Tomorrow I will tackle my second Philadelphia Marathon and my third marathon overall. Last night I read my blog entry for the first Philly in 2008. Here are my pre-race thoughts for this one.
My two part number one goal is always to finish and have fun. Number two for this year is to try and better my finish time from 2008. Anything under five and a half hours would do that nicely.
When I ran Philly in 2008 I thought it was a one time deal. I had run a marathon now I could stop. After a week or so to recover from it, though, I was ready to try again. Well to try marathoning again. I was still hesitant to do Philly since my experience was somewhat discouraging. I finally decided that I would run a marathon somewhere else - which I did at Disney in 2010 and then try Philly again. Even so, I almost switched my entry to half marathon earlier this summer. I owe the fact that I'm still in it to my wonderful friends and running partners at USAFit/Philly. If you ever want to take up distance running or walking I highly recommend doing it with a group.
I am heading into tomorrow with very high spirits and excitement. I will likely not be alone for all or a good portion of this run; unlike my previous two where, although I met up with others at the start, I deemed myself too slow to stay with them and went off alone to run. This year I have accepted the challenge of the run/walk technique. I, and my running buddies (Anne, Chris, Jeannie, Jen, and Julius) have been running intervals on most of the long runs this season. Typically 2-1/2 and 1's. That's 2.5 minutes running followed by a 1 minute walk break. It has made a lot of difference in the long runs (pun intended). I'm still slow but I feel stronger and less defeated mentally at the end. So I will start out with my buddies and likely be able to keep up. :)
Dave will be there to cheer me on as he always is. Another thing I recommend for long distance running or walking is that you have someone who loves you waiting for you at the finish. Dave will be patiently waiting for me at the end of the race and that means so much I can't tell you. Patiently is the key word for the Philly marathon especially. This is because the seond half is out and back on Kelly Drive between the Art Museum and Manuyunk. That's 2.5-3 hours of waiting and no easy way to get along the course to cheer and see us.
Emma is coming down to Philly for the race too. I was kind of hoping she would - it was so awesome to have both her and Dave there in 2008 - but she has her own busy schedule these days and I didn't want to ask. Last night she told me she is planning to come down.
So between loving family members and awesome running partners I am a very very lucky marathoner.
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