Monday, November 23, 2009
Philadelphia Half Marathon Race Report
2:59 PM | 
Posted by
Kelly
We did it!!!! Zach and I ran the Philadelphia Half Marathon yesterday morning. It was an awesome race! Zach's first half (SO proud!!) and my 3rd.We headed down to Philly late morning on Saturday and went to the expo to pick up our race packet. We did a little shopping too. Zach picked up a great Philadelphia Half Marathon hat. I *gasp* managed not to buy anything.
The sun didn't want to cooperate but here are Zach and I at the expo
Then we met up with Carolyn who graciously put us up for the weekend. Love you Car!
Sunday morning, Zach and I woke up at 5am and got ready for the race. We walked to the start line after grabbing some Starbucks. We coordinated with Kathy to meet by the Rocky statue (porta potty meet up turned out to be a bad idea, there are tons of those!!) and had enough time to make a last minute bathroom stop before heading to our corral.There were several different start times since there were 20,000 + runners, so we had to wait until about 7:30 to get started. It was chilly at the start but the sun was up and looked like we were going to have a gorgeous, cool run. By mile 2 I had warmed up enough to tie my jacket around my waist and run in only a tank top. I love fall racing!
The first several miles seemed to fly by, we were all running strong and having a great time. It is so neat to see a city that way and the crowd support was amazing. We had our names printed on our bibs so people could cheer us personally. It was very cool.
By mile 8 I needed a porta potty stop so Kathy and Zach walked while I waited in line and then caught up. It stinks losing 4 minutes in a line for the bathroom but you gotta do what you gotta do. The last 5 miles had some decent hills but nothing we couldn't handle. We passed some super energetic spectators who performed for us.
I knew we were in good shape to beat my goal of under 2:40 (my previous PR for a half marathon was 2:44) so I kicked into high gear for the last mile. We headed down for the last .1 to the finish with crowds on either side cheering us in. It was really exciting!! Kathy, Zach and I crossed the finish line and all felt like a million bucks. Our official time was 2:38:53.
Zach and I after the finish
Kathy, Zach and I
The medal
All cleaned up, showing off my hardware
I would highly recommend this race to anyone. Really nice course, great crowd support and well organized. Id love to run the full marathon here one day.Here are our splits, if anyone is interested :)
Mile 1 - 11:29
Mile 2 - 11:00
Mile 3 - 11:00
Mile 4 - 11:39
Mile 5 - 11:38
Mile 6 - 11:20
Mile 7 - 11:34
Mile 8 - 16:08 (bathroom stop)
Mile 9 - 11:30
Mile 10 - 12:30
Mile 11 - 11:48
Mile 12 - 12:30
Mile 13 - 11:55
.1 - 11:20 pace
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5 comments:
Congrats! Looks like a great race and a great time. My husband will be doing a 1/2 in March to prep for a full marathon after that (his first!). Any recommendations??
He did the Disney 1/2 2 years ago and that one was great. The runners go through Magic Kingdom and the characters cheer them on!
Good luck to your hubby!!! I wanted to do the Disney full last year, but got injured and had to put it off until May and run New Jersey (which was still great).
Do you mean recommendations for races or training programs? I loved the Galloway training program we used to train this time. It goes up to a 14 mile training run so you are more than ready on race day. We dont do the walk/run, but followed his milage
http://www.jeffgalloway.com/training/half_marathon.html
You have family in NJ right? The NJ Marathon has a half marathon as well in May and it is a nice race!
Yes, a recommendation for a full marathon...I'll check into the NJ-Thanks!
I really enjoyed NJ, although it is definitely different than a big city event. If he is looking in the fall, I would definitely recommend Philly as well. Or Marine Corps in October. My husband and I ran the 10k during MCM this year and I cant wait to do the full there one day!
He was thinking about the MCM (he ran the 10K 3yrs ago)since it is so close to us (we live in Alexandria) but he also doesn't want to do it for the same reason...men, go figure---LOL
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