Philly Marathon 2018
I finished the Philly marathon this weekend. My official time was 3:48:20, which is a lifetime PR. The pace was 8:43, which was 2 seconds faster than my target.
The Philadelphia marathon is a great race. I highly recommend it.
The course is mostly flat. There are some hills between miles 8 and 12, but there are long flat stretches. The beginning of the race goes through the famous historic sites of downtown Philly. Then, runners go past the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University, where there are lots of spectators. Just before the halfway point, the race goes through a botanical garden where there are few spectators, but there is nice scenery. The halfway point goes past the the start/finish line near the Philly art museum. Then, there is a long out and back on Kelly Drive along the Schuylkill River. This section has a turnaround at ~mile-20 in Manayunk, which had the highest concentration of spectators. The last few miles were boring, but the finish line had a lot of spectators and was well organized.
Philadelphia is a good race venue. The marathon gets discounted hotel rates for runners. So, I had a nice hotel within walking distance of the race. There are lots of restaurants with availability the night before the race, and the city is easy to get around. The race is pretty big. There were about 12k runners, and about 60k spectators. It was fun to run by the historic sites, and the crowds around the universities and at Manayunk were very motivating. The swag was good. We got a long-sleeve race shirt. The race medal had a working bell crafted after the Liberty Bell.
My marathon went well. I had a negative split. However, I ran into a GI issue that cost me 1:20, or 3 seconds on my mile pace.
I woke up Sunday and noticed my urine wasn't clear, so I drank a lot of gatorade before the race. Right before the race, my mouth felt dry so I thought I was going into the race dehydrated; therefore, I drank gatorade at every stop for the first 10 miles. At mile 11, I realized that the gels and gatorade were not sitting well, and thus I had to take an unplanned pitstop. I tried to stay positive, and was grateful for the opportunity to lower my heart rate while I stopped.
I also ran into an issue with my Garmin. It showed that I ran 26.6 miles, at an 8:31 pace. Thus, I had a hard time figuring out how hard to push at the end because I wasn't sure how far I was from the finish line. Moreover, my Garmin was showing that I was already well ahead of my target pace so I actually felt like I needed to hold back a bit.
Despite the GI and Garmin issues, I felt very strong for nearly the entire race. I was disciplined, and my first two miles were my slowest (despite getting dropped by the 3:50 pace group early on). My focus started to get choppy from mile 22, but at that point I was consistently identifying people to pass one at a time. My last mile was at 8:13.
I think under "perfect" conditions, I could have run as fast as a ~3:45 marathon, or an 8:35 pace. My last marathon in 2014 was 3:57, so I am pleased with my progress, especially given last year's knee surgery.
It's been three days since the marathon, and I am feeling good. (Although yesterday morning I wasn't fond of descending stairs.)
I plan to goof off for the next two weeks, and then start working on my strength and flexibility. At the end of the month, I will have a consultation with my orthopedist to get my knee checked out.
This year, I used the "Intermediate Balanced" marathon plan on our FinalSurge site. It had me doing 2-3 hours a week of cycling, and 4-6 runs a week. There were speed work runs on Tuesdays and Thursday. The long runs on Saturday required lots of miles at marathon pace and half-marathon pace. My peak mileage hit 44 miles two weeks before the race. Next year, I plan to do another fall marathon, and will try to hit 55 miles on my peak mileage week.
Thanks for reading my race report.
Comments
Great race report and congratulations on your successful training and pb. It’s especially impressive coming so soon after knee surgery.
Congratulations on your PR race! I enjoyed your race report...it took me down memory lane. I did Philly in 2010 and ran a PR. One of my favorite marathons. I hope the knee checks out Ok.