I ran the Philly Love Run half marathon in Philadelphia yesterday. This race has been in existence now for 3 years and I’ve run all 3 years.

You get a mug each year as part of your swag which I love since I’m such a big coffee drinker. They seem to be shrinking each year though. 🙂

The first year (2014)  I set my current half marathon PR in the pouring rain.

Such a wild day running in the pouring rain

Last year (2015) my knee was still recovering and I was just hoping to finish without crippling myself.

Yay! Done! Knee ok. Let’s eat.

This year I knew I wasn’t in PR shape but I also knew after last week’s Cherry Blossom 10 miler that I could run strong 10-minute miles for at least 10 miles so my goal was to finish between 2:10 and 2:15. Well, despite the ridiculously big hills between miles 7 and 8 I did it and came in at 2:13 with a 10:09 average pace.

Each year the course has changed between miles 6-9 and that has always been the hilliest and most challenging part of the course. I’m going to do a comparison of all 3 year’s courses in detail at the end of this recap but first I’ll recap yesterday’s experience:

Expo: I’ve yet to attend an expo since I live an hour and a half from Philly. I’ve relied on my friend Jane (and her resources) to grab my bib and swag every year. They are fine with someone else getting your bib as long as you show a copy of that runner’s ID.Thank you Jane!

Philly Love Run Race Day

Pre-Race: I slept at Mr SOTSS’ the night before so at 4:15am when the alarm went off I got up and shut it off quickly, got dressed, made a travel mug of coffee and toasted a bagel with a little butter and wrapped it up in foil so I could have my breakfast on the road. Mr. SOTSS’ dog Chester eats breakfast really early so he was happy to see me moving about at 4:45 am. I fed him (and Duncan too) just before I left the house at 5am.

Old school note left on the kitchen counter. Wouldn’t want the dogs to get fed twice although I’m sure they’d be ok with it 🙂

I ate half the bagel, half the cup of coffee and had some water on the drive down and by 6:30 am I was parking. The lot was almost full! Each year the race gets larger so if you plan to drive be sure to give yourself plenty of time to park. There is street parking if you are lucky but I hate stressing about parking so I just shelled out the $20 for the parking lot and patted myself on the back for getting there as early as I did. The lot I parked in is only 3 blocks from the start. By 7:30 I had met up with Jane and her friends.

Start–Mile 4: It was cold in the morning. Temps were just below freezing. But graciously mother nature decided to ease up on the original predicted wind and there was plenty of sunshine too. I decided to seed myself in the 1:45-2:00 hour corral.

View from the corrals

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