I know this happened a while ago, but I’m going to talk about the 2006 Philadelphia Marathon because it’s probably way more exciting then my awful trip to Jacksonville last week, my stunning loss to Gabe in ping pong the other day, or the terrible music playing in the Looney Bean coffee shop in Mammoth Lakes right now.  I don’t like banjos.

I arrived in Mammoth last August fresh off a bizarre summer of training in Belgium.  My workouts had all been focused toward an 800m race against Terrence Mahon (Team Running USA coach), Brad Yewer (of Flynn Sports Management), and Andrew Kastor (Deena’s husband).  In Belgium they actually invented a new word to describe this race.  I forget what it is, but loosely translated it means “slow guys trying to run fast over a short distance.”  After 6 weeks of running only 200m and 400m repeats, shifting back into marathon training was hard.

Deena was still slightly injured, so I was able to make a slow transition back into high mileage and long tempo runs.  Eventually she was able to get back into a full training schedule and we started having some intense weeks of training.  After a few weeks, things really started coming around.  During September and October I had my best 8 weeks of training ever.  Of all time.  Ever.  I was extremely focused on my goal of winning the Philadelphia Marathon.

The excitement about my training was bittersweet, though, as things were really going well for me, but some nagging injuries were preventing Deena from running at 100%.  It was hard to see her struggling because she had always looked nearly invincible during my other stints training with her.

Deena, Andrew, and I traveled to Philadelphia about 2 weeks before the ING NYC Marathon.  We stayed there until a few days before the race and ran on some great trails at Valley Forge and along the Wissahickon Creek.  It took me about a week to convince Andrew that New York was north of Philadelphia.

After traveling to New York to watch the ING NYC Marathon, I went back down to Philadelphia for my final 2 weeks of preparation for the race.  At this point I started to feel terrible on all my runs.  Everyone kept telling me it was just the effects of tapering so I decided to believe them, even if I didn’t really believe them.  My friend Bob Schwelm, also the owner of the Bryn Mawr Running Company, was feeling the exact same way.  He reassured me that all his best marathons had come after feeling terrible leading up to the race.  A week before the marathon I went into the store and he asked me how I felt on my run.  I told him I felt awful and he exclaimed “YES, me too.  This is great.”  I guess he was right, but it still seemed bizarre to be so excited about feeling horrendous.

Six days before the race I woke up and could barely move.  My back was completely destroyed for some reason.  Maybe it was stress.  I don’t know exactly what it was, but I needed help.  After making many phone calls, I secured an appointment with Dr Timothy Chow, a chiropractor in Lansdale.  The week of the race I went to visit Dr Chow 4 times, and after each visit I felt better.  By the morning of the race, I was completely pain free.

We had a perfect morning for a marathon.  It was about 40 degrees with very little wind.  I was confident in my training and I felt pretty good on my short warm up.  Typically the winner of the Philadelphia Marathon runs around 2:20, so my original plan was to not worry about time and just try to win the race.  This year the race directors had brought in an athlete with a 2:12 PR, so I know winning would be much tougher than I had previously anticipated.

Also, the race had added a ½ marathon that would start at the same time as the marathon and run essentially the same course.  The race directors made no effort to help athletes distinguish between competitors in the marathon and ½ marathon (I know because I asked them directly), so it would be nearly impossible to tell who you were actually competing against in the marathon until the ½ marathon finished.  With this knowledge I decided that my best plan would be to run 2:20 marathon pace for the first half of the race and then try to pick up the pace and catch anyone who was ahead of me.

I planned on going out too slow for the first mile rather than too fast.  I ran what I thought was 5:30 effort, so I was excited that I hit 5:20 and not 5:30 like I was expecting.  It was a way better feeling than when the opposite thing happened last spring in London, nearly causing me to stop at a bar for a few beers with some excited spectators instead of continuing.

I ran most of the first 6 miles by myself, running straight 5:20 pace while the pack around me was alternating between fast and slow miles.  Finally at 6 miles they settled in to a more consistent pace, so I hung with them until they started slowing down going up the hill on mile 9.  Now I was completely by myself.  I could barely see anyone ahead of me, but I knew they were out there somewhere.  The section of the course from miles 9-12 is fairly hilly and there aren’t many spectators.  My pace was fine, but I started to feel tired and was second guessing my decision to pull away from the pack.

Once I got back to the river at mile 12 I instantly felt better.  I passed halfway in 1:09:53, right where I wanted to be.  Just before 14 miles I passed the start/finish area at the Philadelphia Art Museum.  The crowds were huge and loud, and I started feeling really good again.  My dad told me that I was in 5th place, but I couldn’t see any of the guys in front of me.

Running along the river toward Manayunk from miles 14-18 I was running 5:10 pace.  Running faster is usually a good thing, but these splits kind of worried me.  I’ve heard way too many stories about people who felt great in the middle of the race, ran too fast as a result, and then fell apart the last 10k.  I made a conscious decision to slow down from 18-20 to ensure I would be ready for a fast final 10k and a sub-2:20 time.

I hit the brakes coming into Manayunk and ran a few 5:20s, which was hard because there was a long, straight stretch where I could see the guys ahead of me.  I wanted to catch all of them.  I got to 20 miles and quickly did the math in my head to figure out I would run 2:19 if I maintained 5:20 pace all the way in.  I was still afraid of pushing too hard and fading at the end, but there was a downhill coming out of town and back toward the river.  I could see 2 guys within striking distance.  I caught them just after a 5:03 mile 21 and moved into 3rd place.

At this point the runners heading out to mile 20 were on the other side of the road and started cheering me on.  The further I got toward the finish, the thicker the crowd of runners was getting.  It was amazing to see everyone so excited about how I was running.  I barely knew any of these people and yet they were going crazy.  At mile 23 I moved into 2nd place.  I still couldn’t see the leader but this was the first point when I thought I could break 2:18.

Passing mile 25 I realized that winning was out of the question, but I needed only a 5:25 to break 2:18.  “Only,” however, is a relative term.  Yes, 2 hours ago 5:25 would’ve been an “only.”  If I was running downhill, 5:25 would be an “only.”  If I built a time machine and brought myself forward in time from yesterday, 5:25 would be an “only.”  But at this point my legs were burning and the last ½ mile is uphill.  And this hill had been my nemesis in the past.  Pretty much every race in Philadelphia finishes up it, and I’ve run really slow on that mile every single time.  Some people claim there is really no hill there, but I will fight those people to the death.

Fortunately this time I had thousands of crazed spectators cheering me on, so I managed a 5:15 for a 2:17:50 final time and a 2nd place finish.  It was probably the best race I’ve ever run, and I was really happy that it happened in Philadelphia.  Just as important, the time qualified me for the Olympic Marathon Trials that will be held in New York during November 2007.

A large part of running a good marathon is luck, and I was very fortunate to run a race on such a perfect day with such an enthusiastic crowd.  I was also fortunate to have such great coaching from Terrence for the months leading up to the race and to have the pleasure of training with Deena every day.

I know this got really long, so congratulations if you made it this far.  I’m not good at keeping things short.  The end.