Philadelphia Half Marathon

The Philadelphia Half-Marathon/Marathon on November 20th came about two months after the Rock 'n Roll half-marathon. I was hoping to be back to full strength but while I was training since the R 'n R half, but I realized that was still unrealistic. The pain in my calves from the natural running form had subsided, which that was certainly a relief, but the speed and endurance would still need more time. With that in mind, I set my goal to simply beat my previous half marathon time and finish around 1:50:00.

The morning of the race was cool but very comfortable for a race in mid-November. As I started the race within the first quarter mile, I was tapped on the shoulder by Dan Kennedy from the WPR and ran with Dan for the first seven+ miles.We were running at an eight minute/mile pace which was faster than I wanted, but figured if I could keep this pace then I would end with a pretty good time.

It wishful thinking on my part to maintain that pace and as we turned onto 34th street before the eight mile mark, I started fading going up the hill past Drexel University. Dan continued on and I just tried to keep a good pace going to finish the last five miles. As I passed the Philadelphia Zoo, I felt a strange sticking sensation on the bottom of my foot. It was like every step that I took, the skin was sticking to the bottom of my shoe. It a huge blister in the making. It seemed like each step was becoming more painful than the previous step. The last few miles I had to take a few walks to relieve some of the blister pain in my foot.

I came around the Philly Art Museum and had some gas to finish the race strong with a sprint to the Finish. I think I wanted to get it over with as the blister was driving me crazy. I finished under my goal with a time of 1:48:51 with an 8:18 min/mile pace. I was certainly happy with the result but kept thinking about what could have been had I not gotten that blister.