Philadelphia Marathon Post Race

On Sunday, I was able to run the half marathon variant of the Philadelphia Marathon. It was a nice race. I do like this one better than the Philadelphia Distance Run that is put on in September, I think it is the course I like better.

I woke up that morning at 4:50 am, which was about 20 minutes before the alarm. So I got up and got myself ready. It was nice to be up a little earlier as I was able to relax a bit and avoid the tension of rushing to get down to center city. I left the house about 5:45 and drove to center city to find parking. I drove to a parking garage about 4 blocks from the start line, I had to pay $11.00, I know there was some free parking but this garage was closer.

The chill hit me when I left the garage. Wow! the lack of sunlight seemed to make it seem colder. Probably not true but it felt true. So as Stephen Cobert would say it had some "truthiness" to it. I did my best to stay warm at pre race and Bart Yasso was there on the loud speaker, I thought that was nice. I learned that the Philadelphia Marathon is put on by the city which they said is unique. O.K. Go Philly.

There was a staggered start so I had to wait a bit for the start of the race. I tried to set my Garmin. Trouble. The think kicked out. I had been having trouble with the LCD washing out so I couldn't read it and sometimes it would just turn off with no warning (it was always fully charged). So now before my half marathon it died on me. So I would have no way to gauge my pace beyond the course time markers. I didn't like this very much, but what can you do. Roll with adversity, not much else is available.

I managed to get across the start line about 11 minutes after the official start. Not too bad considering that there were 18,000 folks running at the same time. That is not too bad for a big city marathon but given that some of the streets used for the course are not overly wide it seemed like a lot.

The course for the run was better, I thought than the Philadelphia Distance Run. The course for this race seemed to cover more of the city. You get to see not only the Art Museum at the start and by Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell area but also got you up to the University of Pennsylvania, Fairmount Park and Boat House Row. I liked the course. There are more hills in Philadelphia than I thought before, running up 34th Street past the Zoo and further was a bit trying.

How did I do with no clock to gauge myself. Well not as well as I would have liked but not terrible. My total time was 2:29:28. This is a minute slower than my PR at my last half marathon. Not being able to accurately gauge my time was a major hindrance but we have to make due. I did have a good time and would definitely run this race again.