2008 Philly Distance Run

While I attempted to give the photographer a peace sign while passing him, little did I know it would make me look like I was carrying a torch that resembled a stop light! See how there are no runners around me in this photo? It's a strategy of mine. Fall waaaaay to the back of the pack so that it's so thinned out you can get a really good professional picture taken. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Mother Nature Hates Fan

When I ran my first half marathon at the Philadelphia Distance Run two years ago, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and we suffered like crazy out there as it neared 80 with some heavy humidity. My second half last fall was a dreary day in November where we fought rain clouds most of the day. I debated which race to run this year, the September version or the November one - and I chose the September one after rereading the average start and finish temperatures for the PDR. Well, the forecast for Sunday is a balmy 78 and sunny in the city. SHUCK! I've been doing all my long training runs at 6:00 in temperatures between 57-64 starting out. This race starts at 7:45 which is around the time I'm normally finishing. I'm screwed. Goodbye 2:10, Hello 2:20.

Runners Getting Bad Rap

You know what? I can appreciate all the Public Service Announcements trying to show the masses that bad people don't have to look bad (like the ice cream men). It's something that a father of a soon to be nine year old has to stress. That being said, in two recent commercials on television - women who live alone and people who recycle paper better watch out for us road runners. Check out the nice pic I dug up from the 2006 Philadelphia Half Marathon. That's Still A Dad and myself around mile five I believe. As I run in my neighborhood through the week training for the '08 Half - I wonder if people's brains go right to that commercial when they see me coming. The one commercial is for a security system. As a husband leaves his house with the wife on the porch watching him go (yeah, like that happens. That's the first sign that the commercial is full of shit) a male runner is coming down the street. She looks worried and closes the door. He kneels down to tie his shoe and survey the landscape. She sets the alarm and herds the kids upstairs. Lady, you didn't see Michael Myers outside with a knife - you saw a guy running. Anyway....dude figures his chances are good and he shoulders through the door only to be frightened off by the alarm. Sigh. In the second spot, another runner is coming down the road when a person is taking out their recycle bin. He slows down, again pauses to tie his shoe (a good indication he is a fake runner) and then quickly goes through the bin finding exactly what he was looking for. That runner going down the street holding onto a bank statement won't look out of place at all. A guy running in a hoodie? I don't even like to put a key in my mini pocket. How could one run with a folded up document? Why couldn't it be someone posing as a cable guy or a meter reader? Make people suspicious of individuals who are actually trying to better themselves. The next time I'm running the hood instead of the park and a woman spends more than two seconds eyeballing me cautiously, I'm going to quicken my pace and run straight at her with my arms flailing above my head while screaming "Blalalalalalalalalalala". Well, ok, that's a bit extreme.....maybe I'll just stare back, slow down......and bend over to tie my shoe.....

A Die Hard Steeler Fan, She Is

This girl was in the same corral as my Dad and I. She ran all 13.1 miles wearing the colors! How cool is that? I'm telling you, the finish line temperature that day was easily above 80 and there were a ton of guys shirtless and a lot of women wearing nothing but the sports bra thingies that they wear. For this girl to wear a football jersey throughout the race is crazy! I had a Nike Dri-Fit running singlet on and it was SOAKED mid-race. I don't know what she did when she ran past the Mummer band playing the Eagles fight song - but I let out a "Here We Go" chant that got a little chuckle. My Dad wanted me to do it again when the band finished the song and we were right by them, but I didn't want to get tripped so I kept my mouth shut (for once). Anway, I looked up her bib number and her name is Elizabeth Rossi from Sewickley, PA. I added her name here just incase she or someone she knows ever Googles her and sees this. I thought that would be cool. Anyway - how can you not like a 'Burgh girl running the entire half in the Fast Willie Parker jersey?

Half Marathon Photos

The Philadelphia Distance Run had a professional company at different locations throughout the race to take pictures of the runners. About a week later - they send you a link to all the photos and you can look yourself up by bib number. What a process that must be. Do they own software that can scan the photos looking for numbers? I bet not. Geez, with 12,000 runners how would you do that? Imagine the Boston Marathon! Anyway, they got some decent shots of me and the old man. One issue they should try to solve is the time showing in the background. Unless you were in the first corral - it's probably really wrong. Our chip time was about 10 minutes off from the finish clock. Some people might not understand why their finish time was 1:53 but the clock in the picture displayed 2:01. If your goal was to be under 2 hours, you might not want a picture with 2:06 showing! Another thing this company should do is write "PROOF" across their pictures. They disabled right-click for IE but for Firefox it works. Since they are selling very high resolution copies for big bucks - it seems silly not to protect themselves with something acorss their website. Even before I was informed by Still A. Dad that Firefox would allow right clicks, I already had copies for myself simply by saving the webpage as html which creates a folder of all components of the page, including images. Like I said though, the images on the website are low-rez and if you want really nice prints - you would buy them.

Half Marathon Results

Well, it didn't end like my Dad and I wanted it to, but we both finished the race and we're both proud of that. WHen it's your first distance race, just finishing is a good goal. We set what we thought was a modest goal time of around 2:20. At 2:23 our pace would have been 11:00/miles. I've run several training runs for this race with my dad all at right around 11:00/miles. My last long run was last Sunday and I did 10 miles at 1:48 which is slightly under 11:00. My best 10K time is 55:25 so I thought I was in no danger of not getting in at 2:20. Well, that's why they play the game. Average race day temperature for the Philadelphia Distance Run Half Marathon is 63 at the starting line and 70 at the finish line. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 80 or more at the finish line today. The sun was out before the gun went off and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Runners were hugging the edges of the road looking for shade. All of my training for this race was done around 6:30 - 7:00 AM and it seems like in this area it has been overcast at that time of day for the past month. If you run at all, you know the difference between running when it's 55-65 degrees is vastly different than running when it's 75-80. Dad training in the mountains of western PA is much more accustomed to cooler temperatures. Also, my dad fought off calf cramps almost the entire race and I actually had to leave him (after promising not to) around the halfway point. We were right on pace and averaging 11:00 through mile 4 even though he stopped running to take 2 short walk breaks. Between miles 5-6 he was having more trouble with it and I slowed down while he tried to walk off his problem. I kept running but very slowly because once I stop, I have a really tough time starting back up. We talked about it and decided I should just go ahead and meet up at the finish line. For a while I tried to speed up to make up for lost time but with the sun bearing down I went back into race pace and decided just finishing was a good goal for my first half. At this point I took a porta-potty break which cost me at least 2 minutes, maybe more. I also fought off a nasty stomach issue I was having which was caused by 1 of 3 things (TGI Fridays the night before, eating 4 Cliff Bars within 10 hours or drinking more water than I'm used to). Hey, you live and learn. I came in at 2:40 and pops finished at 2:58. I'm really proud of both of us. We were talking about it last night and before he started training for this race 12 weeks ago - I think he had only been farther than 5 miles once. Until I started training 9 weeks ago, I had only gone 7 miles before. For both of us to get to 13.1 is a major accomplishment in my eyes. I want to run a full marathon before I turn 40. However, my short term goal within the next calendar year is to run a FALL (see COLD WEATHER) half marathon much much much closer to the 2 hour limit most runners view the half for. I'll post some pictures when I get them. On a funny side note....I got passed by a guy juggling 4 balls around the 12 mile mark. I turned around to see if I could see my dad and I saw the juggler coming. He was in our corral starting out but we passed him very early. When he passed me I made everyone around us laugh by exclaiming "Shit, I just got passed by a juggler."