2019 Philadelphia Half Marathon Race Recap

I grew up in Central Jersey and was raised to believe that Philadelphia sucks. The Eagles suck, the Phillies suck, the people suck, cheesesteaks suck. It all sucks! I’d also be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to remind you that it’s a sub, not a hoagie.

OK, fine. Cheesesteaks are great. I also have a few friends who grew up in the area, including my brother-in-law. But still!

When I decided to sign up for the 2019 Philadelphia Half, Jess responded by saying, “You hate Philadelphia. Now you want to go out of your way to run 13.1 miles there?” Eventually, we both heard a lot of things about the race that made it seem really appealing. And by “we both heard a lot of things,” I mean I talked her ear off about how it was a fast course and I’d get a free pretzel at the end.

I also saw it as an opportunity to get out of my usual fall racing rhythm for once. The past two looked something like this:

• Race Staten Island way too hard
• Overestimate my fitness before the NYC Marathon
• Walk/jog down 5th Avenue and wonder why I ever signed up for a marathon

My coach Jason also agreed that Philly would be a good goal race for me this fall. So I invested in a new pair of racing shoes, tweaked my diet by approximately 0%, and decided to chase a PR of 1:35 or better.

Training for the Philadelphia Half

Jason had me running four days per week. Or at least he thought he did. I missed a few easy runs because I’m a stay-at-home dad and sometimes running doesn’t sound like fun after your kid refuses to nap all day.

Most weeks though, I ran two easy runs, one quality (Q) workout, and one long run. I’m a lazy piece of crap sometimes, so dropping from two tempo/track workouts to one per week sounded appealing to me. But Jason’s Q workouts tend to be real grinders that force me to work hard and I guess as a result, I’ve become a better person or whatever.

By the end of the training block, Jason and I felt optimistic about where my fitness was, especially after my horrible faceplant at the Brooklyn Half earlier this year. Based on how the workouts went, we felt 1:35-1:38 was a realistic range for Philly.

My 2019 Philadelphia Half Marathon Experience

I had what I thought was a good race weekend plan in place. I booked a hotel room a half-mile away from the starting line. I bought breakfast foods that I know I digest easily. And I curated a playlist that took a page out of Barney Stinson’s playbook: It started high and got higher.

All of that planning was for nothing.

I’m not a data scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn’t hard for me to conclude that you need more than four metal detectors to get a few thousand runners through security before a half marathon. That was our reality though, and by the time I got into the runners’ village, I only had a few minutes to find the bag check and get into my corral. In the process, I accidentally checked my headphones. When I finally got into the corrals, it dawned on me that this would be the longest race I’ve ever run without music.

I won’t bore you with a mile-by-mile breakdown because I ran 7:30s the entire race. I also didn’t know I was running this evenly until about mile 12. Apparently, GPS watches hate Philadelphia as much as I do. My watch, in particular, was close to 4/10ths of a mile ahead of each mile marker. My first thought was to panic. Here’s a GIF that illustrates how I felt when I realized that my watch would basically be useless.

via GIPHY

At one point, I thought I had set a personal best in the 10K by three full minutes, which would have been bad news for the rest of the race. I switched to the manual lap button at that point and quickly discovered two things. First, I had worked way too hard mentally to figure out how fast I was actually running, which has been an issue I’ve always had during races. But I also felt that I had enough left in the tank to hit the lower end of my goal range.

And that’s exactly what happened. My official time was 1:38:28. Not a personal best, but I was pretty happy about how I handled the dysfunction earlier that morning. And honestly, I probably had it coming after making fun of Philadelphia’s merits as a city leading up to the race.

Final Thoughts

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy myself. The course was interesting, the crowd support was solid, and I was very happy to eat a soft pretzel after receiving my medal. But I’ve also heard that the full marathon is less chaotic and ultimately a better overall experience than the half. That’s fine with me. I still had a good time. More importantly, I was happy with my performance in a race for the first time in over a year.

Security was a nightmare and my corral closed before I could get there, but (finally) learned how to roll with the punches and had a good time anyway. Thanks for a fun 24 hours, Philly. pic.twitter.com/Ig5mPGxaeI

— Rich Moy (@rich_moy) November 23, 2019

So what’s next? I got a slot in next year’s Berlin Marathon and am very excited for our kid to have his first real Bavarian pretzel. And in the meantime, if you happen to hear of a carbon fiber racing shoe that comes in wide widths, leave a link in the comments below!