This is the inaugural year for the Phoenix Marathon. Last year they had a half marathon, which I
believe prepared them well for this year.
The Marathon went super smooth and I was very impressed with crew. The Phoenix Marathon isn't actually in
Phoenix but just east in Mesa, Arizona.
It's a downhill course with a 1,000 feet of decent(there is a small 1-2
mile uphill at mile 4). The race start time was set at 7am but due to a
forecasted higher temperature for the day they moved up the start time to 6:30am. The high was supposed to get up to 82 degrees
which I know had a lot of runners worried.
In my mind that just means you need to run a little faster to beat the
heat! Motivation!
I drove to the finish line at 4am and caught a quick bus
ride up to the start. The bus was able
to drive on a freeway most of the way up there so it made the trip quick. At the top of the hill(aka "Start")
they had music, bon-fires, heat lamps and drinks. The only negative I can think
of was the insufficient port-a-potty number making lines very long. They sang the star-spangled banner and
launched fireworks to get the runners pumped up. This is a medium sized race with a cap of
only 2,000 runners(Next year is supposed to be 3,000) so to get over the start
line isn't a big problem. The race
begins right under the famous Phoenix arrow which makes for some great views
early in the morning. The first 3-4
miles are a good downhill but not so steep you are having to control yourself
too much. At mile 4 there is a bit of a
hill for almost 2 miles but it's so early in the race you don't even notice
it. From there on out it's all gradual
downhill or flat making for a very fast
Boston Qualifier. The finish was great
with free massages, food, muscle milk and ice baths. The heat ended up not being an issue for me and from what I hear the normal
temperature for that time of the year has a high of 68ish.
The support for this race was pretty good for its first
year. There were quite a few spectators
as accessibility was great. My wife was
able to see me 6 times throughout the course and that was while lugging around
our 7 month old. That made it a great
race! Having spectators throughout the
entire course was fantastic and made the miles go by quickly. As far as race support there were a lot of
water stations starting with mile 3 and then repeating every other mile until
the last 6 miles where the stations were present every mile. Each water station had water and PowerAde and
a few of the stations had Cliff shots,
bananas and oranges.
Now for the Bling!
The race medal was a cool medal of...you guessed it a Phoenix! The race shirt was a very cool and simple
Nike drifit.
All in all I really enjoyed the Phoenix Marathon. It was my second marathon. My first was the St. George Marathon which is
known to be a great marathon. I actually liked the Phoenix Marathon more as it
was not such a harsh downhill and there were more spectators throughout the
course making the time fly by. I ended
up running 45 seconds slower in this marathon than when I did the St. George,
however I was in a lot better shape when I ran the St. George so I would say
that these marathons are very comparable.
I would give this race 4.8 shoes as I thought it was an
awesome race!
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