Sunrise at Old Tucson

As the sunrose at Old Tucson Studios, over 300 runners participated in the first annual "Sunrise at Old Tucson". The following is a race report done by Pat Monahan for his personal blog.

This was a doubleheader weekend. Yesterday was the Ostrich Festival 5k and today was a 3.8 miler at a movie studio. Old Tucson Studios is know for being a filming site for many a John Wayne movie, as well as, many other westerns.

Here's just a few movies made there.
1940: Arizona
1945: The Bells of St. Mary's
1957: 3:10 to Yuma
1957: Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
1958: The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold
1959: Rio Bravo
1965: The Great Sioux Massacre
1966: El Dorado
1967: Hombre
1970: Rio Lobo
1972: The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
1974: The Trial of Billy Jack
1976: The Outlaw Josey Wales
1981: The Cannonball Run
1986: ¡Three Amigos!
1990: Young Guns II
1993: Geronimo: An American Legend
1993: Nemesis
1993: Tombstone
1994: Lightning Jack
1995: Hard Bounty
1995: The Quick and the Dead
2005: Seven Mummies
2007: Legend of Pearl Hart

It was almost a 2 hour drive for me. My kids and wife passed at the chance to get up at 4 am. The question was, would I be dead by the time I got to Tucson?

I ran again in "A Shirt That Races".

Look familiar? This is one of the sets that we ran past. My legs felt great and I was ready to run, but not as fast as yesterday. One, it's my first trail race with a lot of single track. Two, I brought my camera. The race director, who was pretty funny told us it was around 3.9 miles, unless you get lost. This race had lots of turns, as you can see on the map. One loop around the studio streets, then out into the desert, past the start line with a final loop around town. He warned us about rattlesnakes. He said, "the first runner scares the snake, the snake scares the second runner and the third runner gets bit. So make sure you're the fourth runner." Or something to that effect.

I was running and taking pictures and ran mile splits of around 11 minutes each for the first three. The final .8 was in town and I had already taken pictures there, so I ran my fastest. a 9:48 mile split. I finished in 41:27 and was happy with that.

This was put on by the Southern Arizona Roadrunners (which I am now a member) and they had a great awards ceremony. Lots of door prizes for adults and kids, AG awards and the Old Tucson Sheriff added some levity. We had a trail breakfast (scrambled egg burritos).

Here we are running the streets and below is Horse Poop Alley. Yeah, it's where they dump the waste and we got to run right thru it.

Old Tucson Studios is in the Saguaro National Forest. SA-war-o. And it is a forest, as you can see. The drive is majestic.

Now, it's time to send "A Shirt That Races" to another state. Our goal is to have a different runner in all 50 states and Canada run in this shirt. I'll write on the shirt about the two AZ races, wash it (promise) and then mail it to . . . you?

If you want to participate, let Nikemom know when and she'll put you on the calendar.

The Running Shop is a proud sponsor of this race and many of the SAR events. We encourage you to support those sponsors that support running.

This race was a fundraiser for the John Wayne Cancer Foundation. Any additional support to them would be greatly appreciated.