This is my race recap of the Philadelphia Half Marathon on Nov. 23, 2019. I traveled to Philly with my children aged 5 and 7 for both a race weekend and a family vacation weekend with my oldest friend from PEI now living in Philly with her 5 and 8 year old kids and husband.
Before travelling to Philly, I watched a collection of Rocky flicks. I love Rocky. The films got me all psyched up for this race. My training had gone very well and my fitness was in a great place and I had closed my last 2 tune-up races fiercely.
Skipping right to the end, the following is what I posted on Instagram right after the race. Recall that in Rocky I, he fights champion Apollo Creed and lasts 15 rounds. No one ever went 15 rounds with Creed. Creed won but he famously says: “Man, I won, but I didn’t beat him.” (That’s actually in Rocky II). And so with that context, here’s my post:
It was a Rocky I type day: go 15 rounds and still be standing. No GPS pretty much for duration. Canadian runner all confused by mile flags, where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. Loved the city, the experience, the Rocky stairs, being in the gold/elite corral and getting a personal good luck wave from Meb Keflezgi on the start line. So lucky to have the health to live these moments doing what I love. I will take this 1:28:xx and celebrate it.
This Philly race was really hard and really awesome all at the same time. The time is disappointing based on my fitness and yet I am not at all disappointed. I’m happy to have had the chance to run these streets.
Here’s how it went down.
We flew into Philly on Thursday. Travelling solo with my kids was easy and enjoyable. I did lose sight of my 5 year old once in Toronto. He stopped walking to try on lipstick samples at the MAC counter. He also started loudly shaming Donald Trump as soon as we got through USA Customs 😉 The travel took 12.5 hours from 4:15am wake up to arrival at Shannon’s home.
Then came Friday and a few things unfolded on this day prior to my race that did not set me up for success in racing. Alas, that’s travelling with small kids. This was also a vacation.
The Pre-Race Things:
The first was actually Thursday night. I had a somewhat sleepless night, worrying about how I was going to get to the start line for the super early recommended 6am arrival time to get through security checks for the 7:30am start. I was staying at my friend’s home. Which was across the Delaware River in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Read: it was not super close to the race. Like 22km away but a world away in road closures, subway stops that don’t reach the race site, shuttles and unfamiliar roads. My friends Shannon and Brian couldn’t agree on the best way there. Drive? Uber? Subway? It was reminiscent of my Big Sur Marathon pre-race transportation shit show plan involving catching a ride to the 3:30am bus with a random dude from Mexico that I met in the elevator for 2 minutes: which I also lost sleep over.
The Aquarium
The next thing was the family vacation day. The four kids wanted to visit the famous Adventure Aquarium. It was Shannon’s birthday. She was on board with the kids. I personally have a long-standing and deep-seated fear of all the things under the surface of the ocean. Which human beings are not supposed to see, that’s why they are under the ocean and we live on land and you can’t see them when you look at the ocean. From land. Where humans live. Some people are afraid of heights. I can’t really explain it. This is me.
But it was what kids wanted to do and it was Shannon’s birthday. Off we went. I was happy to be able to provide my kids with this experience. It meant that I pretty much spent three hours drenched in stress hormones. I knew there were a shark tunnel and a bridge over the shark tank. The tunnel was terrifying, I got through ok until the end and a shark came at me, looking me in the eyes and I bolted out that tunnel, full on flight response. Then the shark bridge. Oh, Lord. I was expecting a civilized bridge with a tile floor, high above tank. You know, like the second floor at the mall. It was a flippin’ rope bridge. ROPE. Right above the surface of the water. With a sign not to let your phone fall out of your pocket or it would fall into the tank. My 5-year marched right on to the rope. What’s a mother to do but stay next to her child when there are sharks around. People, why is there a rope bridge above a shark tank and how has the human race even survived this long!?
Then more. There were monster fish that no one should have to witness. There was a tank with baby sharks that kids could reach in and touch and I almost vomited and/or passed out and had to sit down. Far away from the danger tank. I am stressed typing this.
Stands to reason that “confront your greatest fear” is not on a list of recommend things to do the day before you A-goal race. This is not in a running book’s chapter on ideal pre-race race prep. My children did have a blast. They got to touch a shark and a stingray. They saw penguins. I guess I actually didn’t faint so there’s that. FYI exposure therapy does not work.
Race Kit Pick Up
The aquarium was followed by race kit pick up and a fiasco. I had “Gold” (seeded) entry in the first corral which I learned on Monday when race bib assignments came out. Seeded means based on prior race performances, which I had provided. I was super pumped about this because I love when this happens to me, especially at a big city race! Who knows how much longer I will get to enjoy this so I soak it in. The first corral in this race of 11,500 is both Gold seeded athletes (me) and Elite athletes.
We get to the expo and I go to pick up my bib in regular big pick up and it’s not there. “Hmmm,” says the lady. “You don’t have a bib. Did someone else pick it up?” No, I don’t know anyone else in this city! “Hmmm, I’m missing a few in a row! Go to the Solutions table.”
We go to the Solutions Table. “You’re in the Elite Corral, silly!” this volunteer exclaims. “Go on over there to the fancy Elite pick up.” Ok, that’s nice. We go over there. Four kids in tow and my friend who has never been to a race expo.
Elite Table: “I can’t find your number. I only have the first 100 numbers here. The Elite Coordinator just stepped out. With the computer”
Ok, now I am stressing and after the aquarium, it was a short trip to stress. “I have four kids with me and am staying in New Jersey. I need my number. I really want my Gold Seed bib so I can be in that corral.” She has my name on her list. I show her my confirmation email: bib 20, 313. The Half Marathon event started with 20,000.
“You have kids here, I see that, let me see what I can do.” She produces a bib. It doesn’t have my name on it. “You must have signed up late,” she says, “No name.”
I tell her that I signed up in the summer, a really long time ago. Shrugs. I take my bib. Kids are touching everything. Must get them out of there. Do the shopping and kids enjoy some booths.
We get back home to New Jersey, narrowly escaping rush hour traffic. I retreat to my room for some silence and to arrange my race gear before supper. I lay out Flat Erin and open my confirmation email to read over the shuttle bus info again.
And…. OMFG. The Elite Volunteer who was not the Elite Coordinator gave me the wrong bib number.
I am supposed to be 20, 313. In my hand is 20, 331.
PANIC…..
I am in a New Jersey suburb. It’s almost 5pm. Rush Hour. There are 4 kids. It’s Shannon’s birthday. What am I going to do??? I take some deep breaths and try to organize my brain.
I search the race website. The elite section has disappeared. There is no contact info. There’s an email address with a line reading that the email will be un-manned for the duration of marathon weekend. Shannon says we will drive back. It’s not a good option. I’m exhausted. We’ve been on the road since 9:30am.
I open up Instagram. The race has had an awesome Insta presence. I can see that their social media coordinator is active now. I send her a message, “please help, gold corral runner given wrong bib, is there an elite coordinator who I can contact.”
I text Linda and tell her I am freaking out.
Amazingly, they reply to me almost right away. Elite Coordinator named Ross will call me asap.
No call comes. My Canadian cell isn’t accepting calls.
Eventually I get my phone to allow me to get to my voicemail, I get his number, I call him, he answers. He’s so nice and calm and what good luck, the error bib given to me wasn’t assigned to anyone, he shall just transfer over my info to this bib and now it’s mine. He is calm. Now I will be calm too. Linda via text orders me to have a glass of wine. Let it do it’s goodness. I do.
And so that wraps up a Not-So-Ideal-Pre-Big-Important-Race-Day. I have 2 kids. I am skilled at shaking that off and believing it won’t matter. I got this.
Race Day.
My lovely friend Shannon gets up and we leave her house at 4:45am so that I can catch the 5:03am train to the city. I have my phone so I will be able to use the map to walk 3 blocks to one of the free hotel shuttles to the start line. I was expecting to meet some runners on the subway. I meet some runners. The subway is smooth. We exit the subway and walk together, enjoying the easy camaraderie of running sisterhood at this ungodly early hour in a quiet and dark city. I ask this girl if she knows where she is going and she says yes.
After about 8 blocks, I note that the shuttle bus is farther away that I expected. “What shuttle bus?” she asks.
Heartrate spikes. “Where are we walking?” I ask
“To the race!”
The race that was so far from the subway and downtown hotels that there were free shuttles. We are walking to it. It’s a 2.6km walk in zero degrees and dark, which I had not intended to do. This is my fault. I will shake this off too.
I get my bearings at the giant race site. I get some texts from Sarah before I drop my bag at gear check and I tell her that I am so nervous! She’s so good, she tells me to stay warm and just stay focused. I will latch on to a quick group early in the race. I say that I just need to warm up, then I will know what to do.
So I drop my bag and I warm up and it’s so glorious. I am warming up in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In front of the stairs that Rocky runs up. This is epic. The moment is everything I hoped for. Everything that happened over the last 24 hours had already faded away.
I head to the very front corral in this massive race of 11,500 runners with 15 minutes to go. The corrals are huge with over 1000 runners per corral. Except for the Elite/Gold corral. There are only about 50 runners there when I walk up. I hang back, behind the barricade separating the second corral. I’m gathering my courage. I know from Instragram that Canadian pro runner Sasha Golish is in this corral. She has competed for Team Canada at Pan Am Games. Am I really going in there with her? A 30s-something volunteer sees me. “Come in here! You belong in here,” he says to me. I look over my shoulder in case he is talking to someone else. “I’m talking to you,” he says kindly.
So I step into the Elite/Gold Corral. I choose to stand there proudly. The race director gave me this bib. I belong in here. As I look around, I see other club athletes. Some likely aren’t any faster than me. I have my Halifax Road Hammers Club singlet on. I am a fast club athlete too. I soak this race moment in. The announcers’ box is immediately to the right and above us. An outstanding artist sings the Star Spangled Banner. Meb Keflezighi and Desi Linden are standing right there. Meb looks right at me and smiles and waves and I wave back. My last pre-race good luck came from this champion. I live these moments deeply. The city skyline is laid out in front of us and the gun goes.
I had a race plan from Coach Lee and it was to run conservatively over the first 3km. I know how to do that. I do it. I slow myself and I feel it real good. We are in the city centre amidst wildly loud spectators and surrounded by skyscrapers. My watch rings 3:49 for the first km. It doesn’t feel like a kilometer has passed. No way. It rings again, way too soon. 3:00 for the second kilometer. That’s not even physiologically possible for me. Then 1:07 for a 3rd km. WTF. Everyone around me is laughing at their GPS numbers. The city’s skyscrapers and the sheer numbers of runners have messed the GPS network up. I am somewhat relieved that my Coach Lee won’t have to lecture me for actually running an opening 3:49.
I have a running blind situation on hand. At dinner the night prior, I was telling my friends that I struggle with miles when my hypoxic half marathon brain can barely add 19 + 2 = 21km. I never run in miles. They don’t make sense. I can’t easily interpret what they mean. I can’t do math on the run. I also know from workouts with Rami that I can’t easily tell 3:59/km from 4:05/km. I don’t want to accidentally lay down a string of 3:59/kms here. It’s too early. I don’t freak out though. That’s not the right choice. I tell myself that I can roll with this. I have to. I will do my best.
By the time we hit the 3 mile mat, my Garmin is already reading beyond 6km and so setting me up to have no idea where I am on the course. I also do not understand what the 19:59 at the 3 mile mat means: on pace? too fast? too slow? How many miles is 5km and what’s 0.1 mile. If only I had an accountant brain, I told my pal Dave Martin who seems to be so much better at counting on the run. Nick, same thing. Or an engineer brain like Jamie.
I have been running close to a pair of club girls who were lined up next to me. I chat with them. “Is 5km 3.1 miles?” I ask them. I receive confirmation, yes, but I don’t know how many seconds the 0.1 mile would be. They ask me what my goal is. I say a mid-1:26 if it’s a good day but I am uncertain about what I’m doing with no GPS data. They say that they are trying to run 1:28. Better start running faster, they tell me. Sometimes it feels like you have a split second to make a decision in a race. Where they correct? What should I do?
I tentatively explore what it feels like to press the gas oh so little. It feels good. I have a strong and clear thought that I need to believe in myself. So I go with it. The thought is strong and comforting so I start repeating it. Believe in yourself. Stay on. Stay relaxed. The next mile or so are good. I don’t bother looking at my km split because it’s likely not accurate anyway. There’s a hydration station at this 4 mile flag and I grab a drink and run on. Then I realize that 4 miles is 4 miles. It’s not 4km. I should have taken my first gel. I will have to wait for the next water stop now.
I hit a rough patch. My gel timing is off. I will keep on believing in myself. The next hydration doesn’t come until 10km. With my gel, I recover from my rough patch and I feel encouraged. It was just a bad spot. I know I will have another and I can get through that one too.
There is a 6 mile timing clock on the course, not a 10km clock. It reads 40:xx. I can’t interpret what that means except that I know I am now off 1:26:xx pace. Just recovering from this early rough patch, I am unsure if I will get it back. The effort that I am running at feels correct. I will bury myself if I turn it up here.
I see city things and I like them. I like the long straight journey down Walnut Street through Rittenhouse Square. I like the energy of University City. I love the bands. I don’t recall what they are playing but I know I smile widely for them and one reminds me of my husband.
By about 8km, the field is mostly men and I like that. I love the camaraderie of the few women who I am working with on and off. One woman reminds me of Linda, she tells me “We have to keep working together.” It is happiness.
The 2km climb from 14 to 15km is more brutal than expected and I am now quite aware that this might not be my day. There are too many 4:10+ splits popping up and I don’t feel like it is safe to push harder yet. The push harder is for 16-18km, whatever the heck that will be, how will I know with these foreign mile flags.
I try to place the image of Rami up ahead of me on the road. This has worked for me before in a race, projecting the image of a training partner ahead or behind and then can I relax and follow them with strength. I originally read about this in Deena Kastor’s book. But “Believe in Yourself” is stronger so I keep with that.
It’s somewhere around this point that I start to thing about Rocky’s first fight with Apollo Creed and how his goal is simply to last 15 rounds. This may not be the day that I hoped for but I determine that I need to last 15 rounds. I will not give up. I know that on other race occasions, when I have given up, my goal was often still within reach. I think of this. I have no idea how far off my goal I am or am not. I will go 15 rounds.
My Love Training More athlete Crystal, also a Rocky fan, was running the full marathon on Sunday. She’s a long time athlete of mine and I’ve written her many coach race plans. This time, I wrote her marathon race plan divided into 4 and group by lines from the Rocky theme song, “Gonna Fly Now.” It was a coaching work of art. I planned to use some of it too. I try to mentally pull on the third section. “Getting Strong Now. Won’t be Long Now.” The words aren’t strong enough to stick. Only “Believe in Yourself” and “Go 15 Rounds” stick. I go with those instead.
We com into Fairmount Park at 15.5km (I only know this from the post-race Strava Map) and Erin Poirier is not doing well. There is effort bleeding all over the street.
“Keep believing in yourself.”
So I believe and I keep at it.
I do not like this Fairmount Park. There is a road. It’s too much road for a park. Why is it so wide. It’s too uphill! It’s too wide. There’s nothing but grass! There are switchbacks. But I keep at it. I completely miss seeing the famous zoo. I just see race pain. I wait for the mile flags though I don’t understand them. I think the next one will be 9. Surprise, it’s 10!
The clock reads 1:14:xx at 11 miles. 2.1 miles left. Maybe there is still a decent performance within reach. That’s 3km, right? Is that 12 mintues? I go. Fearlessly. I hammer down the hill. It’s risky but my risks often pay off and I usually make it to this finish line. In my head, I hear the Instagram video announcer in the mile by mile video preview of the course talking about this downhill and saying, “conserve your quads for the finish.” Even as I watched that pre-race, I dismissed it. That’s not how a Halifax Road Hammer races. We don’t conserve anything with 3km to go. So I did not conserve anything.
Running. Hammering. Where is the next mile flag. Watch rings a 3:57 km. I don’t know if it’s correct but I will take that.
And then: oh the agony, how long is a mile? Whilst writing this blog, I’m shaking my head as I have confirmed that 2.1 miles = 3.379km (yes, I require those 3 decimal points).
So this last what I believe is 3km…. unlike the October 2019 Valley Harvest Half Marathon, where training partner Alan said I shredded it with my fastest 3km of the race (and I did!), I feel personally shredded. The clearest thought in my head was WTF at the stiff unresponsive stride I had descended into. No open, no power. I was cooked. Like a running Philly Cheesesteak. But I kept at it. Even if my body would not respond the way I was pleading with it to, I would not mentally quit.
The Rocky Balboa quote that Juurlink had sent to me floated into my brain: “it’s not about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” I had to keep moving forward.
At the time, my thoughts were not sophisticated but in hindsight, the whole collection of the things hit me hard: the travel, the aquarium-fear, the missing/wrong bib, the unplanned 2km walk, the no GPS.
I don’t give up. I cross the line as best I can and though it is not the A, B or C goal that I set with Coach Lee, I immediately know that I am satisfied with the time and I feel joyful about the experience.
Then I did was I dreamed about doing. I took happy race photos. I got my food. I walked up the Rocky stairs at the Philadelphia Art Museum and I happily ate my food on the stairs and I felt good about my running life.
I simply got hit hard. I kept moving forward.
I think I actually perform better on my home turf, at local races in the Maritimes. But then I would not get to collect these extraordinary memories with my children and friends.
Like Rocky, there will be sequels. Probably not here in Philly. Probably at home.
I am still hungry for that fast half marathon performance that I know I am capable of and isn’t that a nice way to close out a season and a year?
Final stats:
Overall 350 out of 11560
Female 59 out of 6450
Age Group 16 out of 831
