Philadelphia Distance Run

Yesterday I ran the Jefferson Hospital Philadelphia Distance Run (half-marathon.) My time was 2:42:13 with a 12:23 pace.

I was 10,146 out of 11,119 overall; 4707 out of 5363 females; and 746 out of 851 in my female age group. I am happy that I finished and that I wasn't last.

I ran 5K in 36:21, 10K in 1:13:29 and 10 miles in 2:00:45. Since I finished in 2:42 you can see that I started out slow and finished a lot slower.

In races like this that attract a lot of participants, people are grouped into pace groups with the speediest people in the front and others in sections behind, each cordoned off by a rope. Because of my estimated finish time of 2 hours and 35 minutes I was placed in corral 14 out of 15.

After the gun went off and the elite people began racing, it took me about another 10 minutes to reach the starting line. The race started out with a loop through downtown then went down one side of the Schuylkill River, crossed over a bridge, and then went back toward the city along the other side of the river to the end near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The highlight of the race for me (after finishing) was seeing some of the elite runners in action. The downtown loop was about 4 miles and there was a point where the beginning and ending sections of the loop were quite close to each other so I, after having run less than a mile, could see the elite runners on their way out of the loop heading towards the water. I saw the lead runner as well as some other speedy men and the first female runner. It's fun to be in a race with people like that and to actually have a chance to be running near them, albeit in opposite directions, was great.

The race was OK. I listened to my audiobook for most of the time but, with all the activity, I couldn't always follow what was happening so I may have to go back and listen to some parts again. By mile 11 I felt really tired and the audiobook just wasn't that entertaining for me anymore so I switched and started listening to a few songs I had on the mp3 player instead. They picked me up enough to keep going to the finish line.

I didn't start walking at all until mile 11 and even then I didn't walk that much but it still took me an incredibly slow 42 minutes to run the last 3.1 miles. Ugh. And I felt really tired at the end so I'm not feeling particularly encouraged about the marathon in 5 weeks. Maybe I need to start reading some inspirational books.

Overall, I think this was a good learning experience, though. I learned that I probably don't want to walk around San Francisco too much the day before the marathon. We walked around Philly a little bit on Saturday afternoon and went to the Academy of Natural Sciences with the kids and my left foot became sore and then still felt sore when I woke up on Sunday. (After mile 4, it seemed to improve.)

I learned that I need to get to the start of the race really early if I want to use a port-a-potty. I got to the start about 20 minutes before the race (you had to pick up your number and timing chip the night before so I was ready to go) and thought I would go to the bathroom one more time. Wrong. The lines were so long that I never would have made it through before the race started.

I learned that by the time I get to the water stops, a bazillion people will have already been there and poured water and dropped their cups in the road making for a very slippery situation.

I learned that having more music on my mp3 player is probably a good idea.

I learned that I need to have a post-race meal ready to eat. After this race I ate a bunch of orange slices, grabbed a few bags of pretzels and peanuts and drank a bottle of water but I was HUNGRY still and it's hard to get something good to eat in a strange city when you are tired and sore.

Larsson ran the Children's Run but I missed it since it started at 10:30 and I was still running then. Braman said it was a little hectic managing Larsson and Nora in the crowds and then trying to get Larsson ready for his race while watching Nora but he managed. Braman has been a great support throughout all the training and was particularly heroic for this crazy race weekend where we drove down at 6am on Saturday morning and drove back right after the race on Sunday.

Here's a picture of Larsson and me the night before the race in our hotel room:


And one of us with Nora:


The race started at 7:45. After Braman gave the kids breakfast he was good enough to try to find me on the course so here's a picture of me running downtown. I think this is between miles 3 and 4. I'm near the middle and have on a white shirt, black shorts and a yellow hat.


Evidently Larsson had some trouble staying on course in his race. (His race was a quarter-mile and he told me afterwards that it was "VERY long.") He was so focused he missed a turn (and didn't heed the race organizers excitedly telling him which way to go) and had to be caught by a police officer before he ran into traffic. Here's a picture of him after he got back on the route:


Larsson and I both won medals for our races. Here we are at the finish, proudly displaying them:


I'm resting today and am scheduled for 5 miles tomorrow. I may try to run it outside if I feel up to it instead of going to The Fitness Station.