2014 Rocky Run 10k

This past Saturday my hubby, two friends, and I ran the inaugural Rocky Balboa Run 10k in Philadelphia. We slept over our friend's apartment Friday night and we all headed down to the Art Museum Saturday morning.

It was a cold, cold morning! Seriously, I believe it was 33* when we arrived at the parking garage. None of us were prepared per se for those temperatures as this was really the first weekend it had been that cold! We realized in the shade it was way colder than in the sun since we could barely stop shivering, but in the sun we were ok.

Our friends dressed up as a chicken and Rocky, from Rocky 2. It was hilarious more for the looks and comments they received than from others than anything. They even got on the the local television station. It was funny.

Center City Philadelphia looking down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to Center City. It was early!

 

Hubby and I pre-race

The 5k went off at 7:30 a.m. and we saw them heading off as we arrived. The 10k went off at 8:15 a.m. and went off fairly on-time. As we waited for the race to start, there were a few drones flying overhead taking photos...we think! They played Rocky music the whole time and we had lots of announcements. The funniest thing were the guys selling Rocky hats and gloves in the corrals. Odd...but Philadelphia. And as I say this, there were people buying them, so...

Personally, I was too far up in the corral for my pace. I apologize to those who had to pass me, but my friends didn't want to go back further and thought I shouldn't either. I was uncomfortable, but...

We started off through the very large start banner around Eakins Oval, past the Art Museum, and out towards Kelly Drive. Many people passed me at this point as I am not a fast runner to begin with, but for some reason was feeling really sluggish this race. I thought many a time that I should have just done the 5k. Had the two gone off at the same time, I probably would have.

It was a good race, an out and back, very flat. Throughout the course there were DJ's playing Rocky music, there were three water stations, and the volunteers were great. It was freezing. How those volunteers stayed out there in those temperatures amazes me. I was running and warmed up, but them? They just stood around.

I saw my two friends and hubby on the course. This was the longest distance he has run since surgery. He hasn't gotten past three miles on a training run, so this was a stretch for him. He did great! He completed 5 of 6 miles running and only took some walk breaks in the last mile. He finished without pain during the race, after the race, or in the next couple of days. Woot!

As I came up to the finish, hubby was waiting. He got a few pics of me coming to the finish.

Afterwards, he found me {it wasn't hard, there weren't many people finishing at the time}. We got a finisher's photo together. I estimated about 30 behind me; I was close, there were 38.

Then I grabbed my medal. Which is huge! Seriously, one of the biggest and funnest I've picked up from a race.

We grabbed a couple photos in front of the Rocky backdrop too.

We met up with our friends, who had been finished for a long while. They had plans in the afternoon and we had to get back because we were meeting friends for a birthday dinner at home. It was funny how we all had things later that day.

On the way home, we stopped for our celebratory donut breakfast. Yum! And I earned an apple fritter!

Can you see how big that medal is??????

The race was fun! For an inaugural event, I was impressed with how organized it was. Hubby wished the water stations were spaced differently or were more. I would have liked food at the end. Maybe there was food at the end, but we didn't see it and I didn't see anyone with food as we walked to our car. Other than that, we both thought the whole thing was fun.

Anyone else run this race? What did you think?
Follow @NeverTrade2013