Philadelphia Marathon - Half - RunHalf Marathon

Had moved myself fairly far forward at the start, so it wasn't too bad getting by people who had seeded themselves poorly--but still a little zig-zagging over the first mile. After that I settled into what I thought was a comfortable pace, but was a bit faster than planned. After walking a few paces at a drink station in mile 4 to get some Gatorade down, I re-started at closer to my 7:00 pace.

But by mile 6 it was starting to feel tougher to hold. Walked a few paces at another drink station in mile 7 and knew it was going to be a tough second half. The first hill was in mile 8. It didn't go too badly, but it took a lot out of me. When I hit the next one in mile 10, I apparently really slowed down. After that, I tried to just run steady the rest of the way. Didn't really have the desire (or the energy) to push the pace over the last mile or 2. In fact, I slowed towards the finish and more or less coasted my way in.

Maybe push a little harder in the second half. It was hard to get myself to "hurt" when I was well off my pace from earlier this year. Wouldn't have been much faster, but might have been good to build some racing "toughness".

Walked through the finish area and food tent, grabbed my checked bag and changed into some drier clothes before looking for my parents and then waiting for my sister to finish the marathon.


I had a pretty good idea that 7:00 pace wasn't going to happen today. I probably should have ran ~7:15s and I might have been able to hold that pace steady for the whole race.

Not enough tempo/pace or speed work to try to run close to 7s for me.


The Philly Marathon has gotten MUCH bigger since I ran it just 2 years ago. I think I liked it a little smaller. Still, it's fun to run in Philly and I'll probably do it again someday.