Philly Marathon 2008

Sigh.... I wish onomatopoeias were more effective when written. Getting this marathon behind me has been an enormous weight off of my back and chest. Here is a bit of a race report from what I can put together from memory.

The weekend leading up to the marathon, my beautiful wife came down with a serious chest cold and was knocked out of commission for the entire weekend. I was extremely worried about getting the same chest cold. I ended up getting a bit of a head cold on Tuesday, but thankfully it didn't move into my chest. I was feeling almost 100% by Saturday so I figured I was good to go for the race the following day. I picked up my race packet and the walk through philly was bitterly cold.

The race day started uneventfully with some Multi-grain Cheerios and a banana. I got to the start line without any hiccups. The race started and the first mile went by pretty slow. It was flippin' cold out, but I had on a few layers and I warmed up within the first couple miles. My plan was to start the race slowly and eventually work up to my goal pace of between 8:15-8:30 per mile. The following graph should give you some idea how the race went:

As can be seen from the graph above, the race went pretty well for the first 18 miles of the race. I was right around target pace and I felt pretty strong. After 18, my legs started tightening up and the pain in my legs start building to a level where I started questioning whether I would break 4 hours. I made a deal with myself that I would run to mile 21 and start walking for a minute or two and then run until the next mile marker, a similar stategy I had employed during my first attempt at 26.2.

I was able to run to 21 and I was right around 3:00 hours. I quickly did the math and figured out that I could average around 12 min/mile for the remainder of the race and barely sneak in under 4 hours. I started my strategy at 21 and I was able bang out the last 5 miles around 10.5 min/mile pace and cross the finish line in 3:55:25. After I crossed the finish line, I stopped my watch, bent down, put my hands on my knees, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. 4-6 months of training behind me and I accomplished my goal.


After eating/drinking the world's sweetest recovery food (warm chicken broth with rice), I started on the long trek home. The walk to the car was cold and painful (i had a serious blister on my right foot) and the walk up and down the stairs of the parking garage was painful due to the soreness that had already set in on my legs. But a small price to pay for finally absolving myself of the 2005 NYC Marathon memory.