Race morning. Unsurprisingly (I have a pretty good internal clock), I woke up just a few minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off. I puttered out to the kitchen and my knee felt pretty good. Not 100%, but none of the stiffness I'd felt the previous morning, which was a relief. I still wasn't confident I could run my best race, but maybe it would be better than trying to run hurt and having to walk part or all of the course. Walkers were allowed and even encouraged, but I wanted to run, no matter how slow I had to take it. I put the ice pack back into the freezer, reasonably sure that no matter what happened I would want it after the race, and snagged my coffee from the fridge.
Breakfast was my usual Picky Bar (Smooth Caffeinator is normally my race day jam, but I see they have a new chai flavor I'm going to have to try...) and the Mocha Frappuccino I'd gotten at Family Dollar the night before - a bit heavier on the sugar/calories than I'd normally go for, but given that I was going to run nine miles and didn't have my banana, it probably worked out about even in the end.
Next up was getting all my gear unpacked and laid out. I'm a pretty extensive planner, and not knowing what the weather was going to be, I'd brought a lot of options, but settled on a lot of layers since it was going to be cool and fairly breezy.
I didn't end up taking the poncho - glancing at the radar before heading out the door, it looked clear - yay! I stashed the Hot Hands in my vest and didn't end up using those, either, but they're a good insurance policy. Otherwise I ended up wearing:
- Yellow SCRR hat (so maybe some of the other club members would spot me)
- Orange SCRR shirt (because it matches my vest, honestly)
- Champion windbreaker vest (I love this thing forever and it has pockets, but is getting a little big on me)
- Danskin tank and Pearl Izumi sleeves for layering under the shirt
- Throwaway thin gloves (my hands get so cold, so easily, was hoping this would take the edge off)
- My fave Danskin high-waisted compression capris
- Asics Kayano Tab socks
- Saucony Ride 7s (I just snagged a "new" pair off ebay but changed out the laces since they're my second pair in this color)
- Lemon Lime Honey Stingers
- Body Glide
- Garmin Forerunner 230 + HRM strap
Mike and I had also stopped at the thrift store earlier in the week and grabbed a couple throwaway sweatshirts since we were expecting to be out in the cold for at least an hour and a half before the race started. Mine had been a little stinky (cigarette smoke) but I'd laundered and febreze'd it and all was good. I honestly wish I could have kept this - it was fleecy inside and kept me toasty warm right up until they released our corral. Hopefully someone else who needs it will get to use it now.
We saw a few other folks walking in the same direction as us with outrageously neon shoes and bags for gear check (the bags our race jackets came in). We passed Eastern State Penitentiary, and headed down to Eakins Oval and the art museum.
After dropping my bag at gear check we went up to the big George Washington statue and watched the 5Kers take off before ambling over to the corrals once they opened up for the 15K.
We got in pretty early but people filled in around us at a steady pace. They said there were around 8,000 people signed up for the 15K (4,000 in the 5K). I spotted one SCRR member and said hi as he passed, and eventually we were packed in and ready to start! I had my Honey Stingers handy and opened the pack for easier access later, and took one since I was planning to try having one every mile, and there are ten to a pack. Probably overkill as far as fueling strategy goes, but I'm trying out a bunch of different stuff in preparation for the half next month anyway, so why not.
They released the corrals one at a time about three minutes apart. Since A-G were the 5K, we didn't have to wait too long for M to be up. Once L took off, we shed our extra layers and crossed the start line.
One of the additional nice benefits of this race is that they offer free photos! I'm usually pretty unintentionally skilled at avoiding official race photographers, so I was especially amused to find this shot linked to Mike's bib but not mine, as we crossed the start line:
I hadn't really tested my knee since tweaking it on Wednesday, and you can pretty clearly see the apprehension in my face here. I had no idea what to expect or what kind of speed I would be able to summon. While we started together, Mike took off almost immediately and so I settled in to feeling out my knee. I was pleased to find out that while I could tell it wasn't completely recovered, it wasn't actively hurting, either. The revised plan was to take it easy anyway, so I let my pace be what it was going to be and took advantage of my more relaxed attitude to snap a couple of pictures, which I wouldn't normally do.
This was a nice little out and back down the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (you can see City Hall and the Art Museum at opposite ends, and all the flags along the sides) where I got to see all the really fast people ahead of me, and the people from later non-assigned corrals who would soon be passing me. The pacer setup was weird - the preferred corrals had their speeds, and then the non-preferred corrals started over with fast speeds so there were 7-11:00 minute people stacked behind the last preferred corral (N) running at 11:30. I guess that's the benefit to getting an approved corral time, but I can imagine being annoyed if I hadn't bothered with it and was actually fast enough to have to deal with passing all those people.
That section of the course took up most of the first two miles, which I covered in 11:37 and 11:45 respectively. I had been keeping an eye on my heart rate to try to judge just how much I had to give and started to notice something weird. Either I was about to pass out or something was wrong with my monitor, as my HR started dropping rapidly from the 170s to the 140s, and started to approach 100, despite the fact that I was apparently speeding up. And then I felt the strap start to slip down my torso - it had come unhooked! I was able to reach inside my shirt and grab it and stash it in my pocket, thankfully, but what a bummer.
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| The last of the 5K folks were finishing up as we passed Boathouse Row |
We hit the aid station right after that, and I took a cup of electrolyte drink as well as the little cup of dark chocolate disks they were handing out. Up until that point I wasn't sure if I would partake in the course-provided sweets, but since I was supposed to be taking it easy, and now I didn't have my HRM to go by, I figured what the hell. I shook a disk or two into my mouth at a time until they were gone and chased it with a Honey Stinger. There were still people from the faster corrals behind us passing me, but fewer and fewer as time went by, which I took as a good sign.
Somewhere along here I got a notification letting me know that Mike had crossed the 5K timing mat at 27:08 (I'd signed up for alerts prior to the race since I wasn't sure how we would get results afterwards), and I was there a little while after, at 36:14. My third mile was 11:18 so I was speeding up a little bit, maybe thanks to the chocolate. The energy of the crowd was pretty good and I was happy to let it carry me - it was nice not running by myself, which seems to happen a lot in smaller races! For whatever reason I'd kept my fitbit on, moving it to my other arm, so I started peeling back my sleeves to peek at it occasionally and check on my HR, which never spiked too high, mostly in the 160s - another good sign.
The stretch in the middle here wasn't the most exciting - I kept myself entertained by looking for SCRR shirts and hats after cheering for the leaders as they zoomed by on the way back to the art museum. The sun came out for a little bit and I unzipped my vest and pushed up my sleeves to stay cool. I saw the 10K timing mat on the return and hadn't gotten that notification for Mike yet, so started watching for him and eventually exchanged a wave and a high five when we spotted each other. He looked good - apparently the nagging little injuries he'd been fighting off before the race weren't giving him trouble - and I got his 10K time shortly after that, 53:26.
I still had a ways to go before the turnaround (around 5.5) and the 10K point myself. There was another aid station where I grabbed some marshmallows (yeah, why not) and I continued to pop a Honey Stinger at about the halfway point of every mile. My knee felt fine, had stopped complaining entirely after the first 5K, and miles 4-6 were smooth, over gentle rolling baby hills. 11:01, 10:51, 10:56 - 10K at 1:10:19. still speeding up, gradually, and I felt good.
Now that there was only one final 5K left, and since everything seemed to still be in working order, I decided to put my foot down, a little, and see what I could do. Going out easy and my slightly overaggressive fueling strategy had left me with plenty of energy, and watching my Honey Stinger packet steadily empty was actually pretty motivating. I marveled at how much better I felt after six and seven and eight than I did after five the previous Wednesday. I passed a fair number of people, not tons, but enough to give me a little boost with each one. Mike finished when I was just past mile 7, coming in at 1:18:37 overall. I was still speeding up without feeling like I was pushing too hard, much to my amazement: 10:44, 10:41. Somewhere in here I got to run through a shower of cherry blossoms, which was pretty darn cool.
Things were spacing out a little as I snapped one last picture, delighted that I felt as good as I did. My Garmin showed 8.3 and I heard other people saying - just one more. I can run a mile any day of the week and since I knew I had been speeding up, it was time to empty the tank. I popped the very last Honey Stinger and headed towards the finish at full effort.
Looking down at 8.8 - just a half mile left! - I was still strong. I'd figured out that the last .3 was going to be uphill and so I wanted to get as much speed as I could on the flat leading up to it before pushing through. I turned in a 10:07 for mile 9, and managed 9:38 up the hill for that last .3 before laugh/grimacing across the finish:
Final chip time: 1:42:31, exactly 11:00/mile - my corral pace (and also the pace I ran EQT at last fall)!
I found a race volunteer to snag my medal and a bottle of water, and was able to find Mike relatively easily (thank goodness he's tall) so we could go claim our finishers' reward - the fabled mug of chocolate and treats, which we rapidly and ravenously consumed!
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| This chocolate bar NOT for eating |
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| Bless whoever decided to put (knockoff) Biscoff cookies in this bowl. |
It was blustery and we were sweaty, so after stuffing our faces we hobbled back over to gear check (hello knee, thank you for letting me run 9 miles successfully, I brought you some Advil and promise to ice you later and not to do that again soon), bundled up, and went back to our rental to shower/change/crash.
We actually ended up heading out for lunch later in the morning, and by 5pm my fitbit said I'd covered 20 miles and 50,000 steps as we wandered all over the city! We checked out the First Bank and Alexander Hamilton's house, the Reading Terminal Market (I made Mike eat at DiNic's because you just have to), tried and failed to find the famous LOVE statue (they've moved it again since September, apparently?), saw at least three couples taking wedding photos, witnessed a giant pillow fight in a park, and overall had a lovely, exhausting time.
After a rough week last week, I'm incredibly pleased with this result. It showed that my hard work is paying off, and that while I might not make my A goal a month from now, I should be able to do pretty well as long as I train well and take care of myself in the meantime.
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