Sunday, September 16, 2012

Philadelphia Rock N' Roll Half Marathon!

Holy crap I did it! I've never been so sore in my life, but I did it and I never stopped running!
That's me in the blue shirt and blue hat (arm in the air obviously). Alright now let's rewind and get to the details.
 
Matt and I went to dinner with some friends on Friday night and then went home and watched a  movie with this guy and turned in early.
Champ's bottle cap hat.
 
Saturday morning we dropped Champ off at daycare and then left for Philadelphia!
damn truck getting in my way
 
We checked into our hotel, along with most of the marathon runners.
Our hotel.
 
Our next order of business was to go to the expo across the street to pick up our bibs and swag!
Rockin my swag bag. I also picked up a 13.1 bumper sticker.  Why else would you do one of these things if it weren't for the bragging rights, right??
 
We met up with some friends who were running the race for dinner. We went to a gourmet pizza restaurant and carbo loaded ourselves into a food coma.
 
When we got back to our room I put out all my things for the next day.
 
We went to bed around 9:30 and had our alarms set for 5:40 the next morning. I slept like CRAP. I kept having all these crazy dreams about getting there late and missing the race. I'm a headcase obviously. Well the alarm went off and Matt and I were both already awake, trying to stay quiet because we thought the other person was sleeping. I made my breakfast and got ready.
half a whole wheat bagel with almond butter and craisins
 
We're ready!
 
Then we met up with Pat and Beth and walked the mile to the start line:
During our walk there we talked about how much the mile walk back to our hotel would suck after we were done. And we were totally right. It was hands down the worst part of my day.
 
When we got the the start site, we all checked our stuff, used the porta's and lined up. Once the first corral left we moved up pretty quickly and I was running before I knew it.
 
The course was really great overall. It took us through downtown first and then we went to more of the outskirts of the city along the delaware river.  The course was pretty flat, that is until you got to the last couple of miles. I was feeling really great for most of the race. My hips started to get a little sore around mile 7, but that is the norm for me so I just dealt with it. I took advantage of the water stations the had and stopped at most of them. By stopping I mean stopping for enough time to take two sips of water. This would usually only slow my pace by a couple seconds and I would catch up pretty quickly.
 
At mile 8 we went across a bridge looping around to go along the other side of the river. This is when the incline started to get to me a little. I got to mile 10 and thought ok, I can do this.  Then I hit mile 11. The sun was getting hot and there was no more shade around. The incline started to get...interesting. We were slightly inclined up and to the side so it started really bothering my knees. My pace slowed a good 20 seconds. When I hit mile 12 I was exhausted. I just kept telling myself not to walk. I started counting my breaths to 100 or 200, then would glance at my watch to see how close 13 was. When I saw the 13 sign I attempted to sprint, meaning a 9.50 pace haha, and crossed the finishe line. Matt found me soon after and got a good picture!
I was trying to be positive with the thumbs up, but I actually felt like I could puke at any second and my hips and knees were on fire.  I grabbed a chocolate milk and my medal and went to find Matt and his parents to sit.
My official time: 2:12.38 (10.07 pace)
I really wanted to finish under 2:10 and was a little peeved because my Garmin and everyone else's garmin around me read the course at 13.3 miles instead of 13.1.  My garming got me finishing 13.3 miles in the same time with a 9.59 pace giving me my goal. So I guess you could say I kind of acheived my time goal. I finished 8763rd out of 15,116 people and I finished about middle of the pack for both my age group and for woman. So at best I am average lol. Matt on the other hand kicked major ass. He finished in 1.38 and I couldn't be more proud! And then we paid for it.
 
I could barely walk at this point. I tried to do some stretching which helped a little, but that mile walk to our hotel just about killed me. We showered up, checked out of our room and grabbed lunch at the hotel restaurant.
veggie wrap with some sort of cheese and pesto with chips and a decaf coffee. I devoured it all.
 
We drove home after lunch and made it in time for the second half of the eagles game. I'm currently sitting in a recliner with my feet up and have been here most of the day. I'm hoping most of the pain is gone by tomorrow.  I also had a few chafing areas. One from my Ipod holder:
Doesn't look too bad but this sucker was burning the last coupld of miles from my sweat.
 
And one from the pins on my bib:
I guess the pin was rubbing on my hip the entire time. Ouch.
 
Overall it was a great experience and I'm pretty sure I would do another one. Maybe somewhere different. We both like the idea of doing one fo the disney marathons.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


1 comment:

  1. Awesome!!!! Congrats on the race!!!

    Jen@HealthyFoodandFamily

    ReplyDelete