My Broad............... street run

Here is my race report for the Broad street run which I ran this past sunday. it is a 10 mile race that goes from north philly to south philly along broad street the whole way.

The skys were angry the day of the race... and my stomach would later prove to be angry as well. I got to the race way to flippin' early, ended up at the race site around 7:00 cuz i planned too much time for traveling to the start. It wouldn't have been a big deal except it was cold and rainy... which would have been fine if I was running the whole time... but I was only standing... which would have been fine if I wasn't supposed to be loose for the race... which would have been fine if I didn't care how I did... but I did. So, I stood around for an hour, chatted with a bunch of Philly Runners who were also running the race, met up the other members of my team (yay Last Minute Wonders B!!!) and then went to the starting area when they called my pace.

I have a small confession to make. When I made the last post about wanting to run a 7:15 minute per mile pace, that was a bit of a half truth. that was my public "would-be-happy-to-get" goal. In my mind, I really was hankering to break a 7 minute per mile pace and thought I might have a chance at it. So i lined up at the front of the 7 minute pace sign. The race started and things went pretty smoothly... I felt strong for the first 5 miles and my awesome splits are indicative of this (6:56, 6:56, 6:54, 6:55, 6:59). I could not have imagined I would ever have splits that even. During this time I slapped a bunch of kids hands, something I have always wanted to do in a race but never did... I was probabably smiling for a quarter mile after this. After mile 5 I started to lose some steam and my splits got progressively slower and i started having flash backs to the ceasar rodney half marathon in March. 6-8 went by in splits of 7:00, 7:05, and 7:15.

About a half mile before the 9th mile marker, there were some people with a stereo that started playing "gonna fly now" just as I was approaching them. As ridiculous as it sounds, it gave me quite the boost for the last mile and half. Mile 9 went by in 7:07. Mile 10 I felt very surprisingly strong and even had a little left over to smoke a few people at the end... always fun. The last 50 meters I started sprinting a bit and got the funny rubbery leg feeling that I remember having for the first time when i ran a 5k in high school cross country... and it felt the same as it did 9 years ago... totally out of control and a little bit spooky. Mile 10 fell in at 6:45. My elapsed time was 70:49 but I was able to sneak a chip time of 69:58, just two seconds under my goal!!! nice...

Now onto the issues with my stomach. generally when i run anything more than 4 miles I carry gatorade because I get really bad stomach cramps if I get dehydrated. Today I had my usual gatorade, but everytime I tried to drink, I felt like I was going to hurl. so I ended up drinking only like 2 oz in the 10 miles, which is nothing compared to a normal training run. After the race, I had terrible stomach cramps for like 2 hours possibly because I didn't drink enough when I was running... obviously I am doing something wrong with my diet or something leading up to the race... who knows. something to work on for the next race.

overall, I think this was my best, most mature race yet. It also was an amazing feeling to go to the start, see people you know running, run the race and see people you know running, and then finish and trade stories with people you know running. it was one of my better race experiences to date (only done like 8 races). thanks pr.