I Came. I Saw. I RAN! 10 Miles! #BroadStreetRun Recap

As I write this, pretty much every muscle in my legs aches in some small way.  I ran 10 miles yesterday at the Broad Street Run in Philadelphia!  I’ve seriously been wanting to be able to type or say that for years and never had the guts to sign up but did it this year.  And I am so happy to report that I crossed the finish line and that I survived!

My head is reeling today from it all.

I seriously think signing up for this took over my life. I was SO DANG STRESSED the week leading up to it that I literally was a mess. I even had a post in draft form about how I was “freaking my marbles out” (I really typed that) and couldn’t hit post because I didn’t even want to see it on my site.  It was a combo of things – I knew I was ready and had trained but just the sheer knowledge that the BIG DAY was looming caused all sorts of anxiety. I was also nervous about the vast amounts of people (40,000) people.

Just to give you an idea?  These are two quick photos I snapped while I was waiting in my corral at the start.  That white sign waaaaaay ahead in the distance?  That’s the actual starting line.  And, there were also corrals of faster people to the side streets that were as full as this that started before me too!

While I was nervous for the crowds and the port-a-potty situation did indeed suck as much as I heard, the vibe at the start was just really cool.  Everyone I met and talked to was SO nice.  I had seperated from the friends I drove with because they were in faster corrals, and went off to find folks I knew in Gray corral.  I knew 4 different groups and could not find EVEN one of them.  There were that many people just in my section – and?  Texting did not work.  Cram 40,000 people into a 5 block radius and the cell towers just can’t keep up.

The majority of the runners were wearing red socks for “Red Sox” support of Boston.  Here I am with my friend Cindy and another runner sporting our socks:

And here we are again when we bumped into Mayor Nutter at the start!  That was a fun little sighting!

So the start line was cold.  Thankfully I had brought a old fleece of my hubby’s (they take old jacket donations at the start- you toss them to the side as you start and they take them to the homeless later!  so cool!) so I was able to keep warm enough while I waited.

After about a half an hour from the official race start, I crossed the starting line.  I felt pretty good going into it and was finally calm.  It was tight in the beginning but I found my groove and was moving at a pretty steady pace.

The crowds on the side were amazing.  There’s all walks of people who come out to shout words of encouragement to the runners and it really did inspire me.  And made me laugh.  One posterboard read “worst parade ever.” And another “that guy farted – run faster” with an arrow to the crowd ahead of you.

I wish I had been able to snap photos along the way as I saw other runners doing; but I’m just not a decent enough runner to be able to  multi-task and do something like that. But photos of interest would have been running through Temple (marching band going!), City Hall and downtown and then of course coming to the finish in the Navy Yard.

I had a pretty good run ’til 7 miles.  I was on pace, crusing along.  I’d often pace myself behind someone who seemed to be running a similar pace to me and that helped me a lot.  But at 7 miles I definitely hit a wall and needed to take a quick walking break.  Not sure if that’s what screwed me up or what but the last 3 miles were brutal.  My only regret really is looking at my times and my splits.  While I did slow down at each split, I was pretty much getting progressively slower and it’s really the last 3 that did me in.  My final time was 1:52 for the chip and 1:51 for the clock (not really sure what the difference is).

 So while I’m slightly disappointed I didn’t move as fast as I did in some of my training runs, I keep reminding myself that my two goals in order of importance were 1) to finish and 2) attempt to come in under 2 hours.  And since I did that, I’m mostly happy.

The best part of the day though?  This.  In the afternoon.  My medal and a beer.  Perfect.

Ta-da!