Philadelphia Marathon – Part 1

Before I forget again, a few overdue shout-outs to Jeanne, Colleen, Ben, Jen & Anonymous!   With your help, I’m over $500 raised for the HCU fund!!!

I have a lot of history with Philadelphia.  It’s the city where  I spent most of my weekends during my 20’s, it’s where I ran my first race (the 2006 Broad Street 10 miler), and it’s the site of my first full marathon (the 2011 Philadelphia Marathon).  This will be my 3rd Philly Marathon.  I think I may have unintentionally started a mini-streak.  I’m not sure how long this little streak will last, maybe as long as the Rocky series.

The first year I ran Philly I was a wreck – nervous to the extreme.  It helped that my cousin Maggie was also running the race.  I looked to her for any pre-race advice/tips for the marathon.  She convinced me to purchase a few 5 hour energy shots, and inadvertently taught me my first two marathon lessons:

1. Don’t try anything new on race day

2. Don’t ever adopt Maggie’s race strategy as your own 

As a result of my rookie mistake, my stomach was in knots all day.  But, I did manage to make it to the finish line in one piece!

Last year, I was registered for the full marathon, but hadn’t been training much.  I was considering downgrading to the half marathon.  I decided to just wing it on race day.  At about the 9 mile mark, I was feeling good, and decided to go for it.  Friends of mine from NJ were meeting me at the finish line, and I texted them to hold off on driving into the city – I was going for the full!  My beloved Redskins were playing the Philadelphia Eagles that day in DC.  We won & it was the turning point of our season.  It was also a turning point in my running career.  I gained confidence in that race that I could depend upon my mental game to power through a marathon if my physical game was lacking.

Now – heading into the third installment of my Philly Marathon streak, I decided to google Rocky III.  I apologize diehard Rocky fans, I lost track of each individual movie.  And how could I forget Rocky III?  Rocky fights “Thunderlips” aka Hulk Hogan in a charity match, followed by 2 fights with James “Clubber” Lang aka Mr. T.  This is especially ironic for personal reasons.  Anyway – the Redskins will once again be playing the Eagles this weekend – only this time, the game will be in Philly.  The Eagles have not won a home game since September 30th – of last year.  We have the exact same record as we did this time last year when the Eagles helped turn our season around.  Will this year be a repeat of last year?  I don’t know, I’m dubious.  I was feeling confident coming into this weekend – but now something just feels off, and I’m nervous.  Also, my right knee has been bothering me a bit since last weekend’s 10K.  Maybe it was a mistake to watch this Mr. T. clip….