Rock 'N' Roll Arizona Marathon & Half

Held January 2006

0740
Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon
26.2 miles at 9:45 pace
169 avg bpm
Run Info

The run went great until about mile 16, when I started cramping in my legs a little. I began to take walking breaks and pumped lots of fluid, but I think the fact of the matter was that I had just been moving at too fast a pace (roughly 8:45) and I started to fatigue. I slowed down a great deal after that point. Coach Goetz ran with me from mile 10 to 20, so he got to see metransition from smooth and quick, to slow and staggering. I didn't feel bad about my time, although I thought I might have. It's almost two days later and I feel pretty good physically. I can get up and down stairs pretty quick, and I don't see any signs of injury. Altogether, the race itself was a blast, with tons of people out supporting the runners (especially TNT). Also, everyone in the Virtual Chapter of TNT finished their respective courses in good time which made for plenty of post race smiles!

So I finally did it, and I don't just mean a marathon! I raised a ton of money for LLS, met a bunch of great people, trained really hard, and finished my first marathon in a fairly respectable time. The whole weekend was soo much fun, and I look forward to doing TNT again in the near future. It was really an emotional experience; and it came out during the race too. I know I wasn't the only person on the Virtual Team who admitted to crying while they were on the course (haha, Christa!). I think it was just a combination of seeing and feeling what we were out there supporting, getting great support from the cheerleaders and spectators, and completing such a long race that you've trained so hard for. It was special for me being a survivor, to see all the other TNT guys out there running specifically to help people like me. I felt like my running out there was the product of everything they were working towards. Anyway, it was a great time, and I will post a link to all the pictures I took soon.