Sedona… my first marathon!
I know it’s been a while since I posted anything. My last post ironically was about a half marathon I ran more in a last minute kind of decision (registered <2 weeks before the race and didn't really train specifically for it). Now I'm posting about my first marathon experience. I knew this marathon was coming up, but I still didn't train specifically for it. I trained knowing I would be doing it, but with my long term goals as #1 instead of my performance at the marathon as being #1.
I went with a great group of friends from my running groups here in Denver. We all flew down to Phoenix and made the drive up to Sedona (about 2 hours away). When you think Arizona you think… warmth, desert, and cacti. We managed to get 2 of the 3 basically. It definitely wasn’t “warm”, but it was at least warmer than Denver. The race was on Saturday and we all got into town Friday, some early, some later on. Saturday morning came and at 6:30 we were heading down to go park the car for the race. It was definitely a tag chilly, with cloudy skies, but luckily no rain. I was the only one running the full marathon and most others were running the half marathon (one person ran the 5k).
The marathon got a 15 minute head start and it was an out and back course. 1800ft of climbing, 60% on road, 40% on hard packed dirt trail with unlevel footing from the sandstone rocks that are so well known in the area. Definitely a difficult course, which is something I wanted for my first marathon. My philosophy is that if the first time is really hard, then all the other times will seem easy… plus it’s not hard to beat your previous time at your next race (in my case not hard to beat my old marathon PR now). Sedona is well known for being beautiful and this race is nothing but that. The scenery really helps to take your mind off the fact that you’re either running uphill or downhill at all times and trying to race a marathon. I’m thinking this is on the list for a repeat next year, unless I find another race to try out that might be scenic.
Around mile 13 it did start to drizzle, but it held off luckily. The dirt road would not have been fun to run on wet… that red sand basically becomes glue when it gets wet and will make a 12oz shoe weigh 12lbs in the matter of minutes. TrackMyAthlete.com was generous enough to send us all gps units to try out so friends and family could track us online during the race from anywhere in the world. I know my parents tracked me from New Jersey and after my friends finished their half marathons they were able to use their iPhones to see how far along I was and how I was doing. The last mile is pure uphill… long drawn out, no questions about if it’s a false flat kind of uphill. But thanks to trackmyathlete.com my friends knew exactly when I’d be coming up that last portion of the hill and were there to cheer me on. I’ve never done a race where there were friends that excited cheering for me at the end, so it brought a huge smile to my face when I saw them jumping around. Thanks everyone 
Although the course was hard I think I did a good job sticking to my plan, both pace and nutrition wise. I ended up with a 4:02… I was hoping for a 3:55, but just didn’t push hard enough at any given point since I didn’t know if I’d bonk. For a first marathon it taught me a lot about what to do with my nutrition and when it’s okay to go harder and when it’s better to maintain the pace and take it easy. Based on McMillian I should be able to do a 3:35-3:37 marathon, so my goal of 3:55 wasn’t exactly pushing myself to the limit, but it was fast enough to teach me what a marathon feels like and how to improve my next one and hopefully go sub 3:30.
As for the group… we rocked Sedona! Out of the 9 people that went, we ended up with 5 age group awards!!!! Us Denverites are a bunch of ringers. I ended up 2nd in my age group out of 7. I still find it amusing that a 4:02 got me second, but I’ll take it. The winner of my age group also happened to come in 2nd overall with a 2:55… now he was definitely flying out there. I hope to one day be able to do a 2:55 marathon, but I doubt I’ll attempt it on that course… It’ll most likely be on something like San Diego where it’s sea level and flat… not 4k feet and all hills.
My congrats goes out to all my friends that ran as well. I think everyone did awesome and I had an awesome time hanging out with them all weekend.