Last weekend I ran the Philadelphia Marathon. The past two years I ran the half marathon instead of the full marathon. The last time I had run the full marathon was 2009. In 2009 I ran 3:21:31. I was 50 years old. Last weekend I ran 3:20:10. I am 53 years old. I can't complain.
I probably ran a little too fast for the first 15 miles of the Philly Marathon. Averaged sub 7:30 for those 15. I knew at the half -marathon, by the way my quads were aching, that I was going to have difficulty maintaining 7:30ish miles. At 18 things went downhill for me. I got through the final 7 miles with PowerBar Gel, Gatorade, and two unauthorized beer stations out in Manayunk.
The run was, of course, followed by RVRR hijinks.
The history of my times on this course are 2008=3:18:22, 2009=3:21:31. That does not include the times I ran when I was young and the course was different. This is a scan of my hand written running diary from November 27, 1986:
I ran my marathon PR at Philly @ 2:41:06. I was 27 years old. Negative splits and defizzed Coke; that was the ticket. 26 years later, I ran about 40 minutes slower. My math says that is a loss of about one and a half minutes per year.
On race day 2012, it was a 4 AM wake up for the drive down to Philly. Rode my single speed Dawes SST bike from parking on 3rd & Cherry to race, and to the pub.
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| Me, at about mile 25 (Photo by Sally Hur) |
The run was, of course, followed by RVRR hijinks.
The history of my times on this course are 2008=3:18:22, 2009=3:21:31. That does not include the times I ran when I was young and the course was different. This is a scan of my hand written running diary from November 27, 1986:
I ran my marathon PR at Philly @ 2:41:06. I was 27 years old. Negative splits and defizzed Coke; that was the ticket. 26 years later, I ran about 40 minutes slower. My math says that is a loss of about one and a half minutes per year.
On race day 2012, it was a 4 AM wake up for the drive down to Philly. Rode my single speed Dawes SST bike from parking on 3rd & Cherry to race, and to the pub.
