Philadelphia Marathon recap

I am going to preface this post by saying that the Philadelphia Marathon was great.  Yes, that needed italics and bold.  That's how great it was.  So much nicer than my previous marathon, where it was cold rain for the first quarter of the course (ew).  The weather started in the upper 30s and was no more than the mid-50s by the end.  Could not have been better.  The course was great--there were two hills that I walked, but the more gradual inclines posed no problems (I am still a hill wimp).  And most importantly, I PRed!  And I PRed by 15 minutes!!!  Whoo!

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.

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.

What a difference decent weather and a packet of caffeinated jellybeans makes

I can tell you exactly what a difference these two things make: a full 30 seconds off of my personal record (PR) mile split for a half-marathon!  That's a whole 6 minutes faster!  I think that actually it's closer to 7 minutes faster!

Really!

That happened!

The scenario: the first half-marathon in the Florida Halfathon series was today.  I was, to say the least, concerned, particularly after the last long run that I did where I was awful.  I decided to try being better about fueling: generally I don't eat much before a race, so I decided to change that.  I had one of my packets of caffeinated jellybeans prior to the race.  That apparently did the trick.  I don't think that I've ever felt so focused at the beginning of a long run.  This idea is staying.

Then, I was very fortunate in that the weather was MUCH better than anticipated.  It was 58F with a dew point of 50F.  Now admittedly, this is actually in the 70% humidity range, but it felt considerably better than normal.  And there was a pretty hefty breeze--actually, I could have done without the hefty breeze from a running standpoint, but it was fantastic from a not-overheating standpoint.  Also great: it was overcast throughout the run, so Mr. Florida Sun was not even a factor.

And I did not even come close to overheating!  I did have to walk a bit around mile 11 because I got going too fast for a while.  But I was back on track soon enough and polished off the last mile and finished in a much faster time than anticipated.  Considering that I was worried about being taken off the course for slowness, this was, to say the least, an unexpected surprise.

This was my benchmark race for the series.  I need to work on staying steady and getting faster so that I can power through that 11-mile slump next time.  On the other hand, who cares because I got a half-marathon PR!

WHOOOOOOOOOOO!

Apparently, it's the year of weird running surprises.  I got the age award for the 5k in April, even though I didn't run all that fast.  Then, I got my half-marathon PR on a race that I really didn't expect.  Considerably better than last year, which was the year of the cruddy race weather.