Philly Distance Run

I jumped into the first corral before the race and chatted with Steve Gelman as we waited for the run to start. We'd be running through a picture perfect morning, you could not ask for better weather for mid-September in Philly. Legs had felt tight during a warmup mile on MLK and I decided before the gun sounded to make an extra effort to take things easy in mile one.

The first mile went by in 6:45, good. I bumped into Yellowshorts and said high as we rounded City Hall into a very bright, very low sun on Market Street. Mile 2 was somewhere around 6:20, I took stock and decided I was feeling good. It was early and I was worried that lack of mileage in training would get me in the last few miles. I decided to push it out of my head and just run. I spilt the miles but really I didn't pay to much attention to it, it was always somewhere between 6:20 and 6:40.

At mile four I noticed that the girl in front of me had shit her pants and was still cruising along. I don't need to go into to much detail but she had on short shorts. We had just run by 300 hundred beautifully blue porta potties and the girl in front of me shit her pants. I can understand mile 12.5 maybe, about to qualify for New York marathon maybe. But at mile four? Running nine miles with poopy pants at PDR just seems insane. Unluckily I was yo-yoing in front and behind poopy pants several times going up MLK. In my opinion one glance at that was one to many. I bumped into Jeff (Ian's Friend) go up the drive and he said "Lets get the out from behind her." He is very wise.

With the exception of the above I was really enjoying the race. I was running maybe a few seconds slower per mile than I was probably capable but I was content. I talked with a girl who is in the NYC Central Park running club, I chatted with a coworker who was there to run some with his son but not really to race, I ran by Bob a Wissahickon Wanderer and I basked in the beautiful morning and a superb run.

We ran over Falls Bridge with just over 4 miles to go and I pushed things a little bit harder. All the way down Kelly Drive I was slowly passing people and feeling great. Instead of the miles feeling interminably long, like they often can at the end of the race, they went by quickly. Suddenly I had two miles to go and decided to push a little more. We ran up the hill to the Art Museum and now I was feeling it. There was probably a grimace on my face but we were nearly done. In the last 400 M I gave it all I had trying to pass a guy just in front of me. He sensed me coming and matched my pace, keeping just ahead.

We came around the final 100 degree turn (why the hell do they have a 100 degree blind turn 100 M from the finish of a 13 mile race?) and up the final straight away. I have been out kicked many times at the end of a race and it has always pissed me off. Today I was able to do the kicking. Suddenly I was sprinting and easily passing the guy in front of me. It felt good. That is until I crossed the line and nearly booted.

In the finishing chute I noticed an older but very fast guy that I often run by in the Wissahickon, he introduced himself and we talked for a couple minutes. It turns out that he is friends with poopy pants who finished not far behind me. Before I knew it, I was saying hi and shaking hands.
In the last post I said I'd be happy to break 1:25. Final time 1:25:09. Oh well, I was still very happy. Based on the way I raced and how felt from start to finish it was one of the better races I've done.