Philadelphia Marathon - RunMarathon

Started off by waiting on line to the bathroom with OceanAnnie. It was like 5 minutes to race start and we decided to run back to the start. 8AM rolls around and no gun start. I was suppose to run with OceanAnnie, but the bathroom got the best of me. We wished each other good luck and off I went. So I ran over to the port-a-potty did my business ran back to the pack.

I started off in the back of the pack and caught up to the 4:15 pace group. I saw my hunnie at mile 2. :) Then got to see my mom at mile 3. Then, I saw John at mile 7 and my mom and uncle at the final stretch.

The first 10 miles were hard. The crowd support was good. The water stops were spaced out a bit weird though. I walked through almost every water stop and forced myself to take that little break. Relaxed a bit and got into my pace up to where the half marathon split from the full marathon. It was kinda of cool though. I made my 1/2 marathon split just in time to the first place men's marathon finisher and the first place women's marathon finisher come in.

The last 12 miles were an out an back loop. The out was tough, since you wished you were on the otherside making it back to the finish line.

My stomach got the best of me at mile 22 and had to make a pit stop. Thankfully, after my pitstop I felt better and ran better making it to the finish line and avoiding the wall. Thanks to the crowd and the volunteers and the couple who had all those signs on the last major uphill. It reminded of me when you're driving down south and you see South of the Border signs, waiting to see what lies at the end of trails of signs. What a cute couple!

I saw the final stretch and gave it all I had. Seeing my mom and uncle on the last 200m gave me that final boost.



Strengthen my knees more.

Just because the half marathon finished, doesn't mean the race finished. When I got to the finish line it was so sparse. I had no idea where I was going and it was just overall disorganized. I got my own blanket, had to find out where to get my medal. There weren't any signs any where telling you where to go. It just seems like the who whole finish line was looted.

But I found my way and made it to the bag check. So from where I initially left my bag at the curb, which I thought would be on a truck, it was either outside of the tent now or in the tent. I was praying I would find my bag. Lucky it was red, and I was able to find it in the heap. Got my bag and made it over to the meeting spot with my family.

Had some yummy Chinese food in Chinatown and took a Philly Cheesesteak to go. :)


My knees were hurting but I was able to run through it.


I gave this race a 2 since it just lacked organization. From the race number pickup, to the way the bags were handled. The course was nice. But the organization sucked. First of all, they had the expo and the number pickup in the same tent. So, you had to go all the way to the back of the tent through the people shopping at the expo to get your number. It just was not very organized, and the whole place smelled like hot dogs. Bag check or lack thereof. Apparently the trucks got shooed away by the police so instead of dropping off the bags in trucks, they just got dropped off on the side of the road. For lack of time, I couldnt drop it in the tent which was another mess. Lucky I didn't use the Philadelphia Marathon bag, but my own bright red bookbag. So I found my bag inside the tent in a random pile. No number check or anything.

The race course was great. Volunteers and support were excellent. Everything before and after the race was mediocre at best.