Re-Recap of Philly2011

I set out from home early the friday before the race. I was to be driving solo, but I had set up my experimental copilot, and was ready to hit the road. I planned to take video every now and then, and at some point in time make one of those fancy schmancy sped up movies of my trip, like the

kids do over there on the ewe tube. I have no idea why sheep are involved, but whatever.

As I headed south by southwest, I came across this sign. I decided right then and there to take a picture of this sign ever time i came across a new one. As I would be travelling in 6 states, it might be a fun little project to occupy my time. This one, however, was the ONLY one that I got. The others are in areas that were waaaay to busy for me to stop in, so i changed my plan to photograph each one of the "welcome to" signs. I have none. Same reason. That, and I kept forgetting........

After a few hours of boredom interspersed with moments of shear terror (both for me and the driver of the semi who i cut off JUST IN TIME not to be smeared along a bridge railing) and moments of WTF? (garmin: "continue on this route for the next 16 miles." so i moved into the passing lane. 30 seconds later, Teri said, "take exit ### in 200 yards. Turn RIGHT NOW!" WHAAAAT? i swear it was 'mayhem' from those insurance commercials......). I took the next exit (300 feet later) and parked on a side street to compose my self, check my shorts, and recalculate. The next 15 miles were spent driving along some two lane roads that wove through some very nice neighbourhoods. I ended up getting back onto the highway somewhere near Princeton. At any rate, I was ahead of schedule, Pandora was playing some fun tunes, and life was good. If not lonely...

Later Friday evening I met up with Colleen (@tryn2bfit), Damian (@running2fitness), and Nicole (@nicolebshapinup) and we headed into town for the expo. Packet pickup was a breeze, mostly due to the fact that it took us 5 times around the block to find a parking spot. We managed, and spent some time looking at logo items and such. I should have made my purchases then, instead of on Saturday, as there were no lines at all at 8:30 friday night. (pro-tip:go to the expo LATE).

I must admit that I got a little....choked up when I got back to the hotel and took my bib out. I've never had one with my name on it, nor have I ever had one that included the word "marathon". Today, I had both.

I was to be helping out at the ArcticEase Kid's Fun Run on Saturday morning, so once back at the hotel I walked to the nearby grocery store, got some food, and tried to get some sleep. I woke up early and cruised back into Philly, only to be redirected because of the Rothman's 8k course. No worries. I just followed my instincts and ended up finding a parking spot about half a mile from the Start/Finish.

I'll put up pictures from the ArtcicEase Kid's Race in a future posting. Suffice to say the kids had a blast, the medals and shirts were top notch, and the parents had to be told more than once (more like 9 times) to back away from the kids and let them participate in the warm up. And the race. Sheesh. Check your helicopters at the door, folks! It is just a fun run. Something that kids do ALL THE TIME, without us asking them to. Relax....

After that was done I wandered around the city a bit, taking in some of the historic (and hysteric) sites that Philadelphia has to offer. Back at the expo, I managed to talk for a few minutes with this gentleman. It was weird, as I know he has no recollection of the event, but I thanked him for autographing and personalizing 2 books for me last December.



Mr. Hal Higdon


To his right I spied another running legend and chatted with him, too. He congratulated me on my first marathon, and said that one of the best things about a first time race is that you are "guaranteed a PR!"

Mr. Bart Yasso



Later that evening, after an hour of  getting turned around and frustrated, I joined some of the other members of our ArcticEase group for a mini-tour of their offices. All I can say about it is...wait. There's a knock at the door. (Spy hole reveals some big, burly dude wrapped in black ArcticEase wraps and carrying a shovel. Nevermind. I'm not going to tell you anything.) OKOK, not really. They aren't like that. Let's just say that I was honored to have a tour, and am very happy for Carol and her company. They have done great things, and will soon be exploding onto the world scene. Mark my words.

Back at the hotel I layed out my "flat Gene" (sorry, duh. no pics), and got ready to sleep. I had to be up at 3:45, so i didn't want to waste a nano-second. I got up in time, ate, calmly got dressed, packed my bags, and went down to warm up the car. I was to be bringing Colleen to the start with me, and little did I know it at the time, Nicole and Damian. Anyway, I was warming up the car and resetting my garmin when Colleen called to say she was ready. I got in the car, drove to the portico, picked her up, and headed out into the darkness. About 100 yards after turning onto the main road (S. Trooper Rd.), we heard some thumping. She said, "what was THAT?" I said, "MY GARMIN WAS ON THE ROOF!!!!"

I pulled into a restaurant parking lot and we both got out to go look for it. Then Colleen said, "My garmin is back at the hotel!!!" Things happen for a reason, i guess, and we were unable to find Teri. As Colleen headed cross lots to meet me at the hotel, I walked back to the car, scouring the side of the road for any sign of Teri. Nothing. BUT! There she was, resting on the trunk! WAHOOO~. I yelled to Colleen, she came back, we went to the hotel, she got her garmin, and we were off again.

Quick swing by the airport to get the others, and we headed downtown. I parked in the garage at the Franklin Institute, and although it cost me $20, it was still cheaper than the $36 parking ticket i earned on Saturday. (RATS! I gotta pay that sucker!!!)



The job isn't finished until the paperwork is done.



There were mobs of people everywhere, and it was only about 545 in the morning. Chilly, but not too bad. The "disposable" sweats that I bought were doing just fine. Quick stops along the way to take care of some last minute paperwork, and we were all but ready to run!

Nicole was kind enough to take a picture of the group of us and even tolerated my craziness. Gotta appreciate that in a near stranger, especially at 615 in the morning.....



Colleen, Damian, Me

 The race nearly started a bit late, due to some mysterious delay, but "thanks to the hard working city workers", we started on time. It took me nearly 20 minutes to cross the start line. A massive wave of humanity headed down the street and spilled into the city. I would have liked to have seen it from above: a multi-colored river flowing through the streets, bobbing up and down.
After a while I managed to take a few pictures, but nothing really spectacular. Lots of legs and butts, crushed paper cups, and a few signs. I wish I had snapped pictures of the signs, as some were quite creative. See my other report for how i felt during the race. I don't want to rehash it here for ya.....I know time is precious, and you've already squandered away plenty reading this post.
All in all, it was a fun experience! At the end of the race, I felt like the guy in the black shirt, pictured here:


c'mon, dude. seriously. GET YOUR ARMS UP!

 I can't wait for the next race, though I don't know if it will be a destination race or not. I would REALLY like to have as many of my family members with me as possible, next time, even though I know it is tough to be a spectator at some of these longer events. But their great, and I couldn't really ask for a better support crew. Love you guys! (+1, me)

Thanks for stopping by.
Gene

NOTE: due to being interrupted several times while writing this (seriously. can't people see i'm working here? oh, wait...i was actually AT work when i did this....anyway...) I managed to leave out 3 other people. John and Josh, a father and son team, and EvaT, a lawyer from NYC, were also part of our group. John is a former Marine, he blogs here, and tweets via @dbltimeitmarine. Eva, as aforementioned, works in NYC. She's run several marathons, and has a dog who loves to chase bunnies when Eva takes the dog for runs. Eva blogs here.
Great people. Josh ran the half marathon, which was his first one ever! Congrats, Josh, and welcome to the 'family'.....

"Worst Parade EVER!"

That was one of my favourite signs seen during my first ever marathon. Last Sunday, me and 10,000 of my closest friends ran the Philadelphia Marathon. One of those people was Colleen, from The Fit Bee. You can read her report here. As she said, a big special THANK YOU shout out to ARCTIC EASE for helping to make this possible. They are a major sponsor of the event, as well as a big supporter of me and my running craziness. Their product played a BIG roll in my training and recovery from the event.
Imma start right off by saying that it was a great, wonderful, emotional experience. Sounds cliche, for sure, but for those of you who have been there, you'll understand. Sadly, my wife and kids weren't able to make the trip with me, but I am glad to have had some friends in attendance. One really cool thing is that I got to run into some family friends who I haven't seen in over 10 years. Talk about a small world!
The beginning of the race flew by; I was able to stay between 9-945 pace, which is what i had planned. My intent was to go for slightly negative splits over the second half, so if i had any chance of doing that, i had to go a little slower in the beginning. Good thing i did, too....
My main concern going into the event were my feet. One pair of sneakers makes my RIGHT foot hurt after 8 ish miles, while the other makes my LEFT foot hurt after only about 6 miles. I chose the former, and taped my left foot just in case. I was fine until near mile 10 when the right foot started to ache right where i thought it would. So far, though, the left was fine. The crouds were amazing; i did my best to pump them up as our little group passed them by. It was pretty cool to hear them come to life after i was raising my arms up in the air NFL style.
Around mile 15, i noticed that every time my left foot swung forward it felt like there was water sloshing around my foot. Strange. So of course i kept running, and around mile 17 (i think?) i finally stopped and took off my sneaker. My sock was soaked with sweat, and then i realized what the sloshing was; the tape had gotten pretty tight after my foot started to swell, and there was fluid trapped around the end of my foot. I quickly took the tape off, rubbed my foot a bit, put my sock and shoe on, and got back into the race.

Ah. sweet relief. for my left, but not right. the right continued to bother me the entire race, and by the end it was nearly impossible to run on. I knew that the funcitionality hadn't been compromised, so i pushed through the pain as much as i could. The real show-slower for me was the cramps in my left quad, specifically my VMO, indicated in this picture:

What was it doing? well, it was doing its own thing, actually. Sometimes, when i planted my foot, it would ball up, other times it wouldn't. Sometimes when i lifted my leg, it would flatten out completely; disappearing under my skin. Odd. So i stopped a few times to stretch it out, but then my hamstrings started to cramp, so i just interjected more walking into my pace. I watched sadly as the 4:30 pace group passed me and then disappeared out of sight. Strange.....I tried to drink some watered down gatorade, but almost puked it up, so i decided NOT to do that anymore and just gut it out. The last 3 miles were horrifically slow for me, but hey! I was moving forward and not passed out under blankets like a few people I saw off to the side.

As i climbed the last hill to the finish chute, people were cheering for us like banshees! It was great to see that many people still out there cheering, so late into the morning. The finish area was pure organized chaos. I've never seen a finish chute so long. the thing HAD to be 3 blocks long. well, maybe. i dunno. i ducked out early and headed to meet my pals.

The Expo was big, and fun, but not quite as big as I had expected. I met up with some other bloggers, albeit briefly, and that was pretty cool. What an intense group of young ladies I met!

Sadly, I can only remember Amanda (third from left). She has a better recap over on her blog. Their conversation started to turn to getting carded, etc., and I was all, "I've been OVER 21 longer than i was UNDER 21, so, yea. Nice to meet you, have a great race!" and I went back to my middle aged pals and probably talked about bunions, AARP memberships, and early-bird specials at Cracker-Barrel.

My (not middle aged) friend Colleen snapped this photo of me after the race. I am very greatful to have been able to participate in the event. As usual, my wife was UBER supportive, tolerand, and encouraging. ArcticEase was accomodating and helpful, too. Colleen,  Dan (@cubicledad), and others from twitter and IRL were helpful in keeping me going and keeping my head on straight. I greatly appreciate all that they did and continue to do for me. I've set my sights pretty high for 2012, but hey. That's what we do, right?

2011 Philadelphia Marathon 4:40:56