting for the race to start. For those not in the know, the desert is freakin' cold in December. Probably mid-30s, lower when the wind gusted.

Our intrepid team of runners consisted of myself, Colette, and Chris.

It was very, very cold

Chris started running seriously around the same time I did. Because we live on opposite coasts, we started talking about running and races when he came to visit his gfriend/fiance/wife, and followed progress electronically. This summer we finally bit the bullet and signed up for the Tucson 1/2 marathon. Chris has been my most outstanding training partner and inspiration. Whenever I wanted to ditch out on a run, I'd see he just PR'd in training and boy, oh, boy did it get my ass off the couch and out the door. We ran his first 10K together last year. He swore it would be a 12 min/mile pace. My ass. Try 9:15. As in that race, he totally rocked this one and finished in 1:58:something.

in orange

Colette is a new addition to my running life in Tucson. So far we mainly talk about running together but haven't actually gotten out yet. I'm super inspired by her trail runs (in the morning! for miles & miles!). We have become climbing buddies (again, super inspired by her abilities). Hopefully I'll drag my butt out of bed and get out on the trails with her sometime, and maybe I'll be able to talk her into checking out the free track workouts near my house. Colette is another "I run 10 minute miles, I'm really slow!". My ass. She rocked this half marathon finishing in 1:54. She shaved nearly 13 min off her last HM pace. Like I said, total inspiration.

 Blurry, but I love the stride and smile.

We prepared by packing cheap sweats to toss or bag (in drop bags) before the race, and jumping up and down a lot. This race i ran in my red running capris, lavender and navy blue ski socks, bright teal Brooks Cascadia 6s (I cannot tell you how much I love these shoes), a New balance long sleeved running tech top, champion C9 running gloves, a pink head band/ear warmer, and a new pink Brooks thermal running hoodie (a gift from my mom). In preparation for the race start, I was wearing a pair of sweats and another soft shell jacket.

check the awesomeness of the shoes, socks, running capri/skirt

Food: Banana with almond butter at 4am (ugh), packet of sports beans 30 min before race.

Run
This was a small race in comparison to the Woman's Half. And it started cold. The singer of the national anthem had a lovely voice, but I was ready to strangle him w/ the damn microphone chord ever time he milked one of the notes w/ unending vibrato.

We started in the 2nd wave and in the time I turned to Colette to confirm that we were going to try running together but to break off if we needed to, Chris was gone. Colette and I started but after the 2nd mile she was pulling faster than I wanted to run and I hung back to settle into a pace.

The first half of the race is downhill. Between the cold and the decline, I ran it pretty fast. My main concern was to not fuck up my knees and to have a good time. Because of the cold and the placement of the water stops, I missed taking my gel at the 5 mile mark and had to save it for mile 6. Gel went down just fine and I ran comfortably through the mile 6 water stop, pausing to toss off my thermal and hand it to our intrepid cheer squad: Sarah (Chris' partner), Luke, and KT.

At the 6.5 water stop I needed more fluid to get the gel digested. Learning from last race, I was all about water. No powerade for me. So when I said "water?" and the guy confirmed "water!" I grabbed the cup and slugged it down. Not water. Poorly mixed electric blue powerade. Within minutes, it hit my stomach and came right back up. Hacking and coughing, I went back for actual water and kept going. I must have gotten some of the gel in my system, but not enough. By mile 10 I needed more, but didn't want to throw anything else in my stomach.

Around mile 8 I started to get some IT band pain in the left knee. Mile 8.5 was when the cramping on the right hand side struck. No amount of flapping or running with my arm raised seemed to help. By mil 9 I was really counting down the miles and taking walk breaks every mile to .5 mile depending. I tried shifting my stride around as much as possible and found alternating between low, long, heel strikes (no knee pain, but massive cramping), and mid-foot and even toe running (no cramping, super painful on the knees), helped. When we hit the only incline in the race at mile 10, I was elated. The change in terrain took so much pressure off my knees and thankfully gave me a different stride pattern. By mile 11 and 12 I slowed down to 9:45 and 10 min/mile paces and just cruised on in.

The last 4 miles were really hard, but I made the best of it. I chatted with the sheriffs helping with the traffic. I cheered on a woman in a Woman's Half Marathon tech tee. I co-miserated with a fellow runner. I stopped to give KT a high 10 before running through the finish line (Luke cried out - finish strong! I was really glad to finish at all...), and jogged comfortably past the finish line.

The Finishers!

The race was organized, the water stops were frequent and well staffed, and the after-race food was fine (fruit, salty stuff, flatbread w/ PB & J). This would be a great, fast race for a first timer, someone looking to PR, and anyone who can handle long stretches of downhill. Personally, this race was much more physically demanding than the generally flatter but w/ occasional hill course i ran in Nov. I really don't like down. Down = knee problems and cramping. Uphill = slow, hard, but much easier on my body.

Sexy husband wearing the scarf and cap you knit him makes all the race pain go away.

One final shout-out to our awesome team of cheerleaders. Seeing Katie, Luke and Sarah at the 6.5 and 9 mile marks gave me a real boost. Never underestimate the power of people cheering your name:

The whole team

Recovery:
Even though the race was really tough, my recovery has been really good. Keeping the sugary drinks out of my stomach (as much as possible), and slowing the pace at the end, really saved me. No runner's stomach. At all. Yay! We all felt good enough to go to the Sonora Desert Museum in the afternoon, and finish the evening with Chris' Mighty Margaritas and fish tacos.

Today (the day after) my quads and IT bands are sore. Inexplicably, my shoulders are also sore and I have a killer knot in the middle of my left back.

Reflections:
I really wish I had had 2 months in between races so that I could have properly trained for this one. I really felt the lack of long runs in the interim month due to my knees recovery from the last race. I also need to figure out what I'm doing (other than running 13 miles) to irritate my IT band and get on changing that ASAP.

Plans for the New Year:
I have plans to run a 5K with my mom in Feb, but no other long races. I'd like to sign up for a bunch of 10Ks and work mainly on speed work. I may plan for a HM in the later Spring, but i'm not planning on anything just yet.

I'm taking this week off to recover and then will ease back into training. Goals for next year:

-add strength training. I need to settle on a strength training plan and start sticking to a twice a week routine. I need to strengthen my hips (should help with IT band), core, and upper body (for climbing and running). I'm going to try to start adding exercises at various parts of my day to break up my long stretches at the computer.

-add some gentle speedwork. This is going to start with doing Fartlek Runs with Luke.

-keep the long weekend runs. I think I may do pyramids of 7 miles - 13 (or longer!) miles, and then back down, just to make sure I keep up the long, slow runs. They really made a huge difference with my endurance and speed.

-keep my 4.5 mile loops

-keep cross training. climbing, swimming, gymming it, sexy time (wait, is this a family blog?), whatever

-And, I'm getting the Chi Running low down with KT on Sunday!