I took the day off from work. I got ready and left the house at about a quarter before 6 am for my road trip out to Arizona. My first stop was my usual stop in Indio. I parked at the Tesla Supercharger station. After plugging in, I walked over to Starbucks to get some coffee and to use their restroom. On the mobile app, I placed an order for a grande pistachio latte. Despite the pre-printed order labels, it would seem that the baristas have started personalizing the lids.
Tesla Supercharger Indio
Grande pistachio latte
After the vehicle was done charging, I unplugged it and continued on with my road trip. The second stop had me out to Quartzsite. Normally, I would stop at the small charging station in Ehrenberg just after crossing the state line. However, I wanted to check out the much larger Tesla Supercharger station. It had a total of 84 charging stalls and was open to any EV vehicle as long as they had a NACS adaptor. For such a large charging station, it could be easily missed from Main St. It was tucked behind the Quartzsite Outpost, right next to the Terrible's gas station. It was kind of weird that I was the only car there. After plugging in, I walked over to the gas station to use the restroom and to buy some snacks. I ended up buying a Snak Club bag of protein power snack mix.
Tesla Supercharger Quartzsite
Terrible's restroom
Snacks
Traffic
I drove all the way to Tempe before making my third stop. This time, the Tesla Supercharger station was in the Groves Power Center parking lot on Elliot Rd. After I plugged in, I walked over to the Walmart to do a little shopping and to pass some time. What I bought was somewhat random. I bought a huge container of Planters mixed nuts, Old Bay seasoning, and a can of good old Arizona green tea.
Tesla Supercharger Tempe
Since I had a digital coupon for a free Monterey Melt at Whataburger, that's where I went for lunch. There was one just down the road. To get the free sandwich, I needed to buy medium fries and a medium drink. I placed my order on the mobile app before going inside. The one employee that was working the counter was really nice and friendly. When she heard that I had come in from Los Angeles, she asked if I was affected by the fires. Thankfully, I live on the very eastern edge of LA County and was not close to any of the fires. The burger or sandwich was not bad, but it was definitely much greasier than what I'm used to eating these days.
Monterey Melt, medium fries, medium drink
After using the restroom, I hopped in the car and drove over to the Mesa Convention Center to pick up my race packet. When I arrived, the parking lots were much more crowded than I had anticipated. I ended up parking in the lot just north of MLK Jr Way. From there it was a short walk over to the convention center. After I picked up my bib and gear bag, I went over to the participants name wall to locate my name. Then I got in the long queue to verify the timing chip. Before heading into the exhibition area with all of the vendor booths, I picked up my race shirt. I collected vendor codes to earn reward points on the app as I made my way to the vendor tents located outside. There I bumped into a couple of familiar faces. Before I was done with the expo, I got hit up for a box of Girl Scout cookies. I just had to ask to confirm that they were indeed the same girls as last year. Once again, I bought a box of the Adventurefuls for $6.
Packet pick-up
Participants name wall
Queue to check timing chip
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Goodie bag contents
Vendors
JC and Patti
Expo stuff
Since I still had time before dinner with my friends, I decided to drive over and check into my hotel. I was staying over at the Baymont in Phoenix, just off of the I-10 freeway at the 51st Ave exit. I was assigned to room #131. I got settled into my room and went through the race packet.
Baymont Phoenix
At about 5 pm, I hopped back in the car to drive over to Gilbert to have dinner with my friends at the Culinary Dropout. This area is always popular, so I didn't find a vacant parking spot in the parking structure until I got up to the 3rd floor. I was about 30 mins early for our 6 pm reservation, so I decided to check out the Creamistry. They served ice cream that's frozen with liquid nitrogen. I got a regular order of their sea salt caramel crunch as my pre-dinner dessert.
Parking level 3
Creamistry
Regular sea salt caramel crunch
For dinner at the Culinary Dropout, I usually like to get their Steak Frites. However, I decided to go with something new. I ordered their Peking duck & shrimp fried rice. It was kind of strange as it definitely did not taste like a Chinese fried rice. Service was pretty slow, so we didn't finish our dinner until about 8 pm.
Culinary Dropout
Soft pretzels & provolone fondue
Peking duck & shrimp fried rice
Back at my room, I laid out my flat runner before taking a shower and calling it a night. I tried something fairly new for this race. I decided to wear an Under Armour compression sleeveless shirt. I had only worn it once for the Los Angeles Marathon back in 2012 mostly to guard against nipple chafing. I did so as my OG Marathon Maniacs "tech" shirt tends to chafe the heck out of my nipples whenever I wear it.
Flat runner
Saturday 2/8
The parking situation was a bit of mess last year, so I decided to get to the bus pick-up location 30 mins before the first bus was scheduled to leave. I checked out of my room at just after 3 am. I arrived at Sloan Park at about 3:30 am and parked at the parking lot just north of the Sheraton hotel. I made sure to avoid the closer parking lot on Rio Salado Parkway between Clark St and Sheffield Ave. At just before 4 am, I gathered my stuff and headed over to the bus pick-up spot. Once I boarded the bus, I made my way all the way to the back of the bus.
Walking to the bus pick-up
Boarding the bus
Back of the bus
The ride over to the start line took about 40 minutes. Our bus driver told us that we could stay on the bus. However, I got off because I wanted to use a portapotty before the place got too busy. Once I was done with that, I headed over to the start line to check it out. Just as I was taking a picture, they were testing out the pyrotechnics.
Start area
Pace banners and heat lamps
Start line
I then walked back to about where the DJ and the start line aid station was located. While I was waiting underneath one of the many heat lamps, I noticed someone that looked very familiar. It would turn out to be an old friend that I had met many years ago on one of the Runner's World Forums. Such a coincidence. I believe that the last time that I had seen her at a marathon was way back in 2010 at the Carlsbad Marathon!
DJ and start line aid station
Rachel
As it got closer to 6 am, I started heading back to the start line to meet up with my fellow Marathon Maniacs for the traditional pre-race photo. There were quite a few of us registered for this race, but we only managed to gather 8 of us for the photo. We would find out later that others had bus issues. After the photo I ended up hanging out with #10670 Jason Burns, from Chicago. He had won a free race registration to this race. We positioned ourselves near the 4:20 pace banner.
Marathon Maniacs pre-race photo
The race started a few minutes after 6:30 am. I ran this race completely by feel and with a close eye to my heart rate. I tried to keep my heart rate from going over 140 bpm. The perceived effort was pretty much the same from start to finish. I was able to cover the first half in just under 2 hours. However once the sun came out, I definitely slowed down. The leg muscles were threatening to cramp up during the last couple of miles. Thankfully they didn't and I was able to beat last year's time. Late in the race, I heard some of the spectators call me a marine. I'm not sure if it was because the red font was hard to read. It probably looked like Marathon Marine. Plus I was wearing my usual USA flag cap.
Mile 16.5
Mile 18.4
Mile 20
Mile 20.8
Finish: 4:23:53
Click here for my Garmin data.
When I saw that the weather was going to get warm, I was very much tempted to change my race attire. The extra compression shirt that I had worn underneath didn't really make it feel too warm. More importantly, it successfully protected my nipples from chafing.
After crossing the finish line, I got my medal, a cold wet towel, and a can of alkaline water. I caught up to the Marathon Maniac that had passed me in the late miles. I got a selfie with her and another Maniac that finished shortly. I hung out at the finish area for a few of my friends to finish before moving on towards the post race celebration area.
Finisher medal
Close up of the finisher medal
Maniacs at the finish line
Can of alkaline water
Heather and Jesse
JC
I bumped into David in the beer garden which was right before reaching the table where the Creamies were being passed out. As I was eating my ice cream treat, I tried to drink some water. I failed at that as some of it tried to go down the wrong pipe. I coughed up a bunch of the water.
David in the beer garden
Nice cold treat for a warm day!
Before heading out to my car, I got a printout of my results and used one of the portapotties. Along the way, I ran into my friend Natalie as she was collecting her gear bag. The location for the gear bag was along the way back to my car. We chatted for a little bit and got a selfie before going our separate ways.
Results
Natalie
Back at the car, I changed out of my sweaty clothes and made the extra effort to put on my compression socks. It had been a while since I had last worn them. It was quite the chore to put them on, but I felt that I had to with the long drive ahead of me. Once I got them on, I finally started heading out. I first drove down to Tom's BBQ in Tempe to get lunch. Since they specialized in Chicago style food, I ordered their rib tips with corn and mashed potatoes as my 2 sides. It was not bad, but the place was pretty dead for lunch time hours. There was only one other customer in there during my visit.
Rib tips, corn, and mashed potatoes
I then drove down to Elliot Rd to charge the car at the same Tesla Supercharger that I had visited yesterday. It was sort of out of the way, but it was the cheapest per kW in the area. I waited for the vehicle to get a full charge before starting my drive home.
Tesla Supercharger Tempe
I made pretty good time and pulled into the same Tesla Supercharger in Quartzsite at about 3:30 pm local time. As I was a few miles out, I saw a couple of teams of State Troopers that had pulled over cars. They had the drivers outside doing something. Perhaps they were racing each other and was being reprimanded while being ticketed. I was driving fairly fast, but I was never the fastest car out there. Once again, I walked over to the Terrible's to use their restroom while I waited for the car to finish charging. This time, there was actually a couple of other cars at this rather large empty charging station.
Tesla Supercharger Quartzsite
My next pitstop was out in Beaumont. I had thought about stopping at the Tesla Supercharger that was next to an In-n-Out, but I opted for one that was further down the freeway off of Oak Valley Parkway. This Tesla Supercharger was tucked behind the gas station. After I plugged the car in for a charge, I walked over to the Circle K to get a can of coffee as my eyelids were starting to feel very heavy. That can of Starbucks nitro cold brew was pretty expensive, but it was very much necessary to keep me awake!
Tesla Supercharger Beaumont
That partial charge and coffee was enough to get me the rest of the way home. Normally, I would take the 60 freeway, but I opted for the 10 freeway. Along the way, there were a couple of accidents. Thankfully, I was in one of the lanes furthest away from the crash and was able to get around the accidents without having to deal with the rubber-neckers. Please for the love of god, do not stop or slow down just to look at the accident!
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