2011 Pat's Run Race Report

2011 Pat's Run 4.2 mile race Tempe, Arizona

That's a PR!

This was the third time in three years I have run in this event and I've gotten faster each year. The top finishers:

20:33!! HS!

Average age of these finishers is 29! I'm kind of a stats nut, and I really love looking at ages and times of some of these runners. There were six 89 year olds who smashed my time, and plenty others who finished. That's inspiring. I have a buddy from Florence, AZ who is a skinny young fast runner and he finished in less than two minutes ahead of me. I haven't had a chance to talk to him, but either I'm getting faster, or he has a broken leg.

I was thinking during the last mile about dragons and cheerleaders whether I could have gone faster, and the answer was no. My paces were off from my plan and mostly positive splits instead of my usual negative splits, but I really believe that even if I were able to reverse that, my total time would have been the same. The hill in the third mile was a surprise to me. I had forgotten it thinking only about the hill on Curry road in mile 2. I ate that hill alive but burped it back up on the hill in mile 3. I was feeling pretty gassed at that point and wasn't able to throw down a turbo in the last .3 when we enter the stadium (Lauren, I was doing the gasping thing again! How embarrassing) With about 30,000 runners, you can imagine that it was difficult at times to stay on a planned path. This is supposed to be a fun run, and so I only pepper sprayed one or two "people" who decided to walk right in front of me.

Hey! Good times and nothing more about this lest I draw too much attention away from the folks running that little huckleberry in Boston on Monday. Tear it up Beth!