Race Report- PF Chang's Rock n Roll 1/2 Marathon Phoenix!

 So today I ran my 2nd half marathon at the PF Chang's in Phoenix.  Originally this was supposed to be a half where I improved on my last time of 2:53 however, I have been battling a foot injury and had not been able to sufficiently train, my longest run was 8 miles and I was only able to do about 2 runs/week.  I was definitely not as ready for this one as I was for my last one which kinda sucked.

We got up bright and early and left the house at 5:45 am to catch the light rail train downtown to the start line.  We did some stretching, my sister met up with some of her TNT people and then we checked our gear which was smooth and fantastic.  We were very fortunate that I work for the Attorney General's office (although not up in Phoenix) and the AG has a running team and so the head of that team was in the downtown office letting employees and their families in to use the facilities.  So...no long port a potty lines...warm bathrooms that flushed plus a warm place to stretch in the building lobby.  Yay!!! This was utter nirvana.

We headed to our corral at the back of the back and it probably took our corral about 40 minutes to hit the start line with all the wave starts. Then we were off.  My plan was to run 12 minutes, walk 1 minute and that worked for most of the race for me.  I shed my long sleeve shirt by the end of the first mile, it was a gorgeous day out so the weather was lovely.  Everything was cruising along for a while.  Stopped and used a port a john around mile 6 and felt really good after that, cruised for the next couple of miles.  Then between miles 8-9 it got rough.  My foot really started hurting put I pushed on keeping my pacing.  That didn't break down until about mile 12, where I pretty much ran 5, walked 1 until I got to the end.  Fortunately I still had a great kick and finished with good speed!!  Official chip time 3:03, my Garmin time not counting the potty break was 2:56 so only a bit slower than my first one and I was battling injury.

All in all, a beautiful race day, I survived and here's hoping I can get my foot problems worked out so I can start training for the next one.

Rebecca

 Awesome!  Glad that you had a good time.  My wife and I were looking at the Rock N Roll website tonight and talking about the one that you did this weekend.  We're thinking about doing the one in Nashville, TN in April and the Chicago, IL one in August.  They sound like a really good time.  Keep up the good work.

Duane

 GREAT JOB!!!  Nice report -- good luck with the foot issue.  

Very good job and great report! I hope the foot injury is a thing of the past and I know you will crush your next race! Way to go....

Nice report.  How frustrating to have a problem that won't allow you to do what you want.  Way to overcome it yesterday.

it's all about overcoming adversity, it seems (at least to me) that ideal conditions of any race/training event are few and far between, that's why when they happen they are so sweet.  great job pushing through your adversity and finishing a great race...

Mmmm . . . PF Chang's . . . haven't had that in a while . . . but, I digress . . .

Congrats on an awesome time at the half!  I am convinced that all races are good experiences, even when we don't feel like we did our best or there was an injury that got in the way.  Better than sitting on the couch and eating PF Chang's . . . dammit, now I am craving Chinese food!

Nice job executing your strategy to get to the finish line.  Take care of your foot.

Cassie