Valley of the Sun Marathon and Half Marathon

Last Sunday (3/13/05) the Valley of the Sun Marathon and Half Marathons were held in Mesa AZ. As this Arizona Republic article mentions, this race attracts many more serious half marathon runners than full marathon runners. Other Arizona races like the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Marathon puts the bulk of its prize money into the full marathons. This can be seen in the stats. There were 1017 half marathon finishers as compared to 301 full marathon finishers (a ratio of 3.38). This half to full ratio is much higer than comparable races. For example, the Little Rock Marathon had 1192 half marathon finishers and 934 full marathon finishers for a ratio of 1.28. The half marathon also had much better times. There were 40 (4%) runners in the half marathon with times under 1.5hr. The full marathon only had 6 (2%) runners with times under 3hr.

One very interesting note about the Valley of the Sun Half Marathon was what happened to the men's winner, Wesley Ochoro. The Arizona Republic reported that Ochoro had to ask police officers for directions and they gave him the wrong directions causing Ochoro to run half-mile off course. Despite this Ochoro was still able to win with a time of 1:04.54.

Here are the detailed stats. Since the vast majority of runners were from Arizona, I skipped the results by state. I'm starting out with the tabels with number of runners by time. If you move your mouse over the cells, you can see the best times for the specific category.

Full Marathon Results

Time Breakdowns By Age For Male Runners - Move mouse over cells to see best time for each category.

AgeGroup	Under 3hr	3hr to 4hr	4hr to 5hr	Over 5hr
teens	0 (0%)	2 (67%)	1 (33%)	0 (0%)
twenties	1 (5%)	9 (45%)	6 (30%)	4 (20%)
thirties	1 (2%)	17 (32%)	23 (43%)	12 (23%)
forties	4 (6%)	31 (48%)	22 (34%)	8 (12%)
fifties	0 (0%)	8 (22%)	21 (57%)	8 (22%)
sixties	0 (0%)	1 (9%)	6 (55%)	4 (36%)
seventies	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (100%)
unknown	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (50%)	1 (50%)
Total	6 (3%)	68 (35%)	80 (42%)	38 (20%)

Time Breakdowns By Age For Female Runners - Move mouse over cells to see best time for each category.

AgeGroup	Under 3hr	3hr to 4hr	4hr to 5hr	Over 5hr
teens	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	2 (67%)	1 (33%)
twenties	0 (0%)	5 (19%)	13 (50%)	8 (31%)
thirties	0 (0%)	9 (24%)	19 (51%)	9 (24%)
forties	0 (0%)	11 (33%)	13 (39%)	9 (27%)
fifties	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	5 (71%)	2 (29%)
sixties	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	1 (50%)	1 (50%)
unknown	0 (0%)	1 (100%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Total	0 (0%)	26 (24%)	53 (49%)	30 (28%)

Total Time Breakdowns

Under 3hr	3hr to 4hr	4hr to 5hr	Over 5hr
6 (2%)	94 (31%)	133 (44%)	68 (23%)

Average Times By Age Groups

AgeGroup	Number	Percent	Mean Chiptime
teens	6	2%	4:13:39
twenties	46	15%	4:24:27
thirties	90	30%	4:29:18
forties	98	33%	4:16:27
fifties	44	15%	4:35:47
sixties	13	4%	4:52:16
seventies	1	0%	6:14:12
unknown	3	1%	4:54:57
Total	301	100%	4:26:36

Average Times By Female Age Groups

AgeGroup	Number	Percent	Mean Chiptime
teens	3	3%	4:53:17
twenties	26	24%	4:32:43
thirties	37	34%	4:32:18
forties	33	30%	4:38:21
fifties	7	6%	4:52:57
sixties	2	2%	4:47:39
unknown	1	1%	3:16:38
Total	109	100%	4:35:43

Average Times By Male Age Groups

AgeGroup	Number	Percent	Mean Chiptime
teens	3	2%	3:34:01
twenties	20	10%	4:13:43
thirties	53	28%	4:27:13
forties	65	34%	4:05:20
fifties	37	19%	4:32:32
sixties	11	6%	4:53:07
seventies	1	1%	6:14:12
unknown	2	1%	5:44:06
Total	192	100%	4:21:26

Half Marathon Results

Time Breakdowns By Age For Male Runners

AgeGroup	Under 90m	90-120m	120-150m	Over 2.5hr
preteens	0 (0%)	1 (100%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
teens	2 (20%)	5 (50%)	3 (30%)	0 (0%)
twenties	6 (11%)	28 (49%)	13 (23%)	10 (18%)
thirties	10 (6%)	76 (49%)	56 (36%)	13 (8%)
forties	11 (9%)	61 (48%)	47 (37%)	9 (7%)
fifties	2 (2%)	32 (39%)	28 (34%)	20 (24%)
sixties	0 (0%)	3 (19%)	11 (69%)	2 (13%)
seventies	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	2 (29%)	5 (71%)
unknown	1 (50%)	1 (50%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)
Total	32 (7%)	207 (45%)	160 (35%)	59 (13%)

Time Breakdowns By Age For Female Runners

AgeGroup	Under 90m	90-120m	120-150m	Over 2.5hr
preteens	0 (0%)	2 (67%)	0 (0%)	1 (33%)
teens	0 (0%)	3 (25%)	4 (33%)	5 (42%)
twenties	4 (3%)	45 (30%)	75 (50%)	25 (17%)
thirties	3 (2%)	50 (25%)	93 (47%)	52 (26%)
forties	0 (0%)	31 (26%)	53 (44%)	36 (30%)
fifties	0 (0%)	5 (9%)	19 (33%)	34 (59%)
sixties	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	5 (42%)	7 (58%)
seventies	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	0 (0%)	4 (100%)
unknown	1 (33%)	1 (33%)	1 (33%)	0 (0%)
Total	8 (1%)	137 (25%)	250 (45%)	164 (29%)

Total Time Breakdowns

Under 90m	90-120m	120-150m	Over 2.5hr
40 (4%)	344 (34%)	410 (40%)	223 (22%)

Average Times By Age Groups

AgeGroup	Number	Percent	Mean Chiptime
preteens	4	0%	2:17:05
teens	22	2%	2:10:01
twenties	206	20%	2:09:21
thirties	353	35%	2:10:08
forties	248	24%	2:11:11
fifties	140	14%	2:26:08
sixties	28	3%	2:28:06
seventies	11	1%	2:59:06
unknown	5	0%	1:44:07
Total	1017	100%	2:13:21

Average Times By Female Age Groups

AgeGroup	Number	Percent	Mean Chiptime
preteens	3	1%	2:22:52
teens	12	2%	2:24:52
twenties	149	27%	2:11:56
thirties	198	35%	2:18:02
forties	120	21%	2:22:44
fifties	58	10%	2:44:44
sixties	12	2%	2:43:12
seventies	4	1%	3:21:25
unknown	3	1%	1:56:05
Total	559	100%	2:21:14

Average Times By Male Age Groups

AgeGroup	Number	Percent	Mean Chiptime
preteens	1	0%	1:59:43
teens	10	2%	1:52:10
twenties	57	12%	2:02:34
thirties	155	34%	2:00:02
forties	128	28%	2:00:21
fifties	82	18%	2:12:59
sixties	16	3%	2:16:47
seventies	7	2%	2:46:22
unknown	2	0%	1:26:11
Total	458	100%	2:03:43

All of the above stats are based on race data provided by Valley of the Sun Marathon Results page.

2005 Mesa, AZ Valley of the Sun Marathon Weather

Here are the weather stats for the last Sunday's race (3/13/05). The full and half marathons began at 6:15am. Sunrise was 6:39am. The starting temperature was 59F and humidity was 59%. By noon it was 73F with humidity of 33%. It was sunny throughout the race. These weather stats are based on data from weather.com.

Time	Temp F	Humid. %	Wind	Sky Condition
5:50am	59	59	from E 10mph	clear
6:50am	59	59	from E 12mph	sunny
7:50am	63	52	from ESE 12mph	sunny
9:50am	70	35	from SE 9mph	sunny
10:50am	72	33	from S 12mph	sunny
11:50am	73	33	from S 12mph	sunny