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| Not my actual time, I was in the final corral of runners, so I had a delayed start (like, by more than 1/2 hour). Also, you know that you ran hard when your finish line photo is this wimpy. |
There was some other walking, particularly near the end when I was getting tired. Compared to the last marathon, though, the last 6 miles wasn't nearly as bad. I had some crazy and grandiose plans for counting down, like trying to count out 6500 steps (no), which then became 4 x 1000 steps (walk break after 1000), which then became some other counting down, eventually culminating in 4 x 250. I think I needed to walk in there somewhere too. But I did push myself pretty hard during the actual running segments. For a while during the race, I was with the 5:30 pace group, but I told myself that that would be unrealistic. I didn't wind up all that much slower than them, though, so yay!
The course was very cool in that you got to see a lot of different parts of Philly. There is an out-and-back for much of the last half of it, but it is along the Schuylkill River, which I like. This time, I didn't find myself doing a lot of sightseeing or staring at rowers, like I did last summer. Mostly I was focused on the course. But being focused on the course evidently paid off since I did PR. Whoo! <-- This doesn't get old.
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| Streets of Philadelphia |
Perhaps the best part of the weekend was when Rocky aired on the local PBS the night before. I could have totally done the stairs at the museum faster than him the first time that he tried them. Maybe not so much the second time. But definitely the first time.
I think that I can attribute the PRing to Crossfit, or at least the fact that I am much stronger than last time. While I did slack off for some of the more recent workouts, in general the strength training really paid off. I am glad that I got started with it and that I recognized its potential for helping my running; the original plan was to do Crossfit for a month then focus on running but I think that I made the better decision. Also, I can kind of/sort of do pushups now. Kind of. Let's not get too hasty here.
What's next? I have no idea. Honestly. I have been wrestling with this for a few weeks now. I was thinking of doing a triathlon, but after lots of contemplation, I realized that right now is not the right time to attempt this challenge (I did one, years ago, which was not fun, but that is another story). I may do the 10-mile run in Canada when I am home for the holidays, which takes place on Boxing Day (December 26). Other than that, not sure. I will definitely continue with Crossfit and am definitely taking this week off. We will see where things go from there.
