Half Marathon Race Report

Hey Coot fans, this is your old pal Old Coot here to give the promised report on my race. To get you up to speed, it was the Rock 'n Roll ¹/₂ Marathon, held in Phoenix, AZ. In this posting, you'll find all sorts of interesting tidbits about the race.

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A Cold Wind Blows

Okay, so it wasn't necessarily windy but it was certainly cold. When I was thinking about running this race, I had ideas of plodding through the desert in shorts and a t-shirt, sweat pouring down my face, scorpions nipping at my toes, and so on. What happened instead, was a cold front blew in the day I got there (and back out again when I left) bringing the bitter cold with it. At the start of the race it was 29 degrees.

Phew, thank God it was a dry cold.

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A Sea of Runners

As of race time, there were 27,000 people entered in the half marathon and another 10,000 in the full. For those of us accustomed to running races of several hundred or less, this was a big deal. When you entered the race, you had to give an estimate of how long you expected to take and they arranged the "corrals" accordingly. All told there were 30 corrals of roughly 1,000 people per corral. Obviously the fastest people were in the front and the slowest in the back.

To prevent the inevitable congestion, they sent the first corral off at the starting gun, then walked everyone up until the people in the second corral were at the starting line. Every two minutes they sent off the next wave of runners until - an hour later - everyone had begun. Each person had a timing chip affixed to his/her shoe, so your time was really the time between the starting and finish lines, not when the gun went off. In theory you could start dead last and win the race.

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It Pays to Plan Ahead

Every major race has it's Port-o-John farm where you wait in line to relieve yourself prior to the race. This one was no exception except they had them spread all along the starting area. I had to whiz like it was going out of style when we got there (thank you 5 glasses of water) and by the time I made it to my corral (#2, yup I was in the second corral) the lines were pretty much nonexistent.

I stood in a line of one while awaiting an open 'o-John when I saw one with the green vacant indicator showing. Having been embarassed by this before, I chose to knock before opening the door. Thank God, because the guy inside quickly hollered out "Whoa, I'm in here!" and I resumed my spot in line. Finally, he slowly and nervously opened the door as if he was looking for someone. He stepped out with his shorts and his pride hanging low, and muttered the words "No toilet paper in there" to me.

The poor guy probably had the nervous trots with no means of cleansing himself. His bad, should have taken care of it ahead of time. I took my whiz and was out of that shithouse with the quickness.

Through the grapevine, I heard of a woman running with about 4 feet of toilet paper hanging out of her shorts. I can't verify it, but I am willing to laugh at it. Someone finally had the guts to talk another woman into helping her out.

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5K with 10 Mile Warmup

Feeling good, I decided somewhere around mile 9 that when I crossed the 10 mile mark I was going to run at my 5K race pace for the rest of the course. When I hit the 10^th mile, I checked the watch to find my pace and kicked it up a notch. By the time I hit the finish line I was cruising at somewhere around 5:30 min/mile (wicked fast for me) and was feeling great.

I would have kept a faster pace the entire time, but I've had a pain in my leg/butt (this much you know) that I was not willing to risk aggravating. I figured I could easily suffer for 3 miles if I really hurt it.

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The Envelope, Please

When all was said and done, the results tabulated, recounts recounted, absentee ballots added, I came in 804^th place overall with a time of 1:40 (one hour and forty minutes). "Holy shit, that's bad" you might be thinking, but allow me to refresh your memory. There were 27,000 people in this race, meaning I was in the top 3%.

WHAT!

Even if you adjust it for age group (M 24-29), I was 102^nd out of 937 or something like that. Not quite the top 10%, but pretty damn close. Considering this was my first half marathon I think I pretty much cleaned up.

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Closing Remarks

I'd just like to thank all of you who sent fast thoughts my way this weekend, they really helped.

Over and Out,
Old Coot