Cowboy Hazel

I ran my fourth consecutive Philadelphia Marathon yesterday morning. It was the fastest of the four, a 2:53:42, which was good for 154th place out of 10,082 overall. It was also a fifteen second P.R. and the third sub-3 for me on that course. So, was I happy with it? To be honest, not really… I was shooting for sub-2:50 and was on pace until about mile 15 when the wheels came off. It was eerily similar to what happened to me in Boston earlier this year, in fact, except that I didn't slow quite so badly.

On the bright side, the weekend as a whole was a great time. Philly was the race for the Runner's World Challenge this fall, so a large chunk of our staff traveled down and set up camp at the Four Seasons. It makes me laugh to think how the people working there must be baffled by all us runners on marathon weekend. I, as an example, checked in for my room with a foam roller tucked under my arm. Not a sight you'd normally expect at a fancy hotel.

I had booth duty at the expo Friday evening for a few hours, which actually was pretty fun. It was basically just hanging out with a couple of my RW friends and then chatting with random runners who stopped by about running. That hardly seems like work to me. Helen arrived from New York and stopped by the expo to say hi too, and I took a little break to go pick up my bib.

They didn't give me any booth time on Saturday because they knew I was taking the race seriously and were trying to let me stay off my feet. All that was on my schedule was the Puma shakeout run in the morning and a Q&A panel in the afternoon. A ton of people, maybe a hundred or so, showed up for the run and we all did an easy 3 miles together. I napped a bit after that, then went over to the expo and gave a little speech about the course and answered questions with a couple other panelists for almost an hour. Lots of people stopped by to listen and ask questions, which was really cool. It's so fun to be able to talk about running with folks and be able to share the tips that I've picked up along the way.

Back in the hotel, I was laying in bed reading when I got a text at 4:03 asking if I could make it to the 4:00 strategy session – the race was supposed to send a course expert but didn't, so they wanted me as I had run the race the last three years. I threw on my clothes as quick as I could and headed back to the expo. This one was quite a bit more intimidating than the first, though… We were in the a room set up for our Challengers and there were over a hundred of them in there listening to the presentation. Bart Yasso was the MC, Peter Segal and David Willey had just finished speaking, and then I was supposed to say a few impromptu words as a "course expert"? Slightly nerve wracking. I think I managed to say something fairly intelligible, though. No one booed, at least.

Helen and I ordered Papa John's the night before the race and just ate in our room. Having the pizza delivered in was nice and low key, something I will definitely keep in mind for future marathons. I scheduled room service for 4:40 in the morning, and then we were off to sleep.

That room service was a $17 pot of coffee. Worth every penny. Any other day, that would simply be ridiculous, but on race morning, having something that helps you "get your business" done is critical, as I'm sure you all know. This did the trick.

I was down in the ballroom by five o'clock and chatting with other staff and our Challengers as they came in for the pre-race banquet.

Jeff, Helen, and I all jogged over to the start and lined up in the corral together. Jeff and I were both looking for sub-2:50 and, almost as importantly, were looking to run faster than the other. There had been quite a bit of smack talk going on in various meetings around the office lately. And, as always, Helen and I had our AG% competition going on.

Jeff and I ran the first three miles together, but I was feeling really good and decided to try to put some distance between us early, knowing that he is faster than me and could outrun me at the end if he was still around. It wasn't a crazy move, but I probably was running a little quicker than I should have. I ended up hitting the half at 1:24:24, which was 36 seconds faster than I meant to. I still felt really good at that point, though, and thought sub-2:50 was definitely a possibility.

Shortly thereafter, on the road out to Manayunk, the wheels came off. There was no specific issue that I could point to, but I just slowed about thirty seconds per mile and couldn't pick it back up. I was sure that I'd see Jeff closing the gap when we did the little out-and-back detour on mile 17, but he wasn't back there. "Weird, maybe I missed him." But then, I didn't see him at the next turnaround either and I figured he had probably dropped out.

Those last six miles were really tough. My legs felt dead, we were running into the wind, and I could barely keep my pace under 7:00/mile.

Finally, I reached the finish line.

I was very upset with myself at that moment, but my coworker Warren found me in the chute shortly after I finished and had a lot of very encouraging words that helped a lot. We walked over to where Jeff and Brian were standing and I learned that Jeff had indeed dropped down to the half because of a calf issue. Helen came through the chute not too long after and looked completely spent, but happy. I could easily tell that she'd given the course everything she had and was pleased with the result.

Eventually, we wandered back to the hotel, showered, and then back down to the ballroom. It was a lot of fun seeing both Challengers and coworkers come back in and tell their war stories from the course. We were there until almost two o'clock, then began the trek back home.


Notes: Here are the race reports from the previous years: 2008, 2009, 2010.

Helen won our age graded competition 72.39% to 71.92%. I don't like losing, but she deserves this one. She ran a gutsy race.

I went back and looked at my weekly mileage leading up to the race and I think it was too light for marathon training, especially considering that the training period was so abbreviated.