Because Being Ordinary Is Boring: February 2025

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Sedona half marathon (Race Recap)

Sedona, AZ

Saturday, February 1

Half Marathon #197

Weather - chilly at the start, sunny

We planned to get up pretty early, even though it was only a 25ish minute drive to the race. Basically, the race guide was somewhat confusing and I wanted to make sure that we would be able to get a parking space. We were able to grab some food from the lobby on our way out, which was nice. Imagine our surprise when we got back to Sedona and the high school where we parked was right by where packet pick up was.

Pretty sunrise!

We used the bathroom in the hotel before grabbing our stuff from the car and walking to the start line, about a half mile away. Cycled through the bathroom line a few times and then we headed to the chute. Pre-race selfie!

View from the chute

I had told Ben that we needed to run our own races, so we started at the same time, but I lost him within the first five seconds. So fun backstory. We signed up last fall, as I really want to hit 200 lifetime half marathons, but I want to do some new ones and scenic races. I *knew* this would be hilly, but like most races, I didn't look at the profile until we got to Arizona. In my head I thought it was 500ish feet of gain. Nope, turns out it was going to be over 1,000'!!! Ok, so modify all my goals and just walk as little as possible.

The course actually wasn't too crowded once we got going. We had a nice half mile or so of downhill, which on an out and back course meant we would have an uphill finish...

Climbing started basically right after that first climb. First mile I managed under 11 minute pace, and I think I made it about 15 minutes before I started to take walk breaks.

There was also a 10k race, and they started either 10 or 15 minutes after us, and it wasn't too long before they started to catch up to us - I felt bad for the fast people trying to weave in out of other runners. We had some fairly runnable road until about mile 3 (which again, meant that there would be a big climb on the way back).

There is really not much to say about the course itself. On a closed road. I had missed the first aid station because there was no signage prior to it and I was on the wrong side of the road. I had managed to stay ahead of the 2:35 pacer (which was much faster than my initial 2:45 goal) for the whole first half.

I saw Ben when I had maybe 3/4 of a mile to the turnaround.

My stomach was feeling a bit off, so I peeled off and used the bathroom at the aid station. I felt a lot better, but I could see that the 2:35 pacer had passed me while I was stopped. We had already done over 600' of gain, so I knew there was less climbing on the way back and I cruised down a the hills - at one point I saw Melissa!! The way I was pacing I thought there would be a chance for me to come in under 2:30 if I worked REALLY hard. Once I got up the hill by the 10k turnaround I pushed my pace (and mile 11 was my fasted of the day) - I thought I had lost my 2:30 when I got to the last hill before the finish, but I pushed and managed to cross with about 20 seconds to spare. Wooo!

I didn't see Ben when I crossed so I slowly made my way to the beer garden, and didn't see him. No phone service made it tough, but we finally met up back near the finish.

Official time - 2:29:38

Overall place - 818/1383

Gender place - 413/813

Division place - 35/91

Out split - 1:15:09

Back split - 1:14:29 (with the bathroom stop, still negative split!!)

Garmin time - 2:29:38

Garmin distance - 13.12 miles

Average Pace - 11:25

Elevation Gain - 1,052'

Mile 1 - 10:48

Mile 2 - 12:59

Mile 3 - 10:45

Mile 4 - 10:49

Mile 5 - 11:36

Mile 6 - 12:24

Mile 7 - 13:13 (not bad with a bathroom stop!)

Mile 8 - 10:36

Mile 9 - 10:21

Mile 10 - 11:48

Mile 11 - 12:28

Mile 12 - 9:56

Mile 13 - 10:52

Mile 13.12 - 8:08 (wowie!!)

We hung out in the beer garden for a bit, waiting to see Melissa:

Thoughts:

Lots and lots and lots (and LOTS) of emails for this race. They did Zoom calls as well for course talks and Q&As.
Multiple options for packet pickup in the days leading up to the race, and I think they even had race day pick up.
Lots of options for parking and shuttles, etc. With the multiple distances, I'm glad that we arrived early and were able to get in/out pretty easily.
Race is absolutely beautiful, especially for a road race!
Definitely challenging for a road race.
Aid stations were ok, and cup free. Mostly just water, but sometimes when I asked for water I got some electrolyte mix that was also fine. Spaced ok, but there should have been some signage for them ahead of time, and a notification of which side of the road!
Pace groups - I don't normally use them or want to run with them, but on a tough course like this, I did like to see where I was in relation to those paces.
Stupid gender neutral shirt.
Awesome medal!!
Beer garden was not free, you had to buy tokens, and they ran out of good beer, but we had already bought the tokens? So that was annoying.
Early registration is $70 plus fees, which is pretty standard. I signed up in October and paid $80 plus fees, so not much of an increase. This was the first year the race sold out. Other distances are 10K ($45) and 5K ($35).
Would I run again? Probably not, but only because it was really expensive for lodging, etc - nothing around Sedona or Cottonwood (half hour away) for less than about $200 a night (unless you were to go somewhere super sketchy).

Week in Review (January 28 - February 3)

Tuesday (14,269 steps) - Peloton and walked Olive before going to work. Gym at lunch, doing the StairMaster and some strength training.

Walked Olive when I got home.

Wednesday (22,114 steps) - Walked Olive before going to work in the office. Went for my run at lunch - just easy miles, which I haven't had in a while.

Walked Olive when I got home.

Thursday (13,035 steps) - Rowed before I logged in for the day. Took Olive fora long walk at lunch and did a Peloton ride. Finally started packing for the weekend and squeezed in some strength training. Torchy's for dinner!

Started watching "The Handmaid's Tale" - truth be told, I'd started it a while ago but since I wasn't far into the series we are goin to watch together.

Friday (15,722 steps) - Took Olive for a walk before we headed to the airport.

No delays in our flight.

Our biggest issue was getting a rental car! Normally I just walk right up, grab a car and go. First car we got into we could NOT get the carplay to work. Second car, loaded everything up and no keys?? Third car was finally the one that worked. We headed towards Sedona, but we stopped and got lunch about a half hour north of the city since we were starving. We found a cute Mexican restaurant that had a good lunch special. Yum!

Imagine our surprise when we got to Sedona and discovered that the host hotel where the packet pick-up was going to be was RIGHT where we walked off course and DNF'd Cocodona in 2022... Getting our bib was a bit disorganized and the venue was horrible for that many people - so crowded! Ben and I went for a walk up the trail for a bit and got some pictures around sunset - beautiful!

We headed back down to Cottonwood, where our hotel was and checked in and got cleaned up. Ben wanted to get a beer, so we headed back out. The first brewery we went to was in a super sketchy area and nothing looked interesting, so we left. We ended up going to Clarksdale and stopped at the brewery that was on course for Coco! Even though there were a few hours left of January, I had one beer - I figured I skipped this brewery two years in a row during a race and who knows when I'll be back.

Due to our late lunch, neither of us was very hungry. We stopped at the gas station near the hotel and picked up a handful of snacks and water/coffee for morning.

Saturday (33,183 steps) - Sedona half marathon!

We walked back to the car and decided we should just start driving back down towards Phoenix, as we were staying there for the night. We went to The Stillery for lunch, and it was AMAZING - burger was delicious and the mac and cheese was probably top 5 best I've ever had.

We checked into our hotel before going over to our favorite local brewery - Front Pourch.

We lounged around the room all evening, watching Pitch Perfect 3. We ordered a pizza for dinner and had it delivered.

Sunday (14,589 steps) - Managed to sleep in until 8, which is pretty late for us. We got breakfast and packed up our stuff and headed out. I had found a trail nearby where I wanted to go on a hike. I was really surprised to see the number of people and cars there already! I guess that with the forecast being close to 80, people wanted to go out sooner.

I had glanced at the elevation profile, and all the climbing was in the first mile, and it was a nice 5k loop. I just love the desert!

Our second stop was going to "Yonutz!" - a specialty donut shop. I had seen an ad on Instagram, and it looked interesting.

Ben and I split a cookie dough donut - two donuts that are fried and a scoop of ice cream in the middle, with toppings added after. Expensive, but delicious, and splitting one was a good idea.

The first brewery that we tried to go to was unexpectedly closed - the sign on the door indicated that they are very behind in rent. We found another location that looked nice. Parking was a nightmare, so we had to park kinda far away and walk over. It was nice (but hot) sitting at an indoor/outdoor patio. Finally, decided to just get gas and get back to the airport. No delays with our flight and I watched "Yellowjackets" on the plane. There WAS a medical emergency shortly before landing though (right near where I was sitting), so that was different. We didn't have to wait too long for a shuttle back to the truck and got home just before 10:30. A had made us dinner, so we ate before bed. LONG WEEKEND.
Monday (23,328 steps) - Felt fairly horrific when I woke up. After not drinking for a month and somewhat liberally over the weekend, I'm reminded how much better I feel when I abstain. I logged in to work early, did A's taxes, and then we had to head down to Golden so she could get to her classes for the day. I went out for my run, which was SLOW, but it was a glorious day out - tee shirt and shorts - and then took Olive for a walk.