Philadelphia Marathon Race Report 2007 - Chasing a Sub Three

Things that usually take me 3 hours to do:

1. Drive from Boston to New York City
2. A load of laundry, washed, dried, and folded
3. Average length of a meal at French Laundry
4. Roasting a 9 pound leg of lamb
5. Run a marathon?

Since my goal is the break the elusive 3 hour mark in the marathon, I thought it would be fun to see what other events would take about the same time. As much as I hate to admit it, I’d rather be running 6:40 miles for 3 hours than doing any of these other things, although a three hour long meal at French Laundry does come a close second.

The final week
Hard to believe this day is finally here. This sub-3 hour goal has been my singular motivation since early summer. Unlike any other race, running a quality marathon requires the convergence of many positive factors (consistent training, cool weather, good health, and a fair course), factors that are often out of control. As a result, this pre-marathon build-up is and has felt long. I have felt ready for this marathon for about a month and hearing others’ success stories has only added to my anxiety. I know this all sounds fatalistic, but my training has gone so well over the last 3 months that I’ve been waiting for the house of cards to come down.

And come down it did… I had a restless night of sleep Monday and woke up feeling a little off. Tuesday morning, I went for my usual dress rehearsal workout around the Emerald Necklace, a 2 x 1.75 mile intervals at marathon pace. The workout went smoothly, but I wasn’t feeling better afterwards and by the evening, I knew I was coming down with a cold. This new wrinkle in my taper triggered all sorts of strange anxiety dreams. I had the standard ones of oversleeping the start gun or running a really slow race intertwined with bizarre ones of doing the race in clear molasses and falling asleep after the half marathon point and waking up the next morning sprawled along the Schuykill River. Clearly the virus was getting in my head, literally and figuratively. My sole consolation was that prior to my first marathon in Miami, I had gotten sick even closer to the marathon and run fine. The next two days found me furiously downing OJ and cooking up a large batch of chicken soup fortified with ginger, curry, ginseng, garlic, and squash (basically anything that was remotely antiviral). I took Wednesday off and by Thursday morning, I was feeling well enough for a short run. My legs were still feeling achy and stiff; I wasn’t sure if it was the taper, the anxiety, or residual from the cold.

The build-up
And so… Friday dawned full of anxiety. The cold had largely cleared, but I was still achy and very nervous. My wife came to pick me up and then we headed out to pick up my friend Chris, who was doing his 1^st ever marathon. He had come down with something on Monday, and I was trying to pump him up with my experience from Miami. We loaded up on carbs at Baja Betty’s and soon we were cruising down the Mass Turnpike. Within 20 minutes, Chris was snoring away in the backseat and we settled in for the 5 hour drive. After a brief pit stop in Jersey, we made it down to my friends place in Philly a shade over 5 hours. After seeing “Rent” the movie last weekend, we had the soundtrack playing on the ride down. “No Day but Today” became my running anthem for the weekend. Not an eventful car ride, but at least I was feeling less anxious.

We all slept in Saturday morning. I was up at 9AM and feeling antsy, but I tried to zone out and relax. After awhile, the anticipation got the better of me and got up to get a weather update. The temperatures looked good, but there was something called a “clipper system” moving in that might drop some rain Sunday morning. Great… sounds like a repeat of Boston '07. I roused the troops and we drove to check out the parking garage for tomorrow morning, as well as to check out the last 4 miles of the marathon route. This has become another pre-marathon ritual of mine; the peace of mind from knowing the topography of the last four miles is priceless. We drove from the Museum of Art along Kelly Dr. to Falls Bridge. From there, my wife drove back to the museum and I set off along with Chris on foot. It was a brisk, chilly morning and it felt good to get the legs moving. I thought I was moving at a sub-8 pace, but my heart rate was in the mid-150s. It was probably pre-race nerves, but again the high heart rate was getting me a little concerned. After doing some strides and light stretching, we made our way to the nearest Bonte Waffles. If you have never tried an authentic Belgian waffle, do yourself a favor and try one… the experience is indescribable. I had 3…. so good!

Now comes the part that still stresses me out. Since it’s a long rant, I’ve included it in a separate blog entry, entitled Philly Marathon review. Check it after you read this, as its kind of a spoiler. It starts from when we left for the expo up at the Licouras Center. In total, we spent about 2 hours to pick up our numbers, so we found other ways to entertain ourselves (see left). In a nutshell, the race organization up to the starting gun left much to be desired. They even skipped the national anthem… how can you start a major sports event without the national anthem?!?! My running theory is that the race organizers were operating without a major corporate sponsor and were hamstrung by the lack of funds. The only redeeming moment was we got to see Candeo and her husband. Kudos to her for finishing her first half marathon…no trivial feat for someone who never thought of herself as a runner! After some much needed down time at my friend’s apartment, we had dinner at Branzino’s… fantastic gnocchi, but the sauce was a bit salty for my taste.

Race Day
I was up at 3:30 and spent the next hour and half trying to get back to sleep. I remembered the same thing happened at Austin, so I wasn’t too concerned with the lack of sleep. I plopped a couple instant waffles in the microwave and washed them down with some Pedialyte, my new hydration liquid of choice. We left the apartment at 5:40 and were parked and walking towards the start line a bit before six. It was cool and cloudy, but fortunately, the rain hadn’t started. Accuweather.com was calling for cloudy skies and light showers starting at 9AM. One of the lasting images I have of the marathon was the pre-dawn walk up the Ben Franklin Parkway with the Museum of Art in the background. Too bad I didn’t have a camera. When we arrived at Eakins oval, we found massive lines for the port-a-potties, so we got in line right away. If I had known we were going to be waiting for 35 minutes, I would have looked for alternative means of relieving myself. But hindsight notwithstanding, we chatted in line. I spent most of the time debating my choice in clothing. I had run in Boston during the Nor’easter with a long sleeve and had been on the warm side. However, I feared the feeling of being rain-soaked and decided to leave the long-sleeve shirt on. It had a long neck zip, so I had some temperature control. We didn’t get out of the lines until 6:50, so from there it was a mad rush to the start line.

As I made my way to the start line, I mulled my race strategy. My time goals again came in threes. At a minimum, I wanted to go sub-3, which I thought was doable even though I had gotten sick. A more reasonable goal was to shoot for a 2:55; its hard to argue with the symmetry of running 6:40 miles, or 20 minutes every 3 miles. No matter how low my blood sugar went, I could still wrap my brain around these times. Finally, my reach goal was a 2:53, predicted off my sub-37 10K time. This would require everything to go perfectly, but with my untimely cold and rainy conditions ahead, a 2:53 would probably have to wait another day. I decided to see how long I could hold 6:40 miles.

Miles 0-7
I squeezed into the front of the pack and spent the next 10-15 minutes watching the elites warm-up. I even took a loosen-up jog just to see what it feels like. I was waiting to get booted from the area, but it never happened. Meanwhile, the PA guy was still rambling away. He mentioned something about the delayed start because they were still towing away cars that were illegally parked on the course. What a fiasco. Next thing I knew, he was counting down to the start in English, French, German, and Spanish. Where was the national anthem? I settled into a comfortable pace. About 200m in, I heard my name and turned around to see Brian from my running club. We had talked about running together, but from what he was saying, it sounded like he wanted to match wits with a friend further ahead. We stayed together for about mile and a half, but soon eased back as I realized the pace was getting too fast. As we made the turn onto Columbus Blvd, I hit my groove and my legs were feeling pretty comfortable… looks like I had a dodged a bullet with the cold! I hit mile 3 at 19:43, ~15 seconds ahead of pace. At this point, a guy introduced himself to me as a brother of a member of my running club. He had run a 2:54 at Columbus and was looking to go sub-2:50. We ran together through downtown Philly. I don’t remember much from this part of the course as I was chatting with Brian most of the way. The crowds were enthusiastic despite the weather. We also ran by Iron Chef Morimoto’s restaurant, which brought back fond memories from my good friend’s wedding reception. I hit mile 6 in 39:50. I had pulled back a bit at mile 4, so I was back on pace. The course continued down Chestnut St., across the Schuykill, and into Drexel territory.

Miles 7-14
I was mentally preparing for the hills ahead as we made the right turn on 34^th St. and on up the first real hill of the course. It was a gradual climb, but I was beginning to lose contact with Brian. By the time we crested the hill, he had gapped me by about 10m. I let him go as I was hoping to have some gas in the tank at the end. He ended up with a tremendous time of 2:47. The downhill on the other side was much steeper and I ended up running one of three 6:27’s of the day. My 9 mile split was a little fast (59:35), but not surprising given the steep downhill, but I knew the next hill was going to cut into the time cushion. The next hill was steeper and comprised much of mile 10. Nothing too bad after training on the hills around Brookline and Newton. I took my 1^st GU. Shortly after mile 10, I saw Brian emerge from a road side port-a-potty. He said he felt much lighter, and we gave each other updates over the next mile. I lost him again shortly after mile 11 following the steep descent onto MLK Drive. Guess he was still on a mission… As I was cruising along MLK Drive, I saw the most shocking scene of the race. A tall lanky runner in a yellow race bib had veered off towards the bushes, dropped trow, and proceeded to moon everyone as he took a dump. Somebody mumbled the predictable line, “when you gotta go… you gotta go.” Still, it didn’t really lessen the shock and humor of the situation. It may also have inadvertently triggered something in me because I battled the runner’s trots for the next 6 miles. Mile 12 split was 1:19:50, perfect! I hit a pretty nice groove on West River Dr. coming back towards the Art Museum and passed the half marathon at just over 1:27. Hard to imagine this used to be an all out time for me 6 months ago and now, I was feeling pretty comfortable with another half to go. At mile 13.5, we made an unexpected detour off Kelly Dr. and up Lemon Hill. As I was going up the hill, it didn’t occur to me that this was part of the course change. I chalked it up to not remembering the course. At the top of the hill, there was a sign on the right: “last big hill.” Funny I remember seeing that at the top of the last hill.

Miles 14-21
I took another GU at the top of the hill and then went down what felt like the steepest downhill of the course. I began to wonder about the “fast and flat” course. We were now back on Kelly Drive, and the rest of the course was a predictable out and back. I reached mile 15 with a ~20 second cushion (1:39:39). My legs were feeling a bit beat up with the all the downhills, but it was manageable. Shortly after mile 15, I was passed by a tall lanky guy with a familiar “QT2systems.com” blue shirt. Déjà vu! It was the same guy that had passed me at mile 2 at the Boston Firefighter 10K. I pulled up along him and here’s our conversation:

Me: “Did you run the Boston Firefighter 10K?”
Pat: “Yeah, I assume you ran it, too?”
Me: “Yeah, I remember you passing me at mile 2.”
Pat: (sudden hint of recognition) “Yeah, but you passed me when it counted.”
Me: (slightly embarrassed) “So what time are you shooting for?”
Pat: “Not sure, this is my first one.”
Me: “Well, I’m hoping for a 2:55.”
Pat: (no response)
Spectator: “Stop chatting, you’re running a marathon!”
Me: “good luck!”
Pat: (pulls away)

OK, so he wasn’t the friendliest guy… or maybe I should have listened to the spectator and just kept my mouth shut. I settled into a comfortable rhythm and tailed a pair of guys that were sharing one water bottle. My next couple miles slowed from a 6:40 to 6:42. When I hit mile 18, I had given back about 6 seconds of my cushion (1:59:44); took a third GU. I was still holding back the trots, and I noticed that each time I took a gel, it became a touch more difficult to hold my pace. The feeling would disappear after a half mile and then I would feel much better. I was still feeling reasonable at 2 hours, but after going over the Ridge Ave. overpass, the fatigue started to take its toll. Miles 19 and 20 were really tough. The miles had been rolling by, but these two seemed to take an eternity. A little voice in the back of my head started whispering about getting sick earlier in the week. I was really happy to hit the turnaround at mile 20. I got a boost over the next mile as I was greeted by runners coming the other way and hit mile 21 right on schedule (2:20:02). I had given back all of the time cushion, but I was also feeling much better.

Miles 21-26.2
At this point, I was running for the 22 mile marker and familiar territory. My legs were getting tired, but I was still able to hold a reasonable cadence. My mile splits had slipped to 6:45s, but a 2:55 was still within reach. When I finally reached mile 22, I knew was going to make my sub-3 hour goal… now the suspense was whether I would hit 2:55. This is the point of the marathon where I usually withdraw into myself and hope the time goes by faster. My self talk consists mostly of, “OK Wayne, just keep this pace for another 20 minutes….. ok, 15 minutes to go” and so on. Fortunately, I still had "No Day But Today" still running in my head and I have to say it really kept me moving. I don’t remember much else, other than seeing Pat ahead and catching him shortly after mile 24 (2:20:22 – crap, lost 20 seconds!). I ran through some motivational things to say to him, but something lame came out instead:

Pat: “You got me again.”
Me: “C’mon, work with me, less than two miles to go.”

I didn’t even have energy to turn around to see if he would keep up. Chris came running the other way shortly before mile 25 and looked pretty good. I flashed him a thumbs up and kept on trudging. Mile 25 was one of the slowest (6:50) of the day and by now I was in survival mode. I had secretly hoped to break 2:55, but now all thoughts were bent on just finishing. The beauty of Boathouse Row so apparent yesterday, was completely lost on me now. I was just looking ahead for the last hill. I put my head down and plowed ahead. When I crested the hill, I knew I had hit my 2:55 goal. I threw a couple celebratory punches in the air (none of which were caught on camera) and raised my arms as I crossed the finish line. The impact of what I had accomplished still hadn't hit me... I was just happy to be done.

Mile	Split	Lap	Avg	Max	Comments	Avg Lap
1	6:49	6:49.5	147	160		6:49.5
2	13:16	6:26.6	162	165		6:38.1
3	19:43	6:27.2	163	172		6:34.4
4	26:29	6:45.2	160	164		6:37.1
5	33:09	6:40.1	162	166		6:37.7
6	39:50	6:41.6	162	165		6:38.4
7	46:26	6:36.2	156	169		6:38.1
8	53:07	6:41.0	165	170	hill	6:38.4
9	59:35	6:27.4	160	166		6:37.2
10	1:06:25	6:50.3	163	168	hill	6:38.5
11	1:13:18	6:53.2	155	163	pit stop	6:39.8
12	1:19:50	6:31.5	160	164		6:39.2
13	1:26:21	6:31.2	163	166		6:38.5
14	1:32:59	6:37.9	162	165	hill	6:38.5
15	1:39:39	6:39.7	162	167		6:38.6
16	1:46:19	6:40.2	161	164		6:38.7
17	1:53:02	6:42.8	162	164		6:38.9
18	1:59:44	6:42.5	163	166		6:39.1
19	2:06:29	6:45.1	163	166	overpass	6:39.4
20	2:13:16	6:47.3	162	166		6:39.8
21	2:20:02	6:45.7	161	165		6:40.1
22	2:26:48	6:45.3	162	166		6:40.3
23	2:33:34	6:46.4	161	165		6:40.6
24	2:40:22	6:48.2	161	163		6:40.9
25	2:47:12	6:50.0	162	165		6:41.3
26	2:54:03	6:50.6	163	165		6:41.6
26.2	2:55:31	1:28.3	164	165		6:41.9
Total	2:55:31	6:41.6	161	172
1st	1:27:06	6:38.6	160	172
2nd	1:28:25	6:44.7	162	167

Post-race
I waited at the finish line for Pat to cross and gave him a quick congratulatory word for breaking 3 hours on his first attempt…. then made a beeline for the bus area to find my wife. Miraculously we ran into each other; she was racing back from the car after finishing the half, camera in hand, trying to catch a finishing shot of me. We grabbed some food from the finisher’s tent (never thought hot chicken broth would ever taste this good) and took advantage of the short line at the massage tent. We then made the round trip back to the car to get some warm clothes so we could catch Chris on the finish hill. After some tense moments thinking that he’d already finished, he finally appeared around the bend looking pretty ragged. My wife and I were screaming like crazy, but he was completely oblivious. Still, he ran a 5 minute negative split and a 4:45, 15 minutes faster than his goal time. An amazing time for an orthopedic resident who hasn’t run in over 10 years, and was sick and on call every other day the week before.

In the moments after the finish, the perfectionist in me was lamenting my lack of finishing spirit. In the last 7 miles or so, I settled instead of battling. As a result, my mile splits slipped about 5-10 seconds per mile, which meant I gave up about 50-55 seconds. Part of me wonders if the motivation would have been there if I hadn’t already run a qualifying time for New York at the BAA Half and didn’t need to break 2:55. Still, I’m splitting hairs over seconds and not minutes; this was still a huge PR! A year ago, I had trouble doing mile repeats in 6:40. Right now, I’m still basking in the glow of a sub-3 hour marathon. I really appreciate all the congratulatory e-mails I’ve received. Thanks for following my sub-3 journey!

Now I can take a couple weeks off and re-evaluate my running goals for 2008.