I’m waiting to officially go on vacation at my FAVORITE (not) airport in the world, Philadelphia (there’s a reason I’d take amtrak to BWI when I lived out here), so might as well kill some time with a run down of the Philadelphia Marathon. I did the half a few times when I lived out here and apparently the Full seemed like a good idea over the summer (don’t they all start out like that?). I flew in Friday from Cleveland and was able to get checked in to the hotel and pick up my packet from the expo. I stayed downtown, so everything was in walking distance. I found a little Italian wine bar and was able to find a seat at the bar to have some dinner before settling in for the night and watching some college basketball.
Saturday, I woke up and headed back to the expo to volunteer during the first shift. I grabbed a cinnamon pretzel from the pretzel factory (hey, no judging) for breakfast on the way. After doing my thing, I ended up getting a new pair of running shoes for myself because they were ONLY $70 and no sales tax and then asked my mom if she needed any. I should have spent 30 seconds at the Saucony booth were they were $10 cheaper. I did some window and real shopping while wanting to beat OSU football over the head due to keeping Indiana in the football game before heading to church. Grabbed a light dinner and took it to the hotel to eat in the quiet of my of my room. I tried going to bed at 930/10, but didn’t fall asleep until midnight ish. Yawn.
I woke up bright and early and hit the alarm clock a few times before rolling out of bed at 545. My clothes were out so all I had to do was throw them on and grab a few things before heading out. The walk to the start wasn’t bad, maybe 15-20 minutes. I got into my corral and waited for the gun to go off. Rolling waves were let go starting about 7 and it took about 10 minutes for me to get through. The first mile was down the parkway and then we took some turns to south Philly and Penn’s Landing. We cut through old town Philly and south street before heading out chestnut street (and past my hotel). I did the first 10K in just over an hour. We hit up 30th street and passed Drexel and Penn. I forgot about the devil hill around mile 8/9 that I’ve always hated. We waved at the zoo and headed down to Kelly Drive and the River. We kept on trucking to the Art Museum where the marathoners and 1/2 marathoners split. If I didn’t have a hotel room and had made a special trip out here, I probably would have gone that route, but I kept on chugging on the full marathon. 2:18 for the full, which wasn’t surprising because I could feel my legs getting tired. We ran the other side of Kelly Drive all the way to the Falls Bridge (which is about 1/2 a mile from my old apartment) and did part of Kelly drive again. For some reason, hair pin turns were common today. We then took a stroll in Manayunk (and thankfully missed out on a devil hill there). I was really starting to feel the tiredness and kept thinking all I have to do is finish, a hard thought when you were at the half marathon point and the marathon winners were finishing 5-8 miles ago. One more hair pin turn before we headed out of Manayunk and back towards town. We kept on going and telling ourselves one mile at a time. Seeing mile 25 is always a site for sore eyes because you know you’re really almost done. The legs were shot and I somehow got across the finish in 4:55:27. I’ll take it since medicine gets in the way of training sometimes. The mayor was at the end (as always) giving high 5s to finishers. I grabbed my medal, food and broth and just kept walking to the hotel for my $10 million shower.
Good course with decent crowd support, but too many hair pin turns. My yellow and black tights were a hit with spectators, which is always a hoot. Definitely a good race to do if you’re looking for one! Now, to do the marathon shuffle to catch my flight
drrunner 