Broad Street Run

The Broad Street Run was, by far, the coolest road race I've entered.  It's a ten-mile point to point run, beginning at Central High School and ending at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.  After two or three rolling miles, it's a gradual decent to the finish line and it's considered one of the fastest ten-mile courses in the country.

Because this is a HUGE race (roughly 30,000 runners), everyone is asked to seed themselves by their expected finish time and runners are assigned to various corrals accordingly... I think this is a fantastic idea as you have only runners of similar skill around you, virtually eliminating the need to weave in and out past slower runners at the start.   I anticipated a 9:30 pace and was therefore assigned the 1:35:00 to 1:40:00 corral.

I don't cry often, but can clearly remember two instances this year, one in April, the other here on Broad Street.

This is the first race I've ever run alone and as I sat in my corral at the starting line, I looked across the street at the Albert Einstein Medical Center.  I'm not sure why, but as I was sitting there, it struck me that not only was this the place where I was born but it was also the place where my father died last year.  And so I cried.   

Then, I ran. 

The race started, corral by corral, right on time though it took nearly 15 minutes for my corral to get the command to start. As we crossed the start line and had a chance to glance down Broad Street for the first time, the sight was amazing.  Probably ten thousand runners ahead of me as far as I could see.  Spectators all along the race course.  City Hall roughly six miles away, but straight ahead.  It was simply awesome.  The run into Center City, then down toward the sports stadiums, and then finally to the Naval Yard was everything I hoped it would be.  Challenging.  Exciting.  Fun.

I felt really good coming down the final stretch and was pleased with the run... I finished less than three minutes off my goal time (which I thought was pretty good considering the terrible cramp I had in mile seven).

And vowed that I'd be back to run it again next year.