Philadelphia Marathon 2018 Recap

Now that I've had a few days to think about the marathon on Sunday and gather my thoughts, I figured I'd put together a little recap of my race! Like always, I had a ton of emotions all day and it took me some time to sort those out and put the days events into words.

I'll start with the expo! Since my friend, Rachel, was coming down for the weekend to run the marathon with me (her FIRST marathon!!), I waited for her to go to the expo on Saturday. John and my little brother decided to tag along with us because they love the free stuff (at least they're honest, right?!). My brother was actually supposed to run the marathon but after getting injured right before our 20 miler, he opted out due to not feeling prepared. He still picked up his race shirt so maybe I'll end up with two shirts?!

We got to the expo around 1 or 2 pm and it wasn't over until 7 pm so we expected it still to be pretty crowded. I was honestly shocked that it wasn't too crowded and there didn't seem to be as many booths as there had been in the past. It was still a good time, though! We ended up enjoying looking at the display of previous years shirts and medals. The evolution of medal designs from 25 years ago until now was really interesting! I'm bummed I forgot to get some photos of that display and other parts of the expo but I was focusing on enjoying the moment.

Did you even go to the expo if you didn't get a bib picture?!

Now on to race day! We had a nice and early wake-up call at 4:30 am. Surprisingly I jumped out of bed feeling pretty awake so that felt good. Our goal was to leave for Philly by 5:15 am which we were able to do. Once arriving in the city, we parked at the same lot we have in the past which is only a few blocks from the Art Museum (where the start and finish is). Since it was pretty cold out, both Rachel and I decided to wear our sweatshirts to the start and then give them to John to hold in a backpack before we got in our corrals. We also wore some cheap gloves we picked up at the expo with the plan of tossing them sometime after the start (we ended up just putting them in the backpack with our jackets because we didn't feel like we needed them at the start).

The security guard who checked my hydration pack entering the starting area gave me hand warmers because he could tell I was cold. So sweet!

We got through security a lot quicker than we anticipated, which left us with a good amount of free time. I didn't want to use the bathrooms too close to starting in fear that I'd still have to go again (spoiler alert: this idea comes into play later in the day...). We pretty much just walked around until deciding to get in the port-o-potty lines. There weren't as many port-o-potties as usual so we waited a lot longer than we thought we would. Luckily we still were able to make it to our corrals by 7 am!

Once in the corral, we stood around for awhile until it was our corral's turn to start. I honestly don't remember there being as much time between each corral in the past. We didn't cross the start until sometime after 7:30 am.

I was so thankful I decided to wear an ear warmer headband for the first few miles! My ears always get SO cold!

The first half of the marathon was a good one for me! I did feel like I was going a little too fast at times but I did feel strong. It was nice to have Rachel to run with and have someone to talk to. There were some parts of the route that seemed different from last year, like we totally ran on a cobblestone street in the first few miles. I also missed the cool drummers that were outside the zoo in years past. The spectators that were out cheering were phenomenal, though! I love reading all their signs. Between miles 7 and 10 were where the hills kicked in. By this point, my legs were already a bit heavy so I tried going easy up them to conserve some energy.

The second half was where things started to go downhill for me. We saw John and Dale around mile 14 which gave me some extra energy to keep pushing until my stomach started hurting. I knew it meant I had to stop and pee so I was on the lookout for a port-o-potty (curse my super hydration and small bladder...). The location of the port-o-potties were a bit inconsistent this year so I didn't know when we would find one. I finally found one after mile 15 and rushed over to it. I told Rachel to go ahead so I wouldn't hold her back. 

I was in and out of the port-o-potty (surprisingly) within seconds and finally felt MUCH better. I could pretty much see Rachel for the next few miles. With tired legs, hills that came out of nowhere, and my motivation drifting away, it was pretty much impossible for me to catch up to her. The crowd support kept me going, though. I passed her just a minute or so before I got to the turn around so that gave me some motivation!

The rest of the race was a total mental game for me. Once I left the party that is called Manayunk, crowd support started to dwindle and so did my motivation to get to the finish line. Each mile seemed to last forever and I had to give myself many pep talks to keep my head in the game (I may have also Face timed my nephew for some extra support...). After passing the marker for mile 24, I knew I wasn't going to finish in under 5 hours unless I really picked up my pace. As much as I tried, it felt impossible. My legs were heavy, my body was tired, and the finish line felt too far away. 

I crossed the finish in 5:02:51! As much as I was disappointed in that moment that it wasn't sub-5, I'm still super proud of my 53 minute PR and being pretty darn close to under 5. I've been thinking a lot since Sunday and #RealTalkTime I acknowledge that I'm a slower runner and I'm okay with that. I don't run a marathon to beat anyone or win, I run them to prove to myself that I CAN do this. I'm only trying to get faster for myself. The fact that I finished my THIRD marathon when I over four years ago I couldn't even imagine running one is amazing to me.

Did I mention it was this girls FIRST marathon?! She rocked it!

In summary, the Philadelphia Marathon will always hold a special place in my heart. It was my first marathon in 2015 and the marathon I keep going back to. I felt stronger than years past going into this race and my time reflected that. It may not have been the performance I planned, but I was thankful to not have any random pains like I've had in the past and ran good paces for a majority of the distance! I was pretty surprised there wasn't much added to the weekend to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Philadelphia Marathon and a lot felt different than previous years, but it was still an amazing weekend!

Third time marathoner right here :)