Tucson Marathon

     Part of the run training focus was to do a Marathon early enough to recover for prepping for Oceanside 70.3 in March.  On Halloween, we did a half marathon - LA Rock n Roll half, and was looking to be on track for a good marathon by achieving a PR of 1:40:27 by 9 seconds and non rested.  We ended up flying to Tucson on friday night after work, and met Johnna's brother and sister in law at the Hotel for dinner.  On saturday, we did our run and swim, checked in at the expo, and then drove the course.

      Not sure if it was the pasta I ate, but I was wide awake all night--probably not the food, probably positive nerves.  We got up at 4:30 to get on the bus at 5:30 that took us to the start of the point to point race.  We huddled in the bus until the start, as it was cold and dark.  We started at 7am, just as the sun was coming up.  Goal time was a 3:40.  I settled into the 3:20 group, lost them around mile 9 and then settled in with the 3:30 group.  At Mile 20, Coach Hillary of TeamHPB was cheering me on and then surprised me by bunnyhopping the course after her own half marathon PR of 1:25.  Right around then the 3:40 group caught me, and I managed to hang on perfectly for a wait-for-it 3:40:00 flat!  Johnna came in at 4:30 just behind her brother and sister in law.  Kudos to Johnna who trained through a torn calf muscle (found out later) that she tweaked on our Thanksgiving weekend hill repeat session.

     I was super happy about my time.  I split it well -- out in 1:47, back in 1:53.  I managed the new nutrition plan well  - 8 gels in total during the race.  It was the first time a) that I took in that much in one event, and b) that I felt the surge after taking in nutrition each and every time.  Mile 25 was the hardest.  I remember turning up the hill to the out and back to the finish, and as I turned I got that familiar hammy yank.  I pretty much had to ignore it, as I was being yelled at tocrank it up to the finish.  If I hadn't seen Coach Hillary those three times on the course, I probably would have faded to a 3:45.  Nothing like motivation and accountability.

    Many cool run sessions went into the making of this marathon PR (previous was 4:09 in 2006).  16 miles on the Queen K the day after the World Championship; 20x Hill repeats on a hot humid Kona afternoon; many 20+ mile runs, and some double run days.

Tom Stacy Johnna and Me

   Flight home on sunday night was brutal.  We had to connect through Vegas.  We could barely walk through the terminal.  We looked pretty funny, but probably just blended in with the usual las vegas airport crowd.