Mount Lemmon Marathon - RunMarathon

I honestly had no idea how I would do. I was really concerned with this race. I was not properly trained and did not know how the knee would hold up. I knew keeping my HR in check would be part of the key and I was not sure I could keep that HR where I needed it to be and still maintain the pace I needed to meet all the cutoffs. Well, that was a lot of worrying about nothing. I managed to keep my HR at about 160, which is just on the edge of what is safe for me (without getting stomach cramps) and it never really seemed to jump above that. I worked mostly off RPE as I got pretty intune with that but kept checking my HR just in case.

I just wanted a nice steady pace. I was a bit faster at the beginning half but I expected to slow down the higher I went up. It just makes sense with the higher elevation. Around mile 5 my knee really started to hurt and I started to get concerned. I had some meds on me but I really did not want to take them. I didn't want to take the chance on hurting myself more. So I just kept going. Good news is soon enough everything hurt and I honestly didn't notice the knee much anymore. I noticed this my last couple of long runs but my feet have been really getting sore the longer I go. Not really sure why.

At about mile 12-13 on the mountain is a long steep 2 mile section up to Windy Point. I new if I hit Windy Point feeling ok I would finish. I had been leap frogging with this guy all day and he was doing a 30 sec run/walk. He was at a seminar with Jeff Galloway earlier in the week and Jeff had said a lot of folks were having success with this. So him and I ran quite a few miles together during the steep sections using this method and honestly my pace stayed on track and more important so did my HR. And I had company to keep my mind off the pain. I had run solid up until this point so I was happy with that. Eventually I left him as I was able to go back to a solid run.

At mile 19 my friends where there volunteering. It was awesome to see them. Gina stopped all traffic and brought me over my extra bottle of nutrion I had stashed with them. Totally awesome. It was nice and cold. Put that in my Camelbak. I left them and Nic ran with me for a little bit but I took pity on him and sent him back. Otherwise I would have made him run the whole thing. :)

Shortly after leaving them I started to get altitude sickness. I've had it before in the mountains so I knew what it was. I just focused on not looking down and keeping the fluids coming in even though I was a bit nauseous. But dehydration is the worst thing for altitude sickness. I was able to work though it so that was good.

At mile 20 there are a few miles of downhill. Sounds good eh? Oh my god that hurt. I ran it cause it was free speed but gosh darn it, the hipflexers, the toes, the knees, the quads....pain. Then there is more up, then another down. Then you can hear the finish line, music playing, calling out finishers etc and then they say, go right. WHAT? That's a hill!!! It was by far the worst spot of the race. It was about a mile and half of roughly 8% up. It was rough, I think mentally more then physically. When I finally saw the guy at the turn around I told the dude he was the sweetest thing I had seen all day. It was all downhill from there but read above about the downhill. But, I was bound and determined to finish strong and ran into the finish area running strong. My friends managed to make it to the finish line before I finished and it was totally awesome to see them there.

There were a few times where I toyed with just sitting down. I had a good mental day pushing those thoughts out of my mind and just kept going. All in all I think it is one of the best mental races I have ever had.

I would have liked to have trained better and had a stronger race. I am happy with my results given my training but I know I could have done better had I had proper time to ramp up the runs. Oh, and maybe not miss time my taper and start a week earlier. :)

I was torn between needing to sit and needing to walk. I hurt like a bugger but knew sitting would be a bad idea. We decided to walk over to get some food. It was a very painful walk (joint soreness, not muscle) but I sucked down some meds and by the time I finished eating the walk back was way less painful.


Um, I am a slow ass runner.


This is the first year for the race and they had issues, mostly related to the buses, which didn't affect me so I can't comment on them. They have some kinks to workout but for a first year it was well done. Tons of volunteers, medical staff, etc. Aid stations were spaced far apart but they let everyone know that ahead of time and warned people to bring water.

Honestly, you simply cannot bet the views of Mt Lemmon. That alone made it an awesome race.