Rock 'n' Roll Arizona

The streets of the Phoenix-Scottsdale-Tempe area — often called the “Valley of the Sun” — are expected to fill with as many as 30,000 runners, walkers and wheelchair athletes in January 2016 with the 13th annual running of the P.F. Chang’s Rock & Roll Arizona Marathon & Half Marathon, which sees more than 15,000 runners cross the finish line in just the half marathon each year.

After years of running a point-to-point course that started in downtown Phoenix and finished in nearby Tempe on the campus of Arizona State University, the route was completely redesigned a couple of years ago to feature an out-and-back loop that starts and finishes near the ASU campus, and takes runners through Tempe and north into Scottsdale, where they’ll cross the Salt River twice and head through both Eldorado Park and a long stretch through Papago Park.Like all of the “Rock & Roll”-themed running events, the Arizona race will also feature live bands playing music throughout the course, stationed roughly every other mile, along with cheerleading squads from local high schools and thousands of local spectators out to cheer on runners around the course. The race finish line will lie in the parking lot on the ASU campus, just outside Sun Devil Stadium.

Considered an excellent race for first-time marathoners and half-marathoners, thanks to its largely fast and flat course — the race follows a very gradual overall uphill from the start to about the mile 10 marker, and gains only about 150 feet in elevation throughout the first 10 miles of the half marathon — the Rock & Roll Arizona race also features a relay race for two-person teams.