Philly Race Report

Ok...so the long awaited - mostly by my parents - race report from Philly. I am sure that I am going to leave out a lot of details, but I really needed to get this posted. First of all, thanks to Maggie Mae, first of all for commenting on my blog and second for the picture of the medal that I stole from her blog. Congrats on your first half marathon! I needed a good pic to show to my parents.

So Danny and I drove down on Saturday to Philadelphia. There we met up with Shore Turtle who had been kind enough to pick up our race packets. An early shout-out to the turtle who completed the FULL marathon in the speedy (non-turtle-like) pace of 3:53:02 in his first marathon! We met his mom who has recently taken up running and has won a few races in her age group. This is a pic of me in the lobby of ST's hotel (thanks to Danny for the pics). We met up with Sara and a friend of hers in West Conshohocken where we were staying. We hung out for a little bit and then tried to head to sleep. The beds were really comfortable, I am not sure if it was the excitement of the coming race or the unfamiliar bed but it seems that non of us could sleep. I think I woke up just about every half an hour.

Sunday 6AM - wake up! I had laid out all my gear the night before but I still had to decide what to wear. The weather said that it was already 42 degrees, so I wore running pants on top of my shorts with the intention of ditching the pants before the race started. We took a cab - parking would have been impossible in Center City - and met all our fellow runners in front of the Art Museum. The famous stairs from Rocky! With my kean vision I spotted Shore Turtle and we hung out for a while before the race started.








Before the race






Danny and I were planning on lining up with the 9minute mile pace and Sara was planning on lining up with the 10 minute pace. However, we only lined up a few minutes before the gun time and the place was packed. We ended up lining up together and were over 8 minutes behind clock time. Danny and I stayed together for the first mile or so, but similar to the Poland Spring race a few weeks back I accelerated a little during some of the weaving and lost track of him. I hadn't run that much in the prior couple of weeks and I was feeling it. I felt that the first few miles were much harder than any of the practice long runs - granted I was running faster. I was running between 8:15 and 8:30 miles. I kept on feeling like I was going to need to stop but I kept pushing myself. I was mostly focused on my running but I remember passing the National Constitution Center on Independence Mall, we ran through Chinatown (where the paving was horrible) ran along the Schulykill. At about 2 miles in we passed under a bridge, not sure which one, and all of a sudden I saw people on the side of the road stopped and I was thinking to myself - boy this is early for them to be wiped already. But that was just my naivety since this was my first long race (it was just pit-stop - too much pre-race loading). It was somewhere around this point that my Garmin began to act up. At first it jumped ahead by about 3/4 of a mile. Later on during the race around 6 miles or so it lost mileage and all of a sudden I was half a mile behind the mile markers. Note to self and all future runners of this race - if they keep the mile markers the same - the Mile 3 marker was off by a lot - so don't get worried.

I remember passing a guy in a red dress and red beret - someone told me he said that this was an easy race - he wasn't wearing heels. I kinda stuck to myself mostly, thinking: "Right foot...Left foot...repeat." We ran down UPenn's frat row where the frat guys were offering beers to the runners and it was around that point that I first noticed my right knee beginning to act up. I had left knee problems in the past which had mostly gone away with stretching and I had done a bunch of stretching before the race. Anyway, at about mile 7 or 8 I needed to pull over to stretch it. I adjusted my knee braces and set off again - not sure if the stretching helped, it certainly felt as if my knee was actually worse when I started running again. Between miles 9 and 10 there was a really steep hill - we didn't know about that hill. My knee just totally gave out at that point. I had to stop again and I began walking. I ran a few more steps and needed to stop again. Danny caught up with me at that point and I tried to run with him but I couldn't make it. I sent him off. I was still on pace to finish in sub-2:00 but I knew that I couldn't do much more walking.

Perhaps the most annoying part of the race was between miles 10 and 11. Just after the mile 10 marker the path split - the half marathoners turned to the right and the full marathoners continued straight through a gate - maybe to the zoo? A few hundred feet after that split all of a sudden we met up with the full marathoners again, it was a little confusing. Then to top it all off we hit mile marker 11. I was really afraid that I was on the full marathon trail. I looked around and saw another half marathon bib (the full marathon bibs were light blue, ours were pinkish). I turned to the guy running next to me who was running the full and he confirmed that our trails had joined up and that likely that mile marker was for the full and not for the half. Sure enough just a little over half a mile later we hit another Mile 11 marker. Now get this! The mile markers for the half marathon were on blue boards and the mile markers for the full marathon were on pink boards - wouldn't you have thought that the colors should have matched our bibs?

But anyway...at that point I don't know if it was my knee, the pace or deconditioning but even when I could run I was super-tired. I pulled over for a pit-stop between miles 11 and 12. When I was running I was running a good pace - but I needed one more walking stop for about a minute. The last couple miles were along the Schulykill and as soon as the Art Museum came into view I just prayed for the finish. I continued running along - seeing the Amtrak building (which is so cool at night - it has blue lights along each floor that sequentially turn on and off along a diagonal, I am doing a bad job describing it - but it's cool). I ran up the last short hill made the turn and crossed the finish line. I was beat but so happy - I made it in Sub-2:00. Sure I was disappointed that I didn't run the whole way but even so - I made sub 9:00 miles. I know I can do better, but I am happy with this performance.



After the race.











After the race with Shore Turtle.



Afterwards I looked around for Danny but couldn't find him - I knew he would be watching the finishing full marathon runners. Congrats to the USA we took the silver and the bronze in the men's race. As I limped around I finally was spotted by Sara, her dad and her friend who were sitting at our meeting point. Danny shortly after joined us. We were going to wait for Shore Turtle to finish. In the meantime we hung out with Sara and crew and when they left we made our way into the Amex VIP tent where we got massages - which is just what the doctor ordered. ST finished in sub-4:00 we met up with him and his team - which was really cool.

I am out of time now - and not much else exciting happened, so I am basically gonna end here. It was a great race, I was glad we ran it.

Ok - 2 pieces of background information that are tangentially related to my race. 1) I have been having a bunch of trouble with my Garmin 301 of late. When I first got it I was very happy with it, but lately it has been losing mileage (I have tried playing with settings) which is the cause of a lot of frustration. 2) Last week I bought myself the new Ipod Shuffle and it really is tiny. It's so cool and only slightly annoying that you can't see which sound you have chosen to play. It weighs absolutely nothing and is perfect for running. I ran with it on Sunday, it clipped right on to my fuel belt, and didn't feel it. I doubt I could have made it without it.