01:41:41

Broad Street Run 2009 - 23,093 finishers - holy crap! I was one of them! :D

Ten miles, I did it!  I can't believe it but I actually finished the 10 mile race without stopping to walk or fall too much off a 10 min/mi pace.  I think the more impressive bit worth mentioning is that the last two miles of the race it POURED cats and dogs rain on us!  I did anticipate some rain, and it was just scattered sprinkles throughout the majority of the race, however, I wasn't prepared for the downpour during the two most physically challenging miles!  

Here is a "before" picture.  The "after" picture is literally so bad of me that I really can't share it.

 

So Mike and I finished the race side by side like two mops in a bucket.  The other bad part about the rain was having to SLOWLLLLY walk through these crowds to get food and water after crossing the finish line. We were soaked through and through.  Got back to the minivan and said… let’s bounce!  The Downingtown Running Club had a bunch of stuff to tailgate with, too.  So it was kind of a shame.  It totally would have been my style to eat a burger and relax in the sun.  Unfortunately, shivering in the rain made everything less fun.

But all in all, the race felt really good.  I felt really comfortable with my pace, as slow as it may be.  It managed to keep Mike by my side and he has never run more than five miles.  He certainly kept me going through certain miles that felt longer than others.  He also put up with my weaving traffic of slower runners – I get annoyed easily, we all know this. haha.

We finished in 1 hour 41 minutes, a time I am pretty proud of.  I think I will be just fine to run a half marathon in the near future.  One of my aunt's friends running with us said that once I've done 10 mi then I might as well train for a marathon.  According to her (a very experienced marathon runner) it's making the jump from 3 mi to 7 mi for non-distance runners that is the hardest bit.  I don't know if I am convinced.  She said that I could do a marathon in the fall if I wanted to.  If I wanted to.  Hmm. 

I was thinking if I were to do a marathon, obviously I've toyed with the idea in the past, then I would want to wait until next spring.  I would like to build my stamina as a runner and speed up a bit if at all possible. So my thoughts were to make it a destination marathon like London Marathon or Copenhagen Marathon.

Again, those lofty and ambitious goals of mine.  I still have to tackle the half marathon next.  I had the very quick idea to do the Big Lake Half next Saturday with Carissa in New Hampshire.  I took a look at the race description and thought that "rolling hills" is a good thing when describing a drive in the country but not to run.  I just, to be honest, have incorporated very few hills into my training.  Boston can be pretty flat, especially along The Charles.

I also will have you all know that the race was over as of like 11am yesterday and I still haven't had one single drink! I could really go for a cold beer right now.  I am in the airport which is one of my favorite places to grab a beer but PHL is telling me that despite all this rain my flight is actually ON TIME.  Never (ever) happens in PHL so I'm not sure what is going on. Do they serve beer on puddle jumpers? ;)

Oh wait, just made an announcement.  My plane due to depart in an hour hasn't even left Boston, yet.  On to finding a suitable pint of beer!

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