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FLRC Newsletter - December 2004 |
| Philadelphia Story | |
Congrats to the FLRC women, who brought home yet more hardware at the JFK 50 miler, winning first place women's team award.
Some of us boys (and Melissa) were at the Philadelphia marathon—Boris, Dan Friedman, me, and Melissa and Jay. Looks like good times were had by all. Boris ran 2:42:27 and was third master. Dan and I ran together for most of the race, and Dan had an incredible first marathon, finishing in a Clearnote time of 2:59:108. Melissa ran 3:40 with Jay there all the way (sorry we missed you guys) and I ran 2:57:34. Longer account follows.
MARATHON ASSESSMENT: Excellent urban marathon, and cheap ($45 through Oct. 31). Hard to think of another East Coast city marathon where you can drive in an hour and half before the start, park across the street from a Starbucks three blocks from the starting line, stroll past one America's great individual art museums (the Philly Rodin Museum), start at and run past famous landmarks (the Rocky Balboa steps at the Art Museum, Independence Hall), and have a nice combination of late fall scenery (Fairmount Park, the river) and cityscape. The course isn't superfast (it has a slight net uphill and a few too many turns), but the hill at Fairmount Park is minor, aid is good and competently staffed, and the field was pretty competitive but friendly. Lots of age group dudes running at specific paces. There were a few too few portajohns at the start for the enlarged field (7,000), but there are nicely placed woods right on the other side of the Rte 76 ramp opposite the start to compensate. Postrace food was sparse, but good chicken broth, for my money.
START: Boris and I arrived around 5 pm Saturday, picked up our numbers, and Boris bought a bunch of shoes at the decent expo, which was held in tents right at the start on the Eakins Oval. We went back to our hotel by UPenn and endured some insufferable yuppie recreational runners carousing in the freebie lounge. I spent the rest of the evening punching little ventilation holes in my new HNAC singlet with a paper punch. Next morning, we were a little too far from the start to walk, so drove over and found a prime parking place. Temps were high 40s, overcast. During the race they rose into the high 50s, never the 61 degrees predicted but no rain—excellent conditions.
Painful rendition of the anthem at the start, but, thankfully, no mayoral speech. The start wasn't too congested, people were pretty decent about self seeding. A 13 second lag between clock time and my watch/chip time.
RACE: First mile was 6:35. Dan and I planned to run together at 6:45 pace through 20 miles and then see what we had left. I spotted Dan in the second mile and we hooked up. The first four miles, though downtown Philly around Independence Hall, Society Hill, Penn's Landing, etc., was overall downhill, and we ran 15–20 seconds under pace. There was nice but not overwhelming crowd support through this section—but terrific support from the HNAC Scrapple Country contingent. Will and Georgia and Greg M. supplied “Go High Noon" cheers at minimally four separate spots on the course. Boris and Dan unfortunately didn't have singlets, although Boris could have been spotted in retrospect as the guy in the long trunks shadowing the eventual women's winner.
We crossed the river on Chestnut St. in the general UPenn area and began an overall uphill section through miles 6–10. The course turns north here, goes past the Philadelphia Zoo, then through Fairmont Park on the biggest hill of the course. Suzanne Myette (3:05 here a couple of years ago) warned us that the hill was tough, but it didn't turn out to be bad, and was followed by very nice downhills through the Philadelphia Horticultural Society sections of the park. Coming from Ithaca in late November, a nice feature of this race is that there are still leaves on the trees, one caught by Boris. Dan and I were 1:07:42 at 10 miles, just under pace.
Out of the park, the course comes down to the west bank of the unspellable Schuylkill River. Around the half there was a very young-looking Beatles imitation band playing Daytripper, the only such band at this race. Dan and I were 1:28:32 at the half. The course crosses to the east bank just behind the start/finish at the Art Institute. In previous years there was a noisy band of anti-abortion protesters at this spot, for some reason, but this year they didn't come, satisfied, I guess, with having won the election.
The rest of the race, roughly miles 14–finish, is an out-and-back leg on the east bank of the SK. This section has been criticized as boring/demoralizing, but it's pretty for the majority segment in view of the river, and I liked being able to see both the leaders and, on the way back, waves of human agony with a couple more miles to go than myself. At 15–16, Dan and I got split up a little bit, Dan caught me again at 17, but then I got involved with a little group that mounted a spurt through 18–19. 18 to the turnaround at 20 runs through a nice gentrified section where the road narrows providing good crowd support at a welcome time. In this section I saw Boris coming back in the top 50.
I was 13 seconds under pace at 20. In the downhill mile 20–21 back from the turnaround, I tried to pick the pace up a little bit without too much success. The last 1.5 mile has a bit of an uphill, and I fell off the pace there (my final pace was 6:47.3). 2:57:34 was good for fourth place 50-year-old, but Boris and I never figured out where/if they gave out age group awards. We got back to the hotel in time for showers and then went to the zoo to see the gorillas.
Overall, I recommend this race. It's the shortest major urban driving destination from Ithaca, a nice city to visit, and a marathon course that shows off the city nicely.
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