Mesa Marathon

Last week I was excited to give another shot at running a sub-3 marathon in Mesa, AZ where I accomplished it last year. A few things were different, to include the location of the expo (at Sloan Park, rather than Bass Pro Shops) and the tail end (~1 mile) of the marathon route to end right next to Riverview Park.

The line that I was in to pick up my bib was RIDICULOUSLY slow. The kid who they had behind the counter for those of us with last names starting with "L" (and, from what I could eventually see, all of the bibs were actually in alphabetical order by last name) had no idea how to quickly get to the approximately right area of the bin. Instead of trying to skip over as many of the "La" and "Le" last names to get to the area near mine, he went one by one through the entire bin of bibs. Come on, man! You can see my last name, it WILL be after everything starting "La" and before everything starting "Li" (or later). To quote Holy Grail, "skip a little, brother."

Pick-up aside, the rest of the expo, relatively small though it was, was decent. They have a method of getting codes from various vendors that would enable you to get discounts of future race registrations. And they had a coach there giving a detailed overview of the half marathon and full marathon courses, and good advice on how best to tackle both the downhills and the main uphill.

I must admit though, the biggest disappointment of the expo was when I went over to the pacer table. While they were nice enough, the disappointment arose when they told me that (yet again, despite claims to the contrary on the race website) they would NOT have a 3-hour pacer. Ugh! Come on! Don't promise a pacer that you're not going to have. (Near as I could tell, the fastest pacer they had was for 3:15.)

The morning of the race was gorgeous. It was just chilly enough (mid-40s?) that I donned my NYC Marathon poncho for my walk from the hotel to the bus loading area. Upon arrival at the start line, most of us stayed on board the bus for a while, given that it was colder there, and was also rather breezy to start.

Finally, I got out of the bus, got in the very brief line for the portapotty, dropped off my bag (poncho dropped in and mylar donned), and met up with my fellow Maniacs.

Then, it was off to the corral to attempt to meet up with the 1 or 2 people from one of my Facebook groups who  I was chatting with in advance. Jason (the guy I was with last year for about 20 miles) crossed paths with me, and pointed out that his goal this time was 2:50 -- great! And I didn't really meet up with the planned individual, but wound up chatting with many other people standing at the 3-hour time, all of whom were disappointed to hear there was no official pacer for 3 hours but, upon hearing that I managed it last year, seemed to coalesce around me as their unofficial pacer. Lots of pressure, but I was up to try it again.

That said, it was really dark, and NONE of us were wearing headlamps. I advised them what my plan was for the start -- doing 6:40s until getting to the uphill around Mile 4-5.5. The starting gun finally went off, and just about everyone around me was off with a shot, out much faster than what I wanted to do. I instantly let them all go -- I had no interest in going out overly fast like I did last year. So, only the two or three people closest to me stuck near me at all, only one (Tromeric, from Norway) right next to me where we could still converse at all.

The first four miles were great - right on planned pace. Then we got to the main uphill section and I kept the same level of effort, but slowed down a fair bit more than what I had intended. I was unconcerned, as there was plenty of time to make up the extra difference down through the half-way mark. And while Tromeric wanted to pull away, he slowed down to stick with me.

We finally got to the downhill portion again, and we picked the pace back up again. But not enough. And it didn't look like I would be able to increase the pace enough to make up the difference. After a couple of miles of this, he slowly drifted off, aiming to make up the time sufficiently to hit sub-3. I didn't attempt to hold him back at all, since I knew I wasn't going to hit the goal.

By the time I got to the half-way point, my time was over 1:31. Since I was already planning a positive split (i.e., slower 2nd half than 1st) and it was clear for the last several miles that my pace was slowly decreasing, my goal then changed to 3:05 -- still possible.

Somewhere around Mile 16, I saw Tromeric in front of me, walking very slowly. I called out to him as I approached to see if he was ok. Seemed like he was injured to some extent, but still mobile. I wished him good luck and kept on going, hoping that I would at least be able to see him again after the finish so we could talk further.

Gradually, the course's downhill became shallower and shallower (nearly flat), and my pace gradually slowed further. I finally got into the area of town that had us running through the neighborhoods, and I got frustrated with all of the turns that seemed to be taking us the wrong way compared to the finish line (since I hadn't memorized the course to know what was coming).

It felt like it was taking forever to finally hit Mile 24, which I knew was right around the spot where we had our last long straightaway on Rio Salado, with a nice last, fast downhill kick just past Mile 25, and then only .25 miles remaining when I hit the front side of Riverview Park. (I had run that part of the course on Thursday when I arrived in town to have my landmarks and timing in mind to know whether I would need the same uber-painful push at the end for crossing the line under the mark.)

I had already seen 3:05 pass as a possible goal, and even 3:10. But what about 3:15? The turn made, there was less than .1 miles left.

Alas, no. 3:15 was already showing on the clock.

Still, could I be under 3:16, at least? CHARGE!

Yes. Final result, 3:15:53.

I took my sweet time in the finisher's village, getting and consuming the post-race refreshments, getting stretched and a massage. Finally, I got my bag and headed out backtracking the course until about the 25.5mile mark (which was where I would need to turn down to finish walking back to my hotel), and cheered some of the later runners for about 45 minutes. Mercifully, where I was "standing" was actually where a barrier that enabled me to sit was placed - making it an easier effort.

"You can do it!"

"Less than 1 mile to go!"

"You really ARE almost there!"

"Last downhill right here!"

After a fair bit of cheering, I was intermittently feeling a bit light-headed, so I needed to get back, soak, shower and change, and get out for lunch. A very late lunch, as it turned out.

But Bobby's BBQ was really a great find. The smokehouse burger was scrumptious, and I wolfed it down rapidly.

Dessert? The mini donuts look tempting, but I can't eat a dozen (which is the size of the order on the menu). Could I get a half-order? "Well, they're complimentary with your dine-in lunch. Should I bring you 5 or 6?" Ooh, yes, please!

These were fantastic. Similar to zeppoles, but much lighter. They were gone in maybe 1 minute. Oh! Mmmm...

Back to the hotel again to do a little more resting. Would I be bothered getting dinner? After all, lunch wasn't until about 3:30pm. I shouldn't think about dinner prior to 8pm. Yeah, I went for it. Yet a different Chinese restaurant than earlier in the weekend, and these ripped noodles with pork were wonderful. And the live music (zither, I think) was pretty good, too.

So, do I concede that sub-3 is not happening again? Should I really accept the fact that PRs are likely behind me, so that now I should only think of PRs with respect to my age group? Quite possibly. But I've been tempted by the profile of this course for next year, because based on the website, it looks like they have removed the uphill portion at Mile 4 - 5.5 so it's a completely downhill course. Hmmm... I've got time to decide. After all, it would be nice to do more pacing for others and to get more states -- I only have 17 states + DC, so far.