Last year I had the opportunity to spend a fair bit of time in Philadelphia, since my daughter and her husband now live there, so when she mentioned that she’d signed up for the Philly Half I thought why not? The timing was weird but not terrible—the weekend before American Thanksgiving—and she has been my partner in crime through many races: two full Ironmans, one half, and a spectator for my third full. So, I signed up, excited to race with her again.
And then the American government shut down. By the time I was leaving, flights were getting canceled across the country. But I took a chance and went anyway, and it was completely fine. So many people had canceled pre-emptively that the planes were half empty and all of them were on time.
The Philly Half happens on the same weekend as the full marathon and an 8k. The shorter races are on Saturday and the marathon is on Sunday, and they’re huge (about 37,000 people in total, with 20,000 for the half and 8k). Bib pickup was bound to be a nightmare, but the race organizers had a plan: everyone would book a time slot so that at any given moment there would only be a maximum of 500 people picking up their bibs.
Sounded like a good idea. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work. This is Philadelphia, after all. Plans are more like guidelines; mostly people do what they want. Which meant everyone showed up right after work, like us. There were thousands of people in the convention center in a haphazard line that snaked back and forth with no organization whatsoever. We waited for at least an hour, to the point where I wondered if we’d ever get out. But eventually we did.
When my alarm woke me at 4:30 the next morning, I heard a loud noise outside and thought, gee, I hope that’s not the rain. It was. And Philly in November is not warm. We had a 3km walk to get to the start line, and the thought of being soaked and cold and then waiting for an hour to start running did not appeal. We delayed our departure a little and luckily the rain slowed down. By the time we arrived at the start line, it had stopped. The weather turned out to be perfect for running: cool and cloudy.
It’s a beautiful course, starting on the wide Benjamin Franklin Parkway and taking runners through several neighborhoods, crossing the river, and ending at the Philadelphia Art Museum. And there were tons of spectators, especially on Walnut Street. The crowds and noise and music were amazing.
I had no expectation of a PB. My training had been a tad haphazard due to a mystery stomach illness in the summer that put me under for the better part of a month. My daughter had been struggling with IT-band issues, so we both agreed to take it slow and enjoy it.
We started off slow, but by the 10k mark both of us felt so good we decided it was time to pick up the pace. My daughter ran track in both high school and university and is a master at pacing. Little by little she increased the pace until suddenly I looked over at her and said, “What are you doing? I’m dying.”
She shrugged. “You want to go under two hours? Let’s do it.”
We almost did—and it made me realize that I can do it. For her, our time was slow, but she was encouraged by the difference that consistent weight-training had made.
On the way home we stopped for a massive breakfast and then immediately signed up for next year’s race (which is the most dangerous moment for doing something impulsive).
We’ve since roped another Barker into doing the race and will cap off the weekend with an Eagles game.
Go Birds!
Leave a Reply