Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Tucson Marathon: Going the distance

UA graduate and employee Marcela Delgado is making the Tucson Marathon her first try at the distance.

BRYAN LEE

Tucson Citizen

If Marcela Delgado can get past the cold, dark of the morning and get the socks off her hands, which are warmer than gloves, she should be all right Sunday competing in her first marathon.

It's not the kind of beginning she would choose - a brisk December morning - for the run of her life in the Tucson Marathon, but what the heck, "Everyone's in the same boat," she says.

And later, when the 28-year-old University of Arizona systems analyst finds that "wall" runners are always talking about, misery in company will also be comforting, but not as much as her own mental state, she confidently predicts.

"I read some tips in 'Runner's World' " she says, "and the one that got me the most was, 'You have been working hard for this day. It's going to be a fun day. Enjoy it.' "

It was for fun that Delgado, a UA graduate, started to run three years ago after some friendly persuasion from Elisa Kinder of the Southern Arizona Roadrunners.

"I met her through family and she brings you in to volunteer to help at events, and the next thing you know you're running," Delgado says. "Then I started to do it to accomplish something, even if it was just five miles."

With no illusions about stardom - "I can't compete against the caliber of the (best) athletes" - she did several SAR events and two Tucson Half-Marathons, never with a strict training regimen.

But last winter, she got the bug. It was time.

"I wanted to do a complete marathon before I was 30," she says.

The first question was how to get serious without getting too fanatic about it.

"I've had no real coaching," she says. "Elisa is the only person who has given me advice on what to eat and pacing myself and things like that. Otherwise I did it the cheap and easy way - a rookie going online. I put together programs I thought would be feasible for me.

"It has been tough, but I never thought I had done the wrong thing. If you don't have the mindset and are not prepared, there will be no race."

Delgado, now gratefully tapering her training, was doing long runs once a week, the farthest 18 miles a few weeks ago. That was a revelation in that it turned into sort of a joy ride before the pain caught up with her.

"I drank Red Bull (beverage concentration of sugar and caffeine) and for a while I felt like I couldn't stop. That was fuel!" she says. "I'm going to have someone meet me halfway Sunday with a can of it."

That privilege belongs to boyfriend Matt MacCullugh, a native Australian, whom she met near UA's Old Main at a coffee shop right about the time she began to consider running a marathon. He's back from Down Under for the event.

"He calls me his little 'super athlete,' " Delgado says with a laugh. "How cheesy."

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