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dilletanteSo this weekend cinnabarine and I ran our second marathon of the year, in Philadelphia.
We talked about going axe throwing afterwards, but neither of us could really walk very well at that point, so we punted. Good thing the Boston-local franchise just opened! :)
Anyway. This time we handily beat the timecinnabarine made on her first marathon when she was 24. Which we expected, from the times we were making in training; although even at the start we were running a lot slower than our training runs, and yet by the end it hurt a whole lot more. I suspect that we need to spend a lot more training time on asphalt instead of cushy treadmills. About 12 miles in my left ankle started to hurt a lot, which continued for the whole rest of the course; by 15 miles there were stabbing pains in all the muscles in both my legs, and I slowed to a walk for a couple of miles (alternating walk a mile, run a mile). Maybe next time I bring a few ibuprofen. cinnabarine kindly slowed to keep pace with me.
Best parts of the Philadelphia marathon: people playing music by the side of the route. Which often meant live bands. Including, in one case, a gospel choir, standing on the steps of their church which we ran in front of. It looked like they had just gotten out of church (it was a Sunday after all). So good!
Also the route was gorgeous. It wound through downtown Philadelphia for the first half, then out along a river and back.
Mixed blessing: we used a phone app, RaceJoy, to track our progress, and friends/relatives could follow us by bib number (and send a variety of prewritten cheers, which would play out loud over our phones). It would also call out the miles, and it was pretty close to right (it tended to jump the gun very slightly). But apparently another "feature" of this app is that companies that donated money to the race could attach their names to particular miles. "You are now passing Dunkin Donuts Mile 4." Uggghhh.
Random: around mile 19 (and again at 21-- the route doubled back at mile 20) some folks were offering dixie cups of beer.cinnabarine tried some on the way out, and I drank some on the way back, figuring my legs were in so much pain maybe it would help. It didn't hurt anyway.
cinnabarine helpfully reminded me a couple of times of my discovery last race that grumpiness and time passing too slowly were probably signs of low blood sugar. "Mile 16 took as long as the first three miles combined!" "Doesn't that mean you should eat something?" And later: "I know that guy's cheering for us, but suddenly it's making me full of rage." "Time for gu?" "Shoot, you're right!" "What was he saying, anyway?" "Sort of stereotypical gym-teacher stuff, like come on, pick up the pace! Only one hour left, don't slow down now!" "You know what? Fuck that guy." This is why she is a joy to run with. :)
This was a much larger marathon than our last one, which was both good and bad. On the bright side, we were never not surrounded by other runners, which keeps the scenery interesting and makes the time seem to pass by faster. Also some of them were wearing hilarious costumes. Like the guy with the eagle hoodie and tights with an eagle over the crotch, over an enormous codpiece. On the down side, it took a surprisingly long time just to get to the start line-- the race was started in waves, and we were in the last wave, which left more than 30 minutes after the first wave. All the mile markers had big clocks on them that showed gun time-- i.e. time from the first starting gun-- i.e. almost completely useless to us.
I brought mylar blankets that I'd picked up from a camping supply store, after having seen some people at a previous race wrapped up in some before the race. As it was, long tights and a longsleeve shirt over a tank top, plus gloves and hat, plus some huddling together for warmth, were just enough to stay warm beforehand, but I was still glad to have them in reserve. And we were handed somewhat smaller mylar blankets at the end of the race, that I'll probably bring to future ones.
And today I can mostly walk ok. :)
cinnabarine and I ran our second marathon of the year, in Philadelphia.We talked about going axe throwing afterwards, but neither of us could really walk very well at that point, so we punted. Good thing the Boston-local franchise just opened! :)
Anyway. This time we handily beat the time
cinnabarine made on her first marathon when she was 24. Which we expected, from the times we were making in training; although even at the start we were running a lot slower than our training runs, and yet by the end it hurt a whole lot more. I suspect that we need to spend a lot more training time on asphalt instead of cushy treadmills. About 12 miles in my left ankle started to hurt a lot, which continued for the whole rest of the course; by 15 miles there were stabbing pains in all the muscles in both my legs, and I slowed to a walk for a couple of miles (alternating walk a mile, run a mile). Maybe next time I bring a few ibuprofen. cinnabarine kindly slowed to keep pace with me.Best parts of the Philadelphia marathon: people playing music by the side of the route. Which often meant live bands. Including, in one case, a gospel choir, standing on the steps of their church which we ran in front of. It looked like they had just gotten out of church (it was a Sunday after all). So good!
Also the route was gorgeous. It wound through downtown Philadelphia for the first half, then out along a river and back.
Mixed blessing: we used a phone app, RaceJoy, to track our progress, and friends/relatives could follow us by bib number (and send a variety of prewritten cheers, which would play out loud over our phones). It would also call out the miles, and it was pretty close to right (it tended to jump the gun very slightly). But apparently another "feature" of this app is that companies that donated money to the race could attach their names to particular miles. "You are now passing Dunkin Donuts Mile 4." Uggghhh.
Random: around mile 19 (and again at 21-- the route doubled back at mile 20) some folks were offering dixie cups of beer.
cinnabarine tried some on the way out, and I drank some on the way back, figuring my legs were in so much pain maybe it would help. It didn't hurt anyway.cinnabarine helpfully reminded me a couple of times of my discovery last race that grumpiness and time passing too slowly were probably signs of low blood sugar. "Mile 16 took as long as the first three miles combined!" "Doesn't that mean you should eat something?" And later: "I know that guy's cheering for us, but suddenly it's making me full of rage." "Time for gu?" "Shoot, you're right!" "What was he saying, anyway?" "Sort of stereotypical gym-teacher stuff, like come on, pick up the pace! Only one hour left, don't slow down now!" "You know what? Fuck that guy." This is why she is a joy to run with. :)This was a much larger marathon than our last one, which was both good and bad. On the bright side, we were never not surrounded by other runners, which keeps the scenery interesting and makes the time seem to pass by faster. Also some of them were wearing hilarious costumes. Like the guy with the eagle hoodie and tights with an eagle over the crotch, over an enormous codpiece. On the down side, it took a surprisingly long time just to get to the start line-- the race was started in waves, and we were in the last wave, which left more than 30 minutes after the first wave. All the mile markers had big clocks on them that showed gun time-- i.e. time from the first starting gun-- i.e. almost completely useless to us.
I brought mylar blankets that I'd picked up from a camping supply store, after having seen some people at a previous race wrapped up in some before the race. As it was, long tights and a longsleeve shirt over a tank top, plus gloves and hat, plus some huddling together for warmth, were just enough to stay warm beforehand, but I was still glad to have them in reserve. And we were handed somewhat smaller mylar blankets at the end of the race, that I'll probably bring to future ones.
And today I can mostly walk ok. :)
