It's taken me a little bit of time to get to writting this race report but I'm finally doing it.
This race was a little bit different since I had to fly myself and the family across the country to participate. When I registered for this race I did not know I would have to train through my first winter back in the midwest in 8 years and without my partner in crime Rhett. Since I moved across the country one of the first things I did was talk to others about possible running groups that would help me get through the rough training session I was about to embark on through one of the coldest winters Kansas City has seen in years. When I say cold it was the coldest being on Saturday morning long run the had a air temp of 4 degrees when started and with wind chills below zero. Coming from sunny Lake Havasu this called for a lot of layering and good company pulling me through my race pace miles in which I found at Runners Edge of KC Running Group. This group also convinced me to run following the groups level 3 training plan. This plan allowed for me to run quality miles and introduced more pace miles into my long runs along with scheduled workouts on Tuesday and Thursday's.
This training plan seemed to work for me and I was happy with the paces I was able to hit on Tuesday and Thursdays along with the long Saturday runs. I was progressively running faster and faster without running with the strength, speed, tempo runs, and long runs. With the winter weather and being forced to run many miles on the treadmill it may have helped me because I ended up lifting my treadmills back with a 2x4 to get downhill training to prepare for the first half of the race course. Now to the race overview:
The trip to Phoenix went smooth from KC and we arrived Thursday morning in Phoenix on a sunny but cool day compared to what the weather had been in the last couple of weeks. Friday was another beautiful day but we new the weather was suppose to be rolling in and this weather was not following the forcast so I didn't know what Saturday morning had in store for me. Friday afternoon we took in the Diamondbacks and Rockies Spring training game and then met Rhett and a few others for Pancakes at Crackle Barrel right by the finish line. As the night came the rain still hadn't arrived and I planned to be wet at the staging area and before the race with Jamie staying with me so I could change my shoes right before the start. Off to bed I went and slept like a baby unlike my wife that could not sleep because of the high winds. The alarm sounded and everything was dry outside so Jamie dropped me off at the staging area. !0 minutes before the start the wind was blowing and the rain started and within 2 minutes of the start the clouds opened up and poured soaking everyone from head to toe! This brought a little bit of concern since I have some of the weakest feet on earth and always get blisters so wet shoes and feet had me a little worried. I just kept going through my race plan in my headed and started running!! Oh I forgot my long sleeve shirt on which ended up being my windshield wipers for the first mile and half till a flipped to Jamie who had the boys and mother inlaw and father inlaw with her cheering me on. The rain would stop around the 3 mile mark and just sprinkle a few more times after that and the clouds would protect me from the harsh AZ sun. Jamie, her mom and my friend Doug would then see me again at miles 11, 19 and the finish line of course. I found a great group guys planning on running the rae about 3 hours and we discussed racing plans and everyone seemed to agree that my plan was good and they bought into it and followed it for 19 miles before I broke off and was by myself to the end. There was a slight wind coming from the west so I used these guys as my protection and wind block which only left me with a few miles to fight the wind by my lonesome. After the half way point the results showed I was in 38th place and past 9 people between that and the end which was mostly the group I ran with and people between mile 19 and 23. Around mile 21 I started feeling weak but my pace was still staying steady until mile 25 and 26 when it really started to hurt and pace slowed drastically. Here are my splits:
6:40, 6:35, 6:44, 6:42, 6:56, 7:02, 6:46, 6:42, 6:41, 6:36, (7:10- watch miles and course were not matching up this was 214'), 6:42, 6:41, 6:50, 6:38, 6:46, 6:36, 6:51, 6:50, 6:48, 6:43, 6:45, 6:55, 7:11, 7:34, 7:21, 7:15, .26 @ 6:45.
I haven't put these times into my planned pace spreadsheet but it definitely mirrors it pretty darn close since that timed at 3:00:28 and was calculated out to 26.33 miles to take into consideration not running every tangent and course extra distance. Overall my race was great but the overall event definitely was not as high class as last years event. Many minor corners were cut and there was way to many half marathoners taking up the whole course that I had to pass and manuever around while dead tired at the end of the race.
SUB 3 & BQ!!! Check that off the list to do!
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