I did it! I did it in 4:11:24!!! I've wanted to do this for so long! I am in the finishers club!
Arrived in Philly Friday afternoon. Checked into the hotel, Sheraton Society Hill. Headed out to the Expo. Pleasant walk through Philly to the Convention Center. Weather was great, as was the hotel location. I never know what to expect at these Expo things. I loved the marathon shirt and that was what I was most excited about at the Expo.
At the Expo, I listened to a talk about nutrition in the last 24 hours before the race from a nutritionist from Runners World. The talk got me nervous because the speaker was encouraging of eating (what seemed like to me) a lot. Gue and energy bars plus drinking lots while on the run which I don't normally do during training, certainly not in the amounts she was talking about. She gave great reasons, they are all things that break down easily so they don't give you a full feeling while running but they will give you energy and help out on your sodium and potassium levels. Obviously I am not against eating and drinking but I try to keep it to a minimum while running since I hate portable potties and the thought of standing on a really long line to use one. Never the less, I have a stronger fear of being the person the EMS people have to scrape off the pavement so I bought the gue and I already planned on having a pre-race and during race bar. So I was all set nutrition wise. I decided to run with my water bottle and use it only after the 20 mile point. Plus getting Gatorade and/or water at all the water stations that were not too crowded. During the race I found the Cliff bar Gue and Power Bar to be a nice distraction during the run. After the run, I felt better hydration-wise then after some of the half marathons I'd done. Good nutrition advice, all this snacking didn't effect my pace at all either.
My awesome husband was great about doing all things running this weekend - attending the running expo, going away yet getting to bed early, eating Italian for dinner (when it gives him heartburn), finally waking up extra early race day and then endlessly scanning the crowd to look for me. It was very much appreciated and I felt very loved. Plus we had a lot of fun! Found lots of little places to grab our meals, drinks, or coffee while out and about. Philly is a great city. Perhaps we'll move there. Saturday we just took a nice long walk to the Art Museum to check out the start and then had lunch. Took a cab back to the hotel because I didn't want my legs to get too tired. Napped and then went out to dinner.
Sunday morning we woke up at 4:50am. I made coffee in the room and ate a Power Bar. Then I showered and dressed. My husband got our car and drove me to the start as well as another runner we offered a ride to. Pretty smooth morning. Me and the other runner got within a few blocks of the start and jumped out of the car and walked to the start. Thousands of runners, had to look around a little for our corral. I was in my corral at 6:43am and began stretching, race start was 7am. As the sun came up, it definitely warmed up a little. I left my old coat and scarf on a fence. They were collecting all the discarded clothes for the homeless. Eventually in the first few miles I even threw my gloves off. Got a little emotional as we moved toward the start, especially when they played a Bon Jovi song. Just being in the moment and trying to absorb it all.
It was crowded for the first 10 miles, with runners and cheering crowds. Funniest sign I saw, "Paul Ryan says the last hour doesn't count." There was even a makeshift water station set up by some fans except it was beer not water! My ankles got tight in the 5th mile and then it subsided. The crowd thinned out a lot more once the half marathon people turned off. There were still points along the race that seemed pretty packed and I had to maneuver through a "wall" of people a few times. For the most part though it was not too difficult to find pockets of room. There were various bands playing all kinds of music all along the route that kept the runners and the crowd pumped. I loved that they put your name right on the race number so people could cheer you on using your name. The race definitely got tougher after the half point. I would say Mile 17 I really started to ache. Mile 20 was a turn around in Manayunk which was kind of nice to make it to that point and then turn towards the finish. Just after mile 24 was my wall. I heard someone say, "Just 2.5 miles to go!" I was pretty happy with my time at that point, very close to finishing at 4 hours maybe even less. But I just had to rest my legs a little. I finished up the other half of my Power Bar while walking, used my water bottle, regrouped and basically had to do that 2 or 3 times in that last little stretch. Finally finished at 4 hours 11 minutes 24 seconds and I'm thrilled with that!
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