Philadelphia Marathon - Part 2

Race morning!  Hubby got up much earlier than I, about 4:15 a.m.  I on the other hand managed to get up about 5:15 a.m. and get ready in time to meet our lovely friend Maryrose in the lobby.  She decided to come cheer us on, which is beyond amazing!  She was up at 4:30 a.m., drove into Philly from New Jersey, parked her car, and in the cold waited for us to finish our really long races.  There are very few friends who are that cool.

About 6:00 a.m. the three of us headed off in the dark to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Art Museum - the start area of the race.  It's always interesting walking in the dark through Philadelphia so early in the morning to the race.  The streets are quiet until you get close to the Parkway, then you hear footsteps and laughing and chattering.  It's thousands of people coming together for the same purpose, all with their own goals, ambitions, stories, fears, and hopes.  It is pretty amazing.

The three of us wandered around, then decided on a meeting place.  So while Brian and I went off to find our corrals, Maryrose set up her chair under the Morocco flag and settled in.  We walked towards the Art Museum knowing that somewhere up ahead would be our start areas.  We took one quick photo before the race and then Brian walked me to my corral.  :-)

The Blue Corral was alllllll the way in the back so B walked me there, then made his way up to the Orange corral.  It worked out fine.  I had the chance to chat with a couple of lovely ladies from New York who were down for the race.  They decided to make it fun and stayed at the Four Seasons.  We chatted about races and stuff we had heard about this race as it was the first time we all had done it.

Then we started moving forward towards the start line.  It took us a while to make it to the start line and on the way there I met a nice older gentleman, also from NY.  We had a nice conversation about running the race and enjoying it.  Not stressing about time.  Not stressing about meeting expectations or not meeting expectations.  He was a really nice guy and we had a couple nice laughs as we walked to the start.

Now, the last two years the runners were sent off to Rocky and I anticipated that again this year.  I was wrong.  This year when the Corrals were sent off the music was the Olympic theme song played by a marching band.  I must admit, it was pretty cool.  :-)

And we're off!

I will admit, I love Philly.  It is one of my favorite cities.  I had a feeling I would like this race just because I like this particular city.  And I wasn't wrong.  Running through a city I really love and being able to understand what B talked about was exciting. 

The rest of this will not be a mile by mile description of the race because I had a hard time realizing the miles were going by.  My Garmin is set to beep every half a mile and when it would go off I was shocked every time.  I honestly couldn't believe every half mile was going by so fast!  My first half mile was 6:06.  WHAT?!?  My first mile was about 12:28.  Huh???  At Princess my first mile was about 15 minutes.  (Basically because Princess is a bottleneck at the beginning, it's too tight.  Hard to get moving around so many people.) Which shocked me no end.  My 1.5 mile time was about 19:36 and my two mile time was 26:44.  These are not race times for me.  These are me busting my butt around the neighborhood times for me.  But, I was running with no problems. No issues. No pain. I was floored.  And I was enjoying it.  Here are some photos!

This is as close as I got to Independence Hall.  I thought we ran directly in front of it. Nope. Across the BIIIIGGG lawn.  At least I saw it.  To my left was the National Constitution Center, which is also a cool place to go.

 Juggling guy.  I really dislike him.  And he kept dropping the balls!  Way to put other runners in jeopardy all so you can do something stupid.

Leaving Old City and moving onto Delaware Avenue, along the Delaware River.  The bridge up ahead is the Benjamin Franklin Bridge linking Philadelphia and Camden, NJ.

 

 Eagles drum line!  At the corner onto Delaware Avenue was the Philadelphia Eagles drum line.  We could hear them all the way up the street and I thought they were a local high school or college's band. Nope.  It was pretty awesome. :-)

 

It's hard to tell, but in the background is the restaurant Moshulu.  One day I will eat there.  

 

One of the two signs I really liked.  The other one was on the next post, but I didn't have the camera ready to go.  It said, "How many beers did we drink before we thought this was a good idea?"  LOL!

 

 Another famous area of Philly, South Street.  I haven't been here in years!  It was neat to see it without the hoardes of people.

Pancakes!  The woman with the pancake was not happy.  I ran past wondering why she was standing there holding brochures.  It's not like I was going to take an IHOP brochure and keep going.  But, he did make me smile as I ran past City Hall.

 

 The elevation for the race said there were hills from miles 7 through 10.  The hills weren't that bad from miles 7 through 9.  I'm not a huge fan of hills, but I really wasn't all that thrown by these.  I was feeling good, running strong, and almost laughing at them.  This hill lead us to the Philadelphia Zoo.

 

And then this happened...

Just past the Zoo was this hill.  It was the worst hill ever.  Remember the hill from my 12.5 mile run a couple weeks ago?  HA!  Child's play. This was monsterous.  It was about a mile long, all uphill, and steep.  Every time it curved and we thought we were done, nope.  Upwards some more.  I met two new friends on the hill and we discussed how awful it was.  Who said Philly was flat???

Let me interject here.  Until mile 9 I honestly felt that Philly trumped Princess.  No doubt, hands down.  For most of Princess you are running on access roads and while there are lots of characters around, it's so quiet and dare I say it, boring.  I didn't realize it until I ran Philly.  There were people all over the place - police officers helping keep us from getting run over (huge THANK YOU to all the Philly police who came out to keep us safe!), cheer leaders, family, friends, random people, and people going about their lives looking at us like we were crazy.  I'm not normally one for spectators, but man!  They sure bring it at Philly!  If someone asked me which to run while on the course between miles 1 and 9, I would not hesitate to say Philly.

Then that there hill reared it's ugly head.  Princess had a couple small hills and then one large one at the end, well basically an entrance ramp you ran up to cross the highway into Epcot parking lot.  This hill was 100 times worse.  When I reached the top, I was done.  I knew it.  The hill killed all momentum.  It sucked because I had 3 more miles to go.  Ugh.

But, I pushed on.  Running, but walking more than I wished.  I wasn't going to give up.  There wasn't that much more to go.  And I kept going.  

Pretty trees along the course.  I will say, the last few miles were pretty with the leaves changing.

 

 This sign was evil.  I saw it several times as I got closer to the finish line.  I kept thinking it meant I was closer, but there were no mile markers.  But, I reminded myself that I didn't have to abide by this sign...

 

 

The last mile involved more walking than I would have liked, but that's the way it works.  But, I kept moving forward and eventually hit the part of the course that allowed the Half Marathoners go the finish line, while the Marathoners kept going.  As I headed up the hill (evil Philly organizers, evil), a random woman yelled out, "Run strong Christina (my name is on my bib)! Hills are our friend!"  Oh hell no lady!  And I told her so.  LOL!  She kept insisting they build character.  I'm character enough thank you.  ;-)

As I came around Eakin's Oval (in front of the Art Museum) a gentleman on the side said I was already finished.  I yelled over no one had put a medal around my neck yet.  He laughed and said I had about 30 seconds to go.  He wasn't too far off.  I rounded the corner and there was the holy grail...I mean finish line.  Finally!

I crossed the finish line and felt relief.  It was a bit chaotic, but I got my water bottle (thank you Wawa though my water had a nice plastic taste to it.) and what I thought was my medal.  Turned out they gave me a Marathon medal. Uh no.  So, I had to go back and try to find my medal.  Turns out I was able to trade it for the half, but there were only three more after mine.  I'm so sorry everyone who finished the half after me!  I hope you get your medal soon!!

I turned back and got my photo in front of the Philadelphia Marathon backdrop, tried to get food but the line was WAY too long and just went to find Maryrose.  It wasn't worth fighting and to be honest, my stomach hurt.  Not as bad as run 12.5, but it wasn't happy.

And that's my tale.  My Garmin time was 3:16:48, my official time was 3:16:43.  LOL!  Not bad Garmie!

I'm not the only one who ran.  Check out hubby's tale at Earn Your Donuts.

The rest of the day?  Maryrose joined B and I at Little Pete's diner for breakfast - pancakes and a corn muffin.  Yum!  

 

 

We headed back to the hotel and took this goofy photo...

Maryrose was tired and headed home shortly after we got back to the hotel.  She was up early, braved the cold for hours, and cheered us on.  She totally deserved her nap!  We showered and took a small nap before heading back to the restaurant behind us in the above photo - the Midtown Continental.  We had our celebratory cheesesteak eggrolls

  My favorite drink, Champaign-O-Rama

And a tasty dessert of macaroons

L-R: Coconut macaroon (with lemon), Pumpkin macaroon (awesome!), chocolate macaroon (good), pistachio macaroon (oh so tasty!)

We headed back to the hotel after dinner.  We were sleepy.  We tried to stay up to watch the Eagles/Giants game, but running a big race in the morning?  Makes ya sleepy.  We ended up sleeping most of the game, but the Eagles won out, which is what matters.  :-)

Tomorrow: Reflections on the Philadelphia Half Marathon