Philly Rock n Roll Half Marathon

The Philly Rock n Roll Half (formerly PDR) is probably my favorite race of the year. I love the course, a ton of my running buddies participate and the weather is always perfect. Since it fell the week after my 70.3 this year, I wasn't going to drop the money on a race I wasn't sure would even happen since I had no clue how I would recover from the HIM. But then a while back Brooks offered up a slot and I nabbed it thinking I would just run for fun and use it as a training run.

The day before the race I did everything you shouldn't do the day before. I volunteered at the Expo working the Brooks Cavalade and spent 8+ hours on my feet non stop. It was fun, but it was a long day and some how I never got told that lunch was delivered. So aside from my breakfast and enormous coffee, I only had a banana and a few sips of water all day. Needless to say, I was tired, hungry and cranky by the time my shift was over around 4pm.

After the Expo Andy picked me up and we headed to my sisters house in NJ for dinner. Within a minute of walking in the door I scarfed down some brie with grapes, hummus and pita, and a glass of wine. Perfect pre race nutrition!! We had a really nice dinner with my entire family and after a ton of food and 2 more glasses of wine; I could hardly keep my eyes open. My legs were throbbing, we still had an hour drive home, I had nothing ready for the morning and I questioned if I even wanted to bother with the race at all. I thought about it on the way home and figured I had to do a 13 mile run anyway, I mine as well run with a lot of people and get a medal out of it. So when we got home, I threw some stuff together and went straight to bed.

Woke up Sunday morning to chilly temperatures and met up with the running club to car pool. We got to the start with plenty of time and just relaxed. It was so nice having NO pressure on myself for this race. My only goal was to have a good run. After having to take walk breaks last weekend, even if they were after I swam and biked 58 miles, it still messed with me a little and I was concerned my running was starting to suck.

Anyway, lined up in corral 3 and we were off before I knew it. I had no intentions of looking at my watch and decided to just run by feel. The miles were ticking away and before I knew it we were looping back past the art museum around mile 5. Waves of runners were still starting; can't imagine starting over a half hour after the first wave! Once we hit this point all we had left was the Kelly/West River Drive loop which I ran 6 times for my Ultra. There's a part of this that's really boring and always messes with me, but knowing I only had to run it once and not 6 times, piece of cake!

I felt pretty good the entire race and each time I checked my watch I was under 8 minute miles. Since I can't do math in my head, especially when running, I had no idea how I was doing in terms of finishing. A few times I wanted to slow down and thought I was, but when I looked at my watch I was holding my pace steady. With 3 miles to go, I decided there was no way I was going to fall off pace now and pushed myself to keep going strong. I ran into a friend from the gym with about a mile to go and knowing she was on pace for a huge PR, I tried to push myself harder in hopes it would push her harder, too. I checked my watch and saw how close I was to a PR and knew I had to kick it into high gear the final uphill stretch. Thank goodness for these thighs I have, they come in handy at times like these, and I hit a sub 7 up the hill to the finish.

To my surprise, I squeezed out a little PR! Nothing to write home about, but since I wasn't racing and this was the week after my 70.3, I was pretty happy with the outcome. Especially since I felt great out there and the pace was completely comfortable.  I am kicking myself a little for the day I had on Saturday and wondering how I could have done had I went into this with the goal of racing, but there's nothing I can do about that now. I now have my sights set on the Philly half in November and want to all out race that. I can't say I've actually pushed real hard and raced a half before so that needs to change. I have a marathon schedule full of speed work and am excited to see what I can pull off in 2 months.

1:42:11

pace - 7:48

1887 / 16476 (total)

91 / 1743 (division)

435 / 9496 (female)