Briseno Family Adventures: Pat's Run

What an amazing experience I had this weekend. I ran my second Pat's Run - only this time I ran it in Arizona. You may recall I ran this race in San Jose last year - here is the post from that experience. San Jose is where Pat Tillman went to high school.

I can't even express how amazing the race was this year - running through my old stomping grounds, Arizona State University. Where I spent four of the most amazing years, and watched Pat Tillman play for the Sun Devils (yes we were students at the same time - he is about 4 months younger than me.

What you are about to see and read is my photo journey of this 4.2 mile race - yes I ran with a camera (the San Jose race last year was so amazing I had to bring a camera for the "real" run. I was joined by an estimated 28,000 other race participants (only 20,000 attended last year). To put this into perspective, my largest race participation before this was about 6,000.

When my friend Rachel and I picked up our race packets, we decided to walk around a bit. We ran into an old friend of mine....

That's right, meet Sparky the Sun Devil Mascot. I can't be sure, but I think he did 42 push-ups before the race began. For those that don't know, Sparky does push-ups for every point we get during football games.

With 28,000 people on the course, you can imagine that the bathrooms were especially packed! I tried 3 different times to use the "facilities" before taking my mark - only to give up because it was getting too close to the start time. Lucky for me they announced that the race was going to be about 10 minutes late starting (trouble blocking all the roads). Then they had to do the wheel chair start (which was about 10 -15 minutes before the rest of us. And then, they were sending us in groups based on how fast we ran.

My place - was "corral 8" with an average 11 minute mile pace. I mean how fun would it be to get trampled by some 20,000 people?! After the wheelchair group, they sent corral 1 - those who run a 5 minute mile pace. A minute or two later they send corral 2, another minute or two later they send corral 3 and so-on. So needless to say it was some time before I even got near the Start. In fact they were announcing that the leading runner was coming in about 2-4 minutes before I even hit the start!

And then finally we were off.... lucky for me this is a chip timed race, so my time doesn't count until I actually get across the Start line. As you can see here, I'm still a bit off... but we were finally "called" to start the race. This is how many people were in my "Corral".

For those familiar with the ASU layout, we started on Packard Drive between Packard Stadium (baseball field) and Sun Devil Stadium (football field), then turned left onto Rio Salado, and then right onto what used to be the "main drag" Mill Avenue. It was shortly after I made the turn onto Mill that I reached the 1 Mile mark...

My pace here was under 10 minutes a mile (kind of fast for me). I knew I needed to slow down a bit if I wanted to make it. At this point it was about 8am, and the sun was starting to get rather warm! Oh if I haven't mentioned it before, I've NEVER run in Arizona - let alone this kind of heat!

We ran up Mill Avenue until we reached Washington, and then turned right. Here's a shot of some of the crowd - don't you love all the Tillman spirit?! And yes, that's people as far as you can see!

We rounded the corner into some residential apartments - where a lot of students live near Papago Park - and hit the mile 2 marker.

My pace here is starting to slow - a few hills and the sun are really starting to get to me. One of the things I love about this race is all the spirit that people have. I saw military men in their fatigues running, I saw another service man running with a pack-like thing that I believe was supposed to represent carrying "dead" weight over his shoulders (everyone was giving him high-fives and cheering him on) and then those that were carrying American Flags...

It really is an inspirational race! (oh and forgive the "not-so-great shots" I am after all taking pictures while running!)

Then we turned right onto Scottsdale Road/Rural and came upon a few more hills. This is where I finally had to walk a bit.

This hill from the photo above may not look like much - and frankly I drove down this road a million times and never considered it a "hill". But when you're running it, in the scorching heat, and are nearly 3 miles in... it's the biggest damn hill you ever came across!

When I was nearly at the top of this "hill" I could see the finish line... Sun Devil Stadium!

Then I hit mile marker 3.

My pace obviously slowing by the minute. Although I did take another moment to try and capture some of the quotes that lined the race route - this one from former ASU coach Bruce Snyder (the coach while I was there - and Tillman's college coach).

I did take pictures of other banners... however they really didn't come out while I was running - imagine that. This is the one that came out best.

We made a right then onto Sixth Street - Fraternity Row, and then a right onto Packard Drive. This means we were getting near the end. Finally I saw the 4th Mile!

This is when the race got even more exciting - if that's even possible! We were nearing Sun Devil Stadium. I knew the race was to end on the 42 Yard Line (Pat Tillman's College number was 42), but the excitement and the energy that was growing as we approached the stadium was - amazing. I cannot even put it into words.

Here we are entering the tunnel - and we're greeted with a very warm statement...

Then we come out of the tunnel the finish line in sight...

And then cross the finish line...

My official time - 48:31. Not bad for walking a portion of it. 3:30 slower than when I ran the whole thing last year in San Jose. I'm happy with it!

Here's what I'm greeted with on the other side of the Finish Line...

I have to say this wasn't my first time on the field, but it was the first time in 14 years!! Yikes? Really it's been 14 years? That was when I was among the thousands of college students who stormed the field in 1996 when our Football team lead by Jake Plummer, shut out the Nebraska Cornhuskers. They were boasting a 26 game win streak (including two back to back National Titles) and we shut them out 19-0. Needless to say we were some very excited students and the goal posts and the turf didn't survive the night. (In fact I believe one of the goal posts was carried out of the Stadium and down Mill Avenue). We went on that year to play in the Rose Bowl. Yes Pat Tillman was on the field that night too.

Any way I digress.... Back to the race. Since I had to wait for my friend Rachel - I decided to take a few pictures.

Then after a bit I finally found Rachel - as you can imagine it was a mob scene. And I opted to run with the camera - not the cell phone! So we ventured back into the stadium to take a few more pictures, and meet up with an old co-worker of ours.