Brief Race Brief...

The sun has barely cleared the horizon, although we can't see it behind the clouds. It's cold. And windy. And close to 10,000 runners have are lined up along Ben Franklin Blvd. to run a marathon, a half-marathon or an 8K (5-miler). First to go are the marathoners & half-marathoners. The theme song from Rocky blares out of the loud speaker and the crowd roars as the start of the race is signalled.

And thus began my day... Well, actually, my day began a couple of hours before the 7:15am race start time. Much to my surprise, I was even awake! :-)

I am happy to report that I successfully completed my first 8K race! I felt quite good throughout and could even have pushed a little harder. However, I wasn't sure if I'd have enough juice to get me to the finish line, so I ran at a cautious pace at the beginning. My final chip time was 51:43. I met my first goal of getting through in less than an hour, and just missed my second - more silent - goal of trying to finish in 50 minutes. The scary thing is after it was all over, I found myself thinking "Hey, if I can run 8K, then I can probably run 10K..." But not this week! Perhaps it's a good goal to set for the spring. Originally, I had thought I could run a 10K race this fall, but I hardly ran all summer. This opportunity to run 8K presented itself and it turned out to be a good stepping stone.

I'm proud to report that Hubby successfully completed his 11th marathon! The official results haven't been posted yet, so we don't know his exact chip time. However, he believes it will be around 3:45:00. His Boston Qualifying time (BQ) remains elusive and he looks forward to trying again next year for Boston 2009. He experienced problems with his hip flexor and ended up having to walk approximately 4kms; that's a guaranteed slow-down. He finished strong though, running the last 5kms. I managed to see him and cheer him on twice on the route.

Due to the unseasonably cold weather, we didn't stick around for long after he crossed the Finish Line. I had already been waiting around outside for close to 3 hours. After a few minutes to allow Hubby to quickly change into dry clothes, we walked the 2 km back to our hotel.

Needless to say, the rest of our afternoon in our "little apartment" was pretty relaxed. We went out for dinner and are back in for the evening. Tomorrow is our last day to take in some of what Philadelphia has to offer. Yesterday, we took a city bus tour and that really gave us a lay of the land. Now that the race is over, we can use this time to stretch our legs and feast our senses...



pace e bene,