Phoenix Marathon 2009

Finally made it to marathon day. Weather in Phoenix was fantastic, about 50F at the start, then getting up in the 70s by the finish, so a bit warm, but it felt good. Air was very dry, sweat was evaporating as fast as I could produce it, drank quite a bit of water, but tried not to overdo it.

Judy and I got up early, grabbed some breakfast at the hotel, then grabbed the hotel shuttle to the starting line. We wandered around for a bit, got some water, killed time, went to the bathroom, and them headed for the start line. There were 9K+ Marathon starters that signed up, but apparently there were quite a few that switched to the Half Marathon (which started later) so that they could watch the Phoenix Cardinals football game. I'm sure the race director never ever figured on the Cardinals playing football in Phoenix on January 18th, heh. 

Race started around 7:40am, just as the sun was coming up. We generally ran north for a while, then east towards Scottsdale, then south to Tempe, then west to the university. The first several miles there were enough buildings that we were mostly shaded, but as the day went on, and the sun got higher in the sky, it got more sunny and windy. I believe the heat and getting over a cold combined to sap energy from me, because I could never seem to get in a groove pace wise, it was a struggle to run in the 10s for the first half of the race. The second half, my pace got a bit slower and I was really getting tired, taking more and more walk breaks. I stuck with it though, and ended up finishing in an official 4:46:33, middle of the pack for marathons for me. I then got some food, rested for a bit, and then headed back over to the finish line to watch Judy finish. 

Splits were as follows, first 7 miles were 10:00, 10:11, 10:21, 10:41, 10:20, 10:22 and 10:24 as I tried to find my stride. Next 6 miles were 10:24, 10:13, 10:49, 10:16, 10:13 and 10:21. I was at 2:15:54 at the half way point, but I knew I most likely couldn't keep up the pace to finish under 4:30, I was getting pretty tired. The next 7 miles were 10:44, 11:00, 11:53, 11:25, 11:54, 11:25 and 11:25. At mile 20 I was at 3:34:30. The final miles were 11:26, 11:47, 10:59, 12:17, 11:28, 11:32 and 2:58 for the final .30 miles (Garmin had course .10 mile long, pretty accurate). Overall I finished 4061 out of 6440 finishers, 2463 out of 3461 male finishers, and 410 out of 535 in my age division. My average heart rate was 162, but it was somewhat low because of all the walk breaks.

Overall a good marathon, expo was good as well, and Phoenix was a nice town. I would recommend it to others.