So this is the first post I’ll be making about various running races and golf rounds. Not sure how this space will build or evolve, but everything needs to start somewhere, and here we are.
The Broad Street Run is one of my very favorite races, and probably the biggest race I’ll ever get to run. It’s put on by the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Department, and the funds raised from the event go toward a few charities, including the Parks & Rec department, which is cool.
Like I usually do, I drove up on Saturday morning pretty early to go grab my stuff from the race’s Health and Wellness Expo at the Philadelphia Convention Center. There was a SLIGHT delay of an hour due to my car’s battery dying, but thanks to some outstanding help from the good folks at a Delaware Pep Boys, I was still in the area by noon.
After popping to get my bib and give the expo a quick once over, I met with friends Matt and Audrey for lunch at Good Dog, a downtown bar and restaurant. The walls are lined with black and white photos of dogs, which is just nice to see. After one year where I had a whole DiNic’s roast pork the day before the race and learning that was a horrid idea, I decided to light with lunch and take it easier for dinner.
My hotel was actually across the river in Camden, NJ. Camden rightfully has a pretty bad rap for a *slight* crime issue it had for the better part of seemingly forever, but has been cleaned up rather nicely over the last few years. The hotel was right on the waterfront and had a nice look at the city, and was quiet enough for a decent night’s sleep.
The race always happens in the beginning of May, nearly always the first Sunday, so the weather is normally not too bad, and this year it was nearly perfect. High in the mid to upper 50s with some light rain in the morning that thankfully let up right before my wave went off.
Now, for how the race went for me: Leading up to the race I started a bit late but was on my training pace that I wanted to be: Training runs at or just quicker than a 10:00 mile, and up to a seven mile run about a month out. And that’s where the wheels fell off.
I pulled a hamstring about two and a half weeks out, just before a scheduled eight mile run. Rested for a bit, then did some low resistance and low impact workouts and got about back to normal. Then I pulled my right calf. Then my left calf. Then, the week before the race I twisted my ankle in a golf cart accident (long story there). So the entire training regiment that I wanted to have was completely borked and I went into this race with one three mile run in the week and a half leading up to the event.
This year’s race started at 7:30 AM for the competitive runners, with waves going every five minutes or so. This meant my group didn’t start until nearly an hour later. It’s really not much of an issue usually, having run the race enough I know to go get a little jog in and do some light stretching but also re-stretch at around 8:00 AM while I’m lined up with my group.
The race starts off downhill. The course itself ends up -175 feet down from the start, but the first five miles, basically to just past City Hall, are kind of rolling hills. The back half, especially the final four miles, are mostly flat with some longer uphill sections. So the hard part, especially for me, is pacing on the downhill section so there’s still gas in the tank for the final three miles.
In 2022 I set a personal best time in the race, 1:37:03. Despite my training going off the rails, I decided to try to copy my race plan from two years ago: Try to pace myself early to give me some pace late. It’s easy to hold a steady and sort of quick pace off the top on the downhills, and I did just that. Through the first five miles, through City Hall, I had been sub-ten minutes at every split save for one at 10:03 on mile four, the first flat mile.
Things were going great. Maybe a little too great, as at this point the original plan of “just try to hold a ten minute mile” was good and gone, with me just going with the flow and holding a far quicker pace than I’d planned on.
Mile Six, the first full mile after City Hall, continued to go well and at the time I was on pace for if not a personal best of the race, a definite sub 1:40 time. Mile Seven is where the wheels kind of started to fall off a tick. I noticed a little tightness in my right hamstring, the one I’d hurt a few weeks back. I continued to run through it but slowed up just a tick, still at a 10:20 pace, enough to still possibly score a sub-1:40 time.
The eighth mile was my Chinua Achebe mile, where things fell apart. The tightness in my hamstring got really tight on a small uphill climb. I had to whoa things way up and trot at an eleven minute mile for a bit to just try to keep moving forward to get to the end of the race. It was super disappointing.
I held that pace through the ninth mile, and on the final mile tried to push a bit. There’s a great downhill into the Philadelphia Naval Yard, and a large banner that tells you you’re a quarter mile to the finish. It’s a really motivating way to get to the end, down that hill and past a wall of people cheering folks on. I got through that, and crossed the line with a 1:42:27, officially 18,062th out of 31,438 runners who completed the race.
That 1:42:27 worked out to a 10:15 average mile. My watch had me at a 10:11 mile, because I’d zig zagged an extra .07 miles down Broad Street. Either way, it’s a little disappointing of a finish given how well the race went through the first seven miles. That said, given how much of a disaster training had gone throughout the month leading up, had you told me at the start that I’d have a 1:42 time and a 10:15 average mile I would have been THRILLED. So in all, no regrets.
The race itself is so outstanding. I won’t ever qualify for a Boston Marathon or New York Marathon, but this race I can get into. And there’s 40,000 people running, and the city absolutely comes out for it. Of the ten miles, there’s people along the course for at least eight of them, and at the finish there’s grandstands full of people and just a wall of folks for the last two. The race is so well put together, it’s just so well done from top to bottom.
My ONLY gripe about the race, and I realize this is a wildly petty one, it’s that some time ago they went away from having the baked pretzel at the finish. There’s still plenty of salty foods and bananas and stuff when you come through the refreshment stand, but back in the day there used to be Philly style baked pretzels and man, I miss those!
My final results were:
– 18,062 of 31,438 overall
– 10,347 of 14,898 men
– 1,131 of 1,619 40-44 men
Next race is the Running of the Bulls 8K in Durham, put on by the incredible folks at Bull City Running!