Mesa Marathon

I chose this race based on both the good reviews found here and the large # of people that I follow on social media posting about running this race and raving about the merits of the race. Having now run the race myself I think I made a great choice choosing the Mesa Marathon for state #16. An interesting thing about this race is how large the Marathon field is compared to the half marathon field. 2200 Marathon runners, 3200 half runners, 1200 10k runners. I think the fast flat course appeals to BQ chasers but I was still surprised that the # of participants at each distance was so similar.

EXPO/PACKET PICK UP:
I was quite impressed with the EXPO for this race. I have run quite a few races of similar sizes and this was one of the more complete and impressive EXPOS. It was held in a baseball stadium, I was told that this was the first year for this. The stadium was Sloan park which is the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs and also serves as the home stadium for their Rookie league affiliate. The expo was held the day before the race with a 9hr pickup window. Parking at the stadium was more than plentiful and we parked close and walked straight inside. The first thing you did was pick up your bib, the volunteers appeared to High School Army Jr. ROTC cadets who while slightly slow were extremely polite and helpful. After my friend and I picked up our bibs we were directed around the concourse towards the expo proper. The first thing you did was cross over a timing matt which let you verify that your bib timer was working properly because it displayed your name, race distance, and home town on a monitor. Next you were greeted by several big signature boards (something I have usually only seen at major marathons). They had 8 boards to sign concerning where you came from, who you are running for, what music you listen to while running etc. Next there was a giant wall with every runners name printed on it where people were coloring their name or doing something similar. There was then a large Mesa Marathon gear sale area followed by at least 30-40 different vendors which lined the concourse from home plate to center field. At the end of the expo they had a large wooden 13.1 and 26.2 that people were using to take pictures. Just a well done expo all around.

Parking/Access: Parking at the same baseball stadium that held the expo was more than plentiful…once you got into the lot. The buses to the start run from 4-5:15 am. They specifically state on their website to get to the parking lot no later than 4:30. We got there at 4:30 and the lines to get in were very long and had me stressing that we would miss the bus. In the end we got parked about 4:50 and made it to the line to get onto one of the plentiful buses minutes later. I strongly advise you to use their advised route to get to the start area and then get to the parking lot early. You can always stay in your car a while instead of getting in line for the start area, save yourself the stress of not getting there last minute. Point to Point races where you have to take a bus always add some stress to a start.

T-Shirts/SWAG: The medal for this race was really nice, it is well made and sturdy and has the race logo surrounded by cacti and Arizona’s state bird. The color of the medal changed depending on the race, Gold for marathon, Silver for half, Bronze for 10k. The medal had what I always hope for in a race medal, it looked good and it had elements to it that were unique and represent the state I ran the race in, I was happy all around in that regard. The ribbon for the medal this year also gets high marks from me. (See attached Photo). The shirt this year was a tech shirt that was very well made and soft. The color this year, I guess has a southwest brown and red type theme but I’d say it is the only thing keeping me from giving the SWAG 5/5 shoes. (See attached photo). I generally wear the race shirt during the race and I did so during this race as well and found it quite comfortable. I also need to make a quick comment on the race bib, it was a bit oddly sized, more a square than a rectangle but I really liked how every bib was personalized with the name of your choice but it also included a blurb at the top that said “4th Mesa Marathon” or equivalent to denote how many times a person had run the race. A nice personal touch.

Aid Stations: The aid stations were well stocked and plentiful. There were 8 aid stations on the half course and 14 on the full. That might be the most aid stations I have had during a half marathon. Every single aid station had water and Gatorade. 3 aid stations had Gu for the half, every aid station had bathrooms and medical attendants. There were also a few aid stations with Bio-Freeze, Fruit and frozen treats. I didn’t hear anything about supplies running out at any time during the race. I was near the front so I was never really in a group, but the number of volunteers was more than enough. My friend who finished in 2:10 around the highest volume times said there there were some real slow downs at aid station as volunteers were filling and handing out cups as fast as they could pour them but I think that was just some bad luck/timing at early aid stations for him and I really have a hard time criticizing volunteers. The volunteers were really clear about who had water or Gatorade. If I could make one critique it would be to have a few more garbage cans 100 yards after the stations so you could have time to finish your drink before trying to toss your cup.

Course Scenery/Elevation Difficulty: The course for the half starts in and around some industrial office park area on the outskirts of town. Not very scenic but very spacious. But it really wouldn’t matter if it was pretty because the race starts at 6:30am and it is completely black outside so you couldn’t see anything anyways. I found plenty of room to warm up. They had a very long start chute with large spacing between pace groups. The course is basically flat. It drops about 100 ft over the course of 13 miles so you don’t really notice it one way or another. The half marathon course isn’t very scenic, although for the first hour it will be too dark to notice. You mostly run through light commercial and residential areas. They have lots of cones protecting the course with lots of police helping to direct traffic so I never felt as though I was running near traffic. Once the sun was up I got a brief sunrise view of the mountains around mile 9. My understanding is that the marathon course starts higher up into the valley and is more a downhill during the first half with some really great sunrise views of the area.

Weather: 48 degrees at the start area which is pretty standard for February.
I’m from up north so I found this to be perfect start weather that wasn’t really cold. If you were cold at the start every expo bag provided a pair of throw away gloves and a foil blanket. They also had a ton of tall propane heater towers that people were standing around. The one time I went up to them I had several rows of people in front of me and I was plenty warm. I’m not sure how the people in front of me didn’t cook. If you are a slow marathoner you might find some issues with the heat around the 5+ hour mark as temperatures by then were approaching 70 but you can’t really do much better than those temperatures in a state this far south in the desert.

Race Management: This Race was very well run, especially so for a medium to large-ish race. I found their website to be the best source of info, they also email you a few bits of advice. Other things to compliment this race on: They had age group awards as well as prize money for top performers. This race attracts elite athletes and has an elite start. I was able to say a passing hello to Molly Seidel, aka the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Marathon Bronze Medalist. Distance running and track and field fans would notice that there were 4 2021 Olympians in the field, very cool to share a course with. They had plenty of busses to take people to the start areas, there was a line to get on but I found it to move very quickly. They had port-o-potties at the finish to use before the bus and at the start, the lines seemed a bit long but moved quickly so I think they had the numbers correct especially if you moved past where they dropped people off from the bus I would say that had at least 100 bathrooms at the start. The start area had a bag check truck by the start line that was open until nearly the starting gun (the website said 6:00am it would close but it was definitely open later).
I know some people complained about it being cold at the start but it was perfect PR weather and they had tons of heat lamps that people to stand around. They had pace setters from 1:30-2:20 in ten minute intervals. For the full because this is very much advertised as a BQ course they had a pace group for every single male and female BQ age group then 3-4 other pace groups for the back of the pack people (Yes, they had 14 different pace groups). They also gave a special BQ luggage bag tag to anyone who got a BQ. The finish had plenty of the usual finish line fare (bagels, water, electrolytes, oranges, granola bars, chips, fruit cups and ice cream). Your race bib also included a ticket for the beer garden at the finish. The finish area also included several vendors, lots of photo ops, a PR bell, a place where instead of just entering your race bib # to see your finish time they gave you a print out of your finish time and place on a nice race logo card stock. There was also a concert happening on the large stage they had set up. They have 6 timing mats set up along the half marathon course which is a lot for a race of that distance but meant lots of stats for looking at your results page in terms of pace and time. They also have free race Photos which they post on their website which I always love. My only critiques: their race app for tracking people is utter trash, don’t even bother with it, eventually I gave up and signed up for text message tracking for my friend but by that time he was 4 minutes from finishing. They could use a little more traffic and parking help before the race but if I had shown up when they told me to it would have been zero stress. Finally they could help themselves at aid stations with garbage cans further from the aid stations and some more pre staged water cups especially during peak runner waves.

Overall I would say this race is a fantastic way to check Arizona off your 50 state list. You won’t find many races that are run better with so many amenities. Also if you are going to run in Arizona this is 100% the time of year to do it and with Mesa being right by the Phoenix airport hotels so getting there was really easy. I highly recommend this race.