Hey fellow runners and friends,
Ready or not the holidays are here. ~ I hope you had a Wonderful Thanksgiving Weekend! Before you know it, we will be celebrating Christmas, with December right around the corner.
Stepping back a bit to last weekend… The Philadelphia Marathon was another memorable weekend for me over 20,000 other runners and spectators.
The highlight of my Philadelphia Marathon weekend was working and volunteering at the 2016 Philadelphia Marathon Health & Fitness Expo. On Friday and Saturday, I worked in the Seminar Area, introducing and presenting awesome speakers and presenters like marathoner and author, Bill Rodgers, Deneen R. Young, YoungLife Coach~Beyond Fit and Mark Sullivan, coach with irunicoach.com and LEGacy runner with the Philadelphia Marathon. And I was the announcer on Saturday encouraging runners to attend the Seminar Area.
On Saturday, I was blessed with the opportunity to serve as a Half Marathon Pacer with Philadelphia Runner on Saturday, November 20, 2016. I was joined by fellow Pacers, Leslie and Molly as we lead runners to a 2:15 finish on the new half marathon course. As a Pacer for half marathoners, the experience is truly rewarding, while the race was challenging, due to the back to back hills the downhill and the flat course after mile 10 was welcomed after we tackled the tough second hill that felt more like two hills.
I was happy to serve as a Pacer this year to help runners accomplish their race goals, after running the 8K in 2010, the half in 2011, the marathon in 2012 and the half again in 2013. Last year and the year before were my first year not running the race (2014 and 2015), since I was a part of the Marathon Internal team and worked behind the scenes on race day. This year I just worked onsite at the Expo.
Also, this year was different, because we ran on a new course. As I mentioned above the course was a challenge, especially if you don’t think of yourself as a hill runner or if you didn’t train on hills. Another major thing was if you were familiar with the previous course, it had less hills and it you had the opportunity to run on Chestnut Street in your own personal parade among Philly fans and friends. At least it feels like a parade when you are running through the Philly streets. Fond memories from my previous half and full marathon.;-)
As I wrap up my thoughts about the half marathon, a word that comes to mind is perspective. Some people loved the new half marathon course, some people preferred the previous course. The great thing about running and life, it’s all about what you choose to focus on. Some people chose to focus on the beautiful fall day. We had sunshine and warm weather, despite it being a little chilly at the start, it felt more like a spring day after the race got underway.
The marathoners on the other hand had a cold windy day. Despite the colder temperature it was actually a better day temperature wise for the marathon so much so that the men’s winner, Kimutai Cheruiyot set a course record of 2:15:53 and the women’s winner, Taylor Ward finished with a time of 2:36:23. Also, several of my friends that ran the marathon set personal records. ~ Great Job marathoners!! ~ I am looking forward to 2017 already and marking Philly as my 4th marathon.
RunPRDawn 