Bullying the Broad Street Run

The Broad Street Run in Philadelphia is one of my favorite races. It's a fast 10 mile race and starts out with a gradual downhill for the first five miles and then flattens out for the last five miles. I have always posted my fastest paces in Broad Street. The race sold out 35,000 spots in 4 hours so it's definitely become one of the most popular races in Philly and maybe even the US. I was lucky when I signed up that I got right in and registered when the registration opened on February 14th. Some of my friends had to wait through server crashes and general slowness when they tried registering. This year's race was extra special for me as the date marked the one year anniversary of my left knee surgery. I was nursing a pulled quad in my left leg, another softball injury, so I had an ace bandage wrapped around my quad to keep it stable during the race.

The race set up very well this year in that it was overcast at the start and a tad on the cool side. I got onto the subway fairly quickly and got to the start with plenty of time to warm up and use the bathroom. I was put into the third corral for the start which is always nice to be with faster runners. This race can cause traffic jams of runners if you get into a wave with a lot of slower runners. Right on cue, Dan met me in the corral prior to the start. The start was very smooth and the runners thinned out pretty quickly. Dan took off and I just tried to manage a pace with the flow of the runners around me. I didn't see the first mile marker but when I got to the second mile, I noticed that my pace was 7:30 minutes per mile. My first thought was here I go again, starting out too fast and knowing that at some point I won't be able to keep that pace. My goal was to finish under in 1 hour and 20 minutes which is 8:00 minute miles. I just kept at it mile after mile and my pace was still the same.

I rounded City Hall and knew to keep an eye out for Ed Rendell as he's usually around the Union League cheering on runners. He was a little further south of the Union League but I got in a high five with Ed as I went by. My 7:30 pace continued through miles 6, 7, and 8. By the time I hit the ninth mile, I thought that I still have a lot of gas in my tank and was feeling great. I picked up the pace for the last mile. I passed the stadiums and was quickly in the Navy Yard. The Finish line is a little hard to see in the Navy Yard but I had an idea on how far up it would be so when it came into view, I went into sprint mode to finish strong. I could see the clock and knew that I would easily be under 1:15. My final time was 1:14:25. My last mile was right under the 7:00 minute mark. It was a very satisfying and gratifying race.

After the race I gather with some of my friends from the West Philly Runners at the Dunkin Donuts tent in the Navy Yard. Everyone was stoked about their races. We were all debuting our new WPR tech shirts which were easy to spot on the race. I noticed James in his shirt around Mile 8 and we chatted briefly until he went on. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the WPR post race celebration because I was heading out for vacation to Myrtle Beach. Needless to say, I was beaming the whole drive which made the nine hour drive go by in no time.