Embracing the record November Heat at TCS New York City Marathon

Getting my fourth star was a heck of an adventure at the NYC Marathon! 

I am grateful for getting in by the ballot for first time this year (after nearly a decade of failed attempts)! The odds were better due to return to pre-covid levels, doubling the field size at 50K as compared to a year ago. I'm guessing the ballot odds improved from 2% to 10%. 2021 was also the 50th anniversary, which compounded the interest. Jen made it her mission to complete the 50th last year for the bling, and it was a recon visit for me to support/cheer for her last year. 

It was neat that one of Jen and my favourite elite runners Keira D'Amato achieved her 4th Star for this year's race as well. We met her briefly for a fanboy/girl photo and chat at our last marathon adventures in Richmond, VA.

Prior Week Lead-in

If I have learned anything from my 11-multisport races earlier this year, the pre-week logistics will be important for marathon prep. 

Sleep. Rest. Hydration. Carbo-load. Salt-load. Hopefully top up on them check-check-check-check-and-check.

I flew in to meet Jen in Boston Tuesday night. I needed a day to recover from the air travel from Vancouver and then linked up the local Tracksmith team for a Wednesday night track workout. This was when news broke out that we would be receiving record November humidity conditions for race weekend (24C and 60-80% humidity). Secretly thinking to myself, I actually preferred this as I am highly familiar with these conditions for the latter part of my summer races. 

The Tracksmith workout was 3 sets of (300m@3k pace + 100m active recovery) with about 3 minutes static recovery between sets. I modified the 3km to 5km pace. For me anything under 5k pace IS my 5k pace, 3:30-3:45 per km. It felt comfortable for marathon taper. 

The next day's plan was to then make the 4-hr charter bus ride down to New York after Jen's work day was completed. On the way to the bus stop, Jen wanted to stop again at the Tracksmith store but this time to pick up a 3-inch run shorts for me. I tried them on and told Jen that I was definitely gonna break the never-try-anything-new on race day rule. It felt so great, the fabric just hugs you.

T-minus up to less than 1-2-days from the marathon, I made sure to keep sipping tiny amounts of electrolytes and hydration for body to absorb the nutrition.

Race Strategy Tips

Jen told me about the Shalane Flanagan pro-trick of carrying a small disposable water bottle to casually sip between 0-3 miles since we spend about 25 minutes in the holding pen with no aid. For humid conditions, this was especially key for staying hydrated.

Mile 12/18 (KM19/28) were the SiS jels stations. Fortunately for me I packed the same ones on my race bib belt. (5 with me and maybe pickup two at each jels station). 

Hills were sprinkled all over the course. Jen says not to worry about looking for splits on the watch. The 5km splits gut-check is a better increment. The mile 1 was the biggest hill climb and descent but was no big deal. This was a good warmup to the race. 

Jen says 25km (mile 15.5) was the beast of the race where the business part of the race begins. She said that her old coach told her if you can get to the top of Queensboro (it's about 2x Vancouver's Burrard bridge) feeling good, you'll have an excellent race for rest of the way.

Oh, but Jen warns me that there are still hills along route. Don't over do it on the down from Queensboro and wait two more km before using 1st Ave crowds to carry you with forward momentum. 

The long gradual forgotten hill of the 5 is at 37km (mile 23). This is a long grind at the back end, which will be soul crushing despite its gentle grade on paper.

Race Morning Lead-in

3:50am wakeup time. 

4:33am the train arrives in Brooklyn to get to Manhattan for the mid-town bus ride. Jen was kind to walk me to the station and direct me onto the right train! Sometimes the race brain just need some reassurance. :)

5:20am arrived at 5th and 42nd by walking 20minutes as warmup. I was about 20minutes late from my bus time.

5:40am lines were zig-zaging and made it onto one of the many buses.

6:50am arrived at Staten Island. I see why we need to get here so early as the bottom deck of the Verrazano bridge on left hand side will need to be cleared from motor traffic. This is where eventually my green route takes me for first few miles.

8:45am wave 1 pen closes (I barely managed to sneak in before closing time - rookie mistake).

9:10am start time for me. I think this is one of the more organized starting pens from my experiences at majors. There are three coloured routes to lead-in together (blue/orange/green). Each colour has A/B/C/D/E/F corrals that is heavily gated. There are also 5 waves each starting 35minutes apart. I was in Green wave 1 corral B. 

All in all, despite long morning lead-up and race nerves, it was very smooth for a rookie like me to get to the start given the masses.

The Marathon

Oh right the marathon part. Now just having fun and executing the race. 

The day-light saving time helped with logistics but it didn't help with the temperature. The sun was on full blast.

Just coming off the Mile 1 Verrazano bridge and many shirts were fully drenched in sweat. Lucky for me in the Green wave, we ran under cover on the bottom deck and were sheltered from the wind and sun. We also had the 3:00 hour pace bunny just slightly ahead in the A corral. I don't think the other blue and orange had a 3:00 bunny (maybe a 3:05 one?).

My game plan was to keep the pace bunny in sight. There were many runners so loosing the bunny wasn't a concern as I had many to run with. 

At mile 3 to 8 we run into Brooklyn with the three colours merging. I caught the bunny and stayed on the left hand side to avoid the crowds. Sure enough, I heard many cheers for Casey (Neistat), later realizing he's a famous American YouTuber. 

Mile 8 was within proximity to where we were staying and I couldn't find Jen. I noticed the crowds in Brooklyn were three rows deep (much denser than compared to last year's event). Jen said she saw me!

🛫💓👍🐎🙌

Mile 8/KM13 was a little bottleneck as the three routes merged. I lost sight of the pace bunny and didn't want to burn matches to keep up. At this point, I still felt like a rockstar and keep the HR below 159bmp (my max is 178bpm). The crowds were amazing and constantly cheering "Go Canada!" Every so often paper graffiti will light up the run course. I was saving my matches for km25/37.

Mile 13/KM21, I caught a struggling teammate from FsRC and I encouraged him to try latching onto my legs. 

Halfway point, I hit the timing mat at 1:29:54. I still felt strong at this point. HR still below 159bmp.

Mile 14-15/KM23-24 I got a nice surprise in Queens! Our good friends Brendan and Lawrence made a trip from Ottawa to cheer us on! We caught up later briefly after the race.

Mile 15.5/KM25 The BE(A)ST part of the race aka Queensboro Bridge! I held strong and reeled as many runners gracefully as I can without killing the legs and working the lungs. My HR peaked at 172bpm at this point of the race. Body was kicked into overdrive to keep the core cool. Luckily this bridge was also covered and we ran on the bottom deck.

Mile 16/ KM26 was the descent from the beast which smashed my hips flexor. My pacing started to unfortunately slow down from 4:15 to 4:30-45. My HR still kept strong at 165bpm. I still felt in control from the waist upwards. 

Mile 17/KM27 Back onto Manhattan 1st Ave and I remembered Jen's wise words of letting the crowds carry you along. I can hear the super shoes vibrating and doing its thing. My RC Elite v2 were kicking in now at full force. Rule #5 time! Legs need to HTFU!

Mile 22/KM37 the last grind on 5th Ave held no mercy. I saw at least two puking on course. Many walkers along the blue line that I had to dodge. The crowds were thinning. Carnage everywhere. I think I was one of the few still chugging along despite going a 5-7min positive split forecast, I was still moving upstream.

Coming into Central Park - home stretch

Mile 25-26/KM40-42 I was checking my watch to see how much further I needed to go. This was where Jen caught a glimpse of my form. Slowly the calves were getting tight. And the quads were getting tighter with every step. I was locked into survival mode now (steady as I go, goal was to not stop running) as I lit my final matches of the race. I knew if I stop, the legs will lock up. Luckily the HR was still pumping strong at 165bpm. No more matches left in my gearbox.

Great Job Winston, you look GRRRREAT!😆

800m/400m/200m to go signs. Each one brutal and agonizing. I was thinking I needed Jen's shoulder to cry on at the finish. 

800/400/200m to go!

Finish ALAS! I ran up to 1m to go and then walked across, not anticipating I needed to run anystep further. But one of the finish catchers volunteer immediately ran up to me and told me "Congratulations...but you got to go!". He carried me off the view of the finish so I didn't block anymore photos. 

Funny on our Zwift virtual cycling team on thursdays, we do team time trials. Basically 4 of the up to 8 members need to finish and the team time is taken from the 4th finisher. One of our respected vets always says "no disrespect, but we gotta go" as a hint that the 4-man train needs to severe ties to the weaker links team members. I had a chuckle that I had to run more distance despite crossing the finish already.

There was a timing mat for exiting and that took me almost 20 minutes to walk off site. Jen greeted me at the finish intersection. 

Marathons are Hard! Glad to get⭐⭐⭐⭐!

I always forget how hard a marathon is.

My interpretation of NYC elevation profile

Finished 3:07:24/ 33rd Canadian / 1058th place (top 2.2% of finishers)

Post Race Thoughts

Super happy about my race execution and placing! This was one of my best. A faster time will need to come another day. :) Got to respect the distance (and enjoying the post race recovery). Kudos to all the NYC finishers!

Thanks for reading! 

Back to Back weekends of racing, this time in Edmonton - Sprint Triathlon

Celebration (my TT bike) finally got the call up for this race! It was like switching up the goalie for back to back weekends of racing. Covid has made August a busy race season. It was suppose to be the World Championships for 2020 but long story short a year of deferrals and another year of international travel restrictions resulted in a local fun branded race (with the same WC finals title lol). 

Last time I wanted to race here, I forgot to sign up! Celebration wasn't too impressed with me in 2019. I didn't make that mistake this time. David was there with me last time, and I'm thankful he decided to join me again for 2021 edition. Worst case scenario, at very least I can say I DNS/DNF/DQ onto the results page instead of the shutout.

Here is a gift for me for qualifying onto Team Canada for this race! David was upset he didn't get one, but I reminded him the management fees we already paid to make him feel a little better!

The Swim (51st fastest split)

The one clockwise loop has remain consistent over the years. There is a little tiny beach run for the start. I've done the standard twice in the past, but this was the first time I only needed to do one lap! I chose to start on the right side about 7 spots from the end.

T1 was a good place to make back some time with a long run and a wetsuit transition.

The Bike (11th fastest split)

The bike was two large loops going in counter clockwise direction. We avoid the Emily Murphy hill by going around the less steeper Groat Road. There were a couple construction zones where no passing was allowed on Groat Road for the second hill along the out and back part. The conditions were wet and windy. I was impressed that road bikes were keeping with me as I was nervous not being in the drop position. This planted the seed that maybe I should had brought the road bike for this race!

T2 was pretty straight forward

Lots of room!

And the most fun, the run. (18th fastest split - also finishing 18th overall)

The one counterclockwise loop was half trail and half road. We didn't do the bridge to the zoo part this year. Perhaps it was a smaller footprint for this year. I made quite a bit of ground on the bike and the run I actually felt like a was moving backwards from the people up front.

Against My AG, I was lucky to sneak in the W for this race. But this race was dominated by the U23s!

Overall, David also finished first in his AG and 18th overall in the standard. I was happy we shared similar results! 

Hold my beer! Time to race again in less than another 2 weeks.

Covid has forced me to be more spontaneous in my race planning this year. Thank you for reading and joining on my journey! :)

A thousands turns and stairs transitions - Montreal ITU Groupe Copley World Triathlon

Racing is back! 

After 16 months of virtual racing and no IRL racing, I'll take anything I can get...even if there are endless steps to meeting all the health enforced covid protocols.

Whelp, I spoke too soon! These lovely stairs were a third of the battle of a very challenging T1. A snaking ramp to exit the water and along with another 400m ramp greeted us on the other end to get back onto the street level after transitioning inside on the parkade. Super cool concept, the race can be lost here alone!

I took Celebration off the zwift setup and had to polish off the dust from the race wheels, installed the carbon brake pads and swapped over power meters. One of my virtual racing friends Edmund mentioned he was doing the race too and we compared notes. First thing he mentioned was previous top 7 finishers all had road bikes. Certainly, it was a strong business case to opt for the road bike.

Sorry Celebration, you'll have to wait a little longer for the next one!

My good friends Brendan and Lawrence were very kind to drive me to Montreal from Ottawa for this weekend's race. Lucky for me the humidity was going away and surprisingly perfect temperatures for race day. ~21 degrees C air temp and 24 degrees C water temp. It started to sprinkle a little bit to saturate the roads in the morning. I rode in and spotted a quick recon of the run route.

No biggie, as flat and paved and straight as one can make it.

Check-in was super efficient. We showed up only an hour in advance of our designated start time. iTT format. I met Edmund and we walked past security together to enter zee process. We learned later the times were only meant to separate the crowds as the race permit had to follow stricter protocols during the time of its application.

Swim - running dive start off a pontoon, we had to sight for first right buoy and then four left ones.

T1: Oh M Gee whiz stairs and ramps to enter the third floor of parkade to reach transitions racks.

Bike: F1 style 11-turn circuit x 6 laps + 2 turns for enter/exit = 68 turns! Turn 1 was a dead turn 180 degrees. Along McGill between Turn 2 and 3 was elevated concrete sidewalks and potholes. 8-90 degrees turns allows you to undercut those pesky TT bikers who just blasted along the straightaways.   

T2: ramp up and then a little swing around to make the transitions fair for distance travelled. Thinking back, I should had just racked my bike in rack Z to have more space! Instead I chose rack C.

Run: we do 2 laps out and back (CCW). After the killer bike and two technical transitions, a tame run course was welcomed.

This was sprint #22, triathlon #72 for me. 

I started mid-front pack and entered the waters 8:53am. They sent an athlete every 15s starting at 8:40am. Rookie mistake, my goggles straps were loose so when I dove in, the goggles filled with water. No argie-bargie swim, we had a lot of space and maybe a handful of swimmers passed me.

T1 was a little rusty, I crossed the mount line and remember pausing for a second until another person passed me.

The bike course definitely favoured the locals. After the race I spoke with a couple locals and they were thrilled to take advantage of local knowledge of the road network. They probably could had wrote a manual of where all the man holes and elevated concrete sidewalks (you need to bunny hop these) and pot holes and alligator cracking and more. It took me a couple laps to realize I wasn't being aggressive enough to cut the turns. Every so often a biker would pass me and I would copy their speed and approach to each turn. Brendan and Lawrence was at turns 7, 8 and 9. Brendan yelled "BOP BOP BOP BOP" swiss-german (reminds me of IM Zurich).  He yelled it with such confidence, I made sure to push 500watts as I rode by!

I thought I was cutting the turns aggressively, but watching the olympians the next day I realized there were still a lot more angle required for the turns! A lot of trust to keep the shiny side up and the rubber down.

I trusted I counted 6 laps of the course, but second-guessed myself at the finish turn because my garmin only had 17.8km. Did I miss count a lap? I processed this info and decided to take an extra 200m and then when making turn 1 on lap 7 I took a gamble and turned into the finish. Either I get DQ for missing a lap or I save myself 5 minutes for another lap. It paid off in the end! Bike was short (Transitions were long).

T2 was eventful. I can remember missing taking my shoes off due to the 30s blunder of the extra turn on the bike. As I approached my rack, my neighbour happened to be there as well. I cleaned my bike stem when I rebuild my bike and the front handle bars dangled into his area. After the race, he was kind enough to ask me English or French and then decided to give me a lecture on how my bike dangling into his area caused him to forget his run belt and he had lost 40 seconds. I didn't think much of it as it was pretty much a mad scramble of events. I didn't confront him and apologized. Next time I'm moving my bike to rack Z! 

Run. I think this was a bike heavy course. I moved from swimming 86th to 50 after T2 and then finished 40th. Deep field! I was only 5 minutes from my AG winner but finished 5th. The run felt more like a hobby jog. A few runners passed me. One flew by me but then he took a second lap as I took the finish. iTT are tough to know who is in front and behind.

Two more power graphs on bike. Knowledge is power. Don't you want to feel powerful? :)

Overall, glad I wasn't Dq-d for missing a bike lap! I told Brendan, wow this is what racing feels like again. I had a blast to say the least. 

Thanks to Edmund for recommending the road bike!

Some good catch up with Alum UBCTCers!

Thanks for reading!

The race of 2020 - UBC Tri

UBC Tri/Du. 

Ugh, it sure seems like a distant memory now, but I figured I'll still blog about how it all went down despite it being suppose to be the opener race of the tri season, and now we all are realizing it's the end as well... 

Over this winter, training for swim has been extremely well clocking consistently 3x per week with these fine folks at UBC Tri Club. Some home turf prep and course familiarization certainly doesn't hurt at all, haha.

I've done this race maybe over a dozen times over the years, but this will be my first one in 3 years and also my first one swimming in the new aquatic pool. 

I had to re-learn the race setup. Re-programed the watch with an indoor swim tri. Studied the turns as the turnaround for the bike has changed. Analyzed the past top 2 winners Josh and Lishan's times and kept telling myself I shouldn't be disappointed at all if I were to finish third behind them! 

As you can clearly tell, I'm totally the type of guy who like to study all the known variables and then optimize the time savings based on objective data.

The swim is 700m in a 50m pool. Start from the left end and snaking back and forth in each lane until the 7th lane on the right. Follow the carpet and a little walk to the wet bag transition was catching the volunteers off-guard. As opposed to the old pool setup when you had to "walk" or ehem fast walk on deck around 3 lengths of the pool before actually getting the wet bag.

I debated and concluded I would check-in a luxury wetbag anyways to drop off the flipflops after walking from transition to inside the pool and keeping some luxury arm warmers. But I kept the key essentials like Jacket and Helmet still at T1 at the bike to be safe. The race heats were a very long wait for me. I got there super early to watch Heat A as it went down the alphabet. Mine was Heat I, 2nd last one for the sprints before the Collegiate heat (all the fast university kids). Luckily they separated us from them fast kids. As we were waiting for our turn, I saw outside the window it was snowing! Flakes and melting on pavement luckily. 

I made sure to line up behind 5-6 people faster than me, but not too far down into the mid-pack. As we took off, the time was started minus 10 seconds from entering the pool. They no longer given a friendly volunteer to touch on on the back to begin (fitting for social distance measures). The swim was a PB for me, I pushed as hard as I could as I knew the seconds were precious. A few faster girls passed me but otherwise super smooth sailing. I wasted about 2 seconds looking for the wetbags, but then quickly abort operation as they were still trying to read my arms tatoos for the numbers. It was about another 200m run to transition. Super technical, any unseasoned good swimmer could unconsciously given up years of hard fitness earned in this split moment.

The bike is a 2 lap course out and back for the sprint (quicker turnaround than the historic point at Kullahun, and longer up to bookstore for the new lap count). I put on some toe covers but apparently not enough to keep the core warm.

As I rode down SW Marine, both the race leaders Josh and Lishan biked passed me as if I was moving backwards and with an invitation to ride faster. I saw them whipped by and then consulted the bike computer. I said to myself, "NOPE, no thank you!" Clearly they were biking more than my capability, as I was already outputting my ideal 230 watts (3.6/kg). I took the little chicane super gingerly given the wet snowly conditions. Goal 1 not taste wet snow pavement. Goal 2 keep around 3.5-6 w/kg range.   

I got off the bike and no longer have any feeling sensation on the toes. The first 3 km was awful. But as blood circulated back into the toes, km 4 and 5 felt faster. 

By this point I was happy to hold 3rd overall. I had some pressure as 4th, 5th, and 6th were all less than 1 minute away and hot on my heals. Any weakness for another clothing item would cost 30 seconds and potentially the difference in 3 places. 

I think my individual splits were not overally impressive by any means.

S:14th (PB!)

T1:5th

B: 9th

T2: 30th (bad toes, bad bad toes)

R: 5th

Coach Jen said I could probably gone faster on swim bike and run. She was not happy. Translation in plain English: A sign of a good coach is moving the goal post immediately, and not saying "Good Job" ra ra ra after the race. 

As I did say earlier, can't be too bummed out about 3rd now can I? Those seconds were really optimized to perfection. :D

Kudos to FsRC gang here David T. (missed him in this picture), Jonathan and Thomas did their own 5km races in West Van and then came all the way to campus to support the race! So cool!

Thanks for reading.

COVID-19: Lessons on how to keep safe. Stay home, be kind, and...LISTEN to your cat (if you have one)!

COVID-19 has caught the world by surprise in the month of March. Like for many of you, and for the racing world, our calendars have been pretty much flipped upside down. Thank goodness for our health care workers fighting the front lines and grocery workers and delivery drivers keeping society functioning. Let's make some pots and pans noise for them at 7pm everynight.

Away from the action, there are some tips on being safe for us stay-at-homers... 

Unfortunately, I learned that lesson the hard way. And oh boy I was in for a "deep" waters surprise. On the day our province of BC declared a state of emergency (on March 18, 2020), I had my own little home emergency. 

Basement flooded! Yikes!

Your questions answered:

1. Yes, that is an inch thick of pooling cold water. The landlord's toilet intake pipe broke and water funnelled down the path of least resistance (i.e. into hallway, then into the laundry room and down to the lowest point in my pain cave).

2. No, that's not an indoor triathlon swimming pool.

3. Yes, my first thought was "Noooo not the smart trainer!"

4. Yes, lesson learnt. The cat had every right for knocking on the door at 4:30am earlier in the morning. After zombie walking to feed him and didn't realizing the adjacent room had flooded. Thank goodness for work at home policy in effect. It was only day 2 and dumb luck that the landlord happened to be home and we spent the morning scooping out more than a dozen buckets of water.  

Power cords hanging around for some dry time.

Jen's little mugs snuck off for a little swim too. Shhh!

Why leave shoes clipped in on bike you say? I have been training for most of my adult life to survive a basement flood. They may say leaving your cycling shoes clipped in on the bike is absolute laziness, but it did saved them from getting wet during the home disaster. A Game Changer!!!

My 2020 Race Calendar flipped upside down. T.T

Here it is again in graphical format.

And log format.

Here's a final recap.

Min Min not so impressed with me.

Great conditions and first race of 2020 - First Half RR

The First Half is a great race to start the year and decade, and it was perfect conditions this year. Unfortunately for me I wasn't ready to race the entire distance as I was still coming back from a slower than normal build up. 

Raymond having some fun as a pacer.

The route is a small counterclockwise loop around the BC Place stadium and then heading in opposite direction from the start line to make a giant counterclockwise loop around Stanley Park. 

It's always good to start the first few kilometers easy. I was settling in and around 12km was when my body had given up. Long story short, I raced 12km at 3:55 to 4:00 per km pace and suffered the last 9km with slightly easier running going 4:20s per km. The 20km per week volume for January had enough. I was aiming for 1:24, but finished in 1:27. It's amazing how competitive and many locals came out for this race. The 3 minutes of slowing down didn't feel too good as I think a good half a dozen friends made me move backwards! Kudos to Michael S, Geoff, Drew, Tyler, Nuru and few others for staying consistent. Anyways hopefully more mileage (anything more than 20km per week ;) ) slowly will help me return to my regular form in the next month or so.

It was nice to see some spectators along course. Under the Granville bridge with the large chandelier art piece, Coach Dimitri had the best cheers, but I wanted to pull out at that point if nobody was watching! T.T Ben M. saw me finish in chill fashion, unfortunately that was as quick I could go. 

Coach Jen keeps reminding me which races I want to do well in 2020. First Half didn't make the top 10 list but it's a good to get towards racing form again. :)

I didn't realize Garmin connect and Strava wipes out a lot of the activities beyond 5 years. Maybe that's good for minimizing risks for privacy and data storage issues. I did a little digging for the 2014 and 2015 data. 

Notes:
2017 was a snow year.
2015-2016 I used to bike a lot!
The races in 2014 and 2015 we had 7 weeks lead up to the race.

A chilly one to finish off the decade - Philly Marathon RR

The Philadelphia marathon certainly attracts some serious talent near the end of November when everyone is ready and available to tackle on one more qualifying time for the next big race in 2020. 

New for 2019, the race organizers separated the events over the weekend allowing some reduction in bottlenecks. The half marathon was on Saturday. The marathon was on Sunday.

Travel in Philly is easily manageable without the car. We were able to hop on the next bus from New York. The bus and train terminals and convention centre race expo and start and finish all within walking distance of each other. In addition a Trader's Joe grocery store even popped up only a month before this race and near the convention centre. 

Celebrities were also on hand. It was the Meb and Des show. 

Des said to Jen, "I remember you!" 
Funny it must had been from seeing her in San Antonio last year.

Security gestured 1 minute to hold up the crowds as Meb and Jen briefly exchanged some kinds words while I failed to look into the camera.

The route is a giant single clockwise loop similar to Berlin, with the start and finish close to a landmark feature (i.e. the Rocky steps). There is an out and back latter half section in the scenic Fairmount Park just behind the Rocky Steps. The stretch between 8 to 12 kilometres is my favourite section running straight through the downtown core on Chestnut Street with lively cheers.

I was able to settle in with the large packs to shelter from the cold, wind and rain. Every time I made an attempt to grab drinks at the aid stations, I could feel the weather elements, but shortly afterwards I was able to tuck right back in the groups. I was actually running the same pace and working together with others, unlike Berlin where there was a lot of congestion pace shuffling. The sub 3-hour pace group did a perfect job. This was the race to nail a good time even despite the harsh conditions. 

To give you a sense of size and depth of the marathon field, this race is basically a third of Berlin Marathon.

• For Berlin, I finished in 3:03 at roughly 2,900 out of 44,800 marathon finishers with an official time. 
• For Philly, I finished in 3:05 at roughly 520 out of 13,000 marathon finishers with an official time.
• Also earlier in the 2019 year for DC, I finished in 3:03 at roughly 50 out of 1,500 marathon finishers with an official time.

Welp at least one positive is all three 2019 marathons had 1:29 half split. Consistency is my constant.

The wheels came off around 30km. It's too bad my hips and calves died, but given my recovery post Berlin and lack of build up, I'm not surprised. I was ready to burst into tears at the finish. Soul crushing.

What surprised me was my age group rank at 117th was already broken down by gender and 5-year rankings. I didn't even crack top 100!! I can see why Philly is advertised as one of the top 10 races in the US.

Lucky for me the finish was not at the top of these Rocky steps.

Yes, the Liberty Bell rings too.

As published by marathon investigations, hundreds of cheaters were removed from the results page. Despite this, it is was too bad that my rank still didn't improve...haha! Also in regards to the incorrect corrals starts, I did struggled but eventually did find my proper corral in the dark and wet morning. Race organizers should note that letters would had been better.  

Start Map

Pre Race

Post Race - Philly Cheesesteak with American cheese was a must!!

Post-Post Race - New Haven food trucking...amazing!

Jen decided taking selfies wasn't her in plans but running it was - the Rocky Steps. 

We had time to check out the Christmas markets and gondola in New York! Well correction: Jen really wanted to squeeze in a swim workout in between actually! We went to the local pool on Roosevelt Island.

Thanks for reading. Happy new year!