Sunday, October 14, 2012

Philly Half and marathons #9 and #10

OK, so I haven't had a chance to get my last couple events onto my blog with the start of school and soccer so here goes.

1)Like I said, school started back up so I've been busy with the new class I am teaching and soccer season in full stride.  But my first event of September was a half marathon I was running in Philly.  This race had lots of meaning for me.  This is the same race that my dad used to do when he was an avid runner many years ago.  He had a very good PR in the half of just over 1:30.  He never did a marathon, so I have that on him, but he would remind me frequently that he still had the half marathon record.  Needless to say I wanted to change that.  I had to.  I love my dad, but I also get my competitive nature from him, so I'm sure he expected nothing less than killing myself until I beat him.  Which I did, 1:29:58.  I was totally psyched, because it was everything I had in me to beat it.

2) At the end of the month was marathon #9 of the 12in12in12in12, the Maine marathon.  It was located in Portland, ME and was a mid-size marathon and was well run and fun.  The town of Portland was OK, it didn't feel like Maine though.  I've been to other areas of Maine, Boothbay Harbor and it felt much different.  As you may be able to tell from the picture below, it was wet.  Very, very wet.  It poured rain the whole time.  It wasn't too cold, in the high 50's, but the rain was constant.  I can't complain (much) since it was only our second marathon where the weather wasn't perfect.

 Not a sign I see on the sewers in Pennsylvania.  I did make sure I had a lobster roll sandwich while I was in town, which was only 25 hours.
 Pretty cool, bagpipe player on the route.

3) October's marathon was in Baltimore which made it convenient because it was only a day trip.  It was also great because Craig and I had company for this marathon, our friend Chuck Priestley.  Going into the 12in12in12, we thought we would be able to talk numerous people into running with us.  Going into marathon #10, we had no one who had run a full marathon with us.  Our bud, Tim "takin care of bidness" Bambrick had run the cape may, charlottesville and delaware half marathons with us.  So it was nice to have some company again, and what made it even better was that it was Chuck's first marathon and our 12in12in12 challenge is what kind of motivated him to train for Baltimore.  Here we are together at the end
 Walking past Camden Yard on the way to the start.  That is Craig in his "Where's waldo?" throw away outfit.
 Camden Yard.  The marathon was the day after the O's got knocked out of the playoffs by the Yanks, we heard lots of Baltimorians lamenting about the game.
 This was pretty cool, as we were running around mile 4, we saw this big sign and a lot of cheering.  The dude had just proposed to his girlfriend/fiance, who was running the marathon.  I thought proposing on the beach of Hawaii at sunrise was pretty impressive, but this was pretty memorable I'm sure.  Nice move, stud.
 Not sure what kind of museum this was in Federal Hill, but the outside was a cool mirror mosaic.
 AWESOME RACE SIGN!!!!
 My tribute to Darin Triolo who used to live in Baltimore, this is when we ran through Fells Point
 It wouldn't be an October marathon without someone handing out candy corn!

Next race is marathon #11 in Harrisburg.  Not sure, but I think Chuck had such a great experience with his first marathon, he will run our November marathon with us.  Although, he said that on the way home from this one, he may reconsider when he can't walk for days!