Almost 13 months later, we finally got to race an actual, in-person race again.
(Okay, to be perfectly honest we probably could have before, but this is the one we signed up for that worked out. Wasn't just going to pick something to race for the sake of racing especially since, as you know if you've been following this here blog, my training has been CRAP.)
When Vacation Races came out with the Saguaro Half-Marathon, both of us automatically wanted to be in on it. We thought that, given Arizona, there'd be a high likelihood of it taking place. It was in Tucson, which duh, we both love, and bigger bonus, a late March date meant a shot at seeing a Rockies Spring Training game if those were a thing.
The possibility of the race got dicey for a while and we ended up getting shuffled to a Sunday race day as opposed to a Saturday race day (they split us up over two days). However, it did go on. And we got to go to Spring Training which meant our first live sporting event since sometime in 2019 which was also amazing.
Bib pick up was Friday and drive-thru style, but we were able to park and get out for the small expo, where we got this picture.
We're so happy.
Then, nothing until Sunday morning. We ended up chatting with one of Saturday's pacers in Waffle House while getting breakfast and got a lot of good info from him - mainly the course was a lot of uphill. Great. We didn't have time goals, though, so whatever.
We drove out to park at Old Tucson (RIP) and hung out in the car until it was time to queue up in our wave. And poop like four times, since pre-race nervous colon was on overdrive.
Hanging out.
Gorgeous full moon spotted while walking to the queue area/"corrals."
Hanging out pre-race.
Photo-op sign.
7:25 or whatever rolled around and it was time to run. The first half mile or so was on the roads and then we popped into the trails (around Gates Pass in Tucson Mountain Park). The trails were hard-packed dirt (unless you were kinda in a wash in which case it was more sand) with rocks. Sometimes just straight rocks.
But we were RACING.
We were in a train of people that was pretty close together for probably the first mile, mile and a half, but we started naturally spreading out ... particularly as the trail started to climb. And climb. We had a couple miles, according to the ol' Garmin, that were only straight elevation gain with no loss. One also in the later miles. Greeeeeeat.
I think this was heading up to the mile 4 marker. As Paula Abdul would say, straight up.
Despite the climbing (and oh was it fairly brutal), we were still enjoying ourselves. In typical desert fashion, it got warm and it got warm quickly. I had my handheld that I was topping off/refilling at every aid station. I probably drank more in that half-marathon than I have in any other half I've run outside of a 70.3 (and even then ...). And I probably could have stood to ingest more salt (knew I should have brought an extra Skratch packet - started off with Skratch but I was drinking straight water by the end) given how poofy my hands got by the end.
Image credit Lucid Images. Still managed a jump mid-race! This was probably sometime before mile 6 since we were still on trail.
Sometime around the above photo we started chatting with one of the pacers who was hilarious and we were off and on with her over the next probably four miles. I think it was sometime around mile 6 (mile 6.5 maybe? I don't remember ...) that we popped off the trails and back on Kinney Road ... straight uphill toward the Desert Museum. So. Much. Climbing.
We finally got a little bit of a downhill reprieve when we made the left onto the McCain Loop (which I'd last been on in 2017 at SMASH camp when we time trialed it on our bikes ...). The downhill bits were nice, but as the road wound its way back toward the finish ... we also went into the wind. There was a nice good stretch at like mile 10 that we were literally running uphill into the wind. Go figure. Silly Tucson and its wind ...
I will say that it was really easy to go into my brain to focus on the race. I was actually surprised at how easy it was given how long I had exercised that part of my brain. Unintended COVID/social distancing/lockdown/whatever consequence? Guess I've been beefing up the mental toughness muscle over the last year without even realizing it. Hooray?
We had heard from multiple Saturday finishers that the course was long, and indeed, the ol' Garmin registered around 13.3. It was nice knowing that going in so I wasn't looking at the watch wondering why the hell I wasn't done yet.
Final Stats:
Time: 2:54:54.92
68/116 AG (F35-39)
450/857 gender
773/1291 overall
DONE. Plus bomb-ass medal.
Photo op sign got moved.
B and I ran together for most of the race - probably until the last mile or so when I finally pulled away. I crossed the line only around 20 seconds prior.
All things considered, for racing in the post-COVID (or is it just COVID?) era, it was a well-run race. I'd be willing to try another event by Vacation Races in the future, too, particularly if/when things ever go back to "normal".
I may actually consider this race again, too, but I may want to actually put in a good training cycle for it. And run rocky trails.
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