Tempe, AZ

Yahoo! I finished my 7th half marathon in Tempe, AZ!

It was a whirlwind of a weekend, but so much fun. Vick and I woke up at 4am on Saturday for our flight to Phoenix Arizona, and made it there somewhat awake. We got picked up at the airport by the fabulous Laura and Michael Ritzler, who were our amazing hosts for the weekend. They brought us to the race expo which was our first glimpse of how HUGE the P. F. Chang's Rock and Roll Half Marathon would be. Even though I know that there would be 10s of thousands of people running, I didn't really have a concept of what that meant. The race expo was only the first time in the weekend that we'd be herded through an area like livestock. Where's Temple Grandin when you need her?

After the expo, we got to hang with the Ritzler four-legged, fuzzy children. Tallie has grown into quite the silly dog since our days in Redondo Beach. Isis and Boobaloo were super cute and sweet. All three were so BIG compared to our teeny children. Next we carb-loaded at Gasper's with Laura and Mike, and our food coma was perfectly timed for 8pm.

Weather-wise, race day was absolutely perfect. When we left Laura's house it was in the upper 40s. It was in the upper 50s when we stopped running. It was cloudy, which is great for translucent people like myself.

With so many people in corrals at the start line, it took us nearly 25 minutes to begin. The freight train crossing after the first corrals left didn't help anything. Once we did get by the start line, there was still the matter of passing people or being passed. In every race I've run, thus far, after a mile or two, the pack thins as the herd stretches out. For this race, the people were plentiful, and it seemed as though we had to bob and weave around runners for the entire race.

The terrain was interesting. Arizona is way more flat Massachusetts, and since the trees are few and far between, it feels like you can see for miles. And yet, the course still steadily gained elevation for several miles in the middle. The awesome part about that? The last few miles were a gradual decline. Sweet.

Arizona was the first place I've raced with cacti. One cactus of note looked as though it had two arms, mid-clap. Vick nearly stopped us to ensure that I saw it. He's a silly boy. Although, at mile 8, we needed any applause we could get.

We finished the race in 2:13:25. That means that we were 11 seconds/mile away from of my goal of running 10-minute miles. Since I didn't tell Vick that was the goal until the day before the race, I think we did pretty well!

After finishing, racers were treated to bananas, frozen yogurt, jamba juice, bagels, water, and snack bars. This all would have been extraordinarily nice if there weren't thousands of us trying to leave the finish chute. We were fenced in, and the fences funneled inwards as we got closer and closer to the exit. People were sweaty and hot. I felt like I was going to pass out from claustrophobia, and then my husband started mooing. Oy. They should call in Temple Grandin for expert advice before their next race.

Once we had finally exited, we met up with Laura and Mike, who were nice enough to take us for pancakes and waffles, then back for much needed showers and video games. Before our red-eye back to Boston, they brought us to an eat-in movie theater with super-comfy chairs. All-in-all, it was a fantastic race day. Many thanks to the Ritzlers for such a great weekend!

Now, back to sleep!