This was one of those quick trips where I decided not to take a day off from work. I can only do that when I run a half marathon. Currently I'm just not fast enough to do that with a full marathon. So after work I caught a red-eye flight out of LAX with US Airways out to Philadelphia. I hardly ever fly with this airline, but it was the one with the cheapest airfare.
Saturday
I arrived at the Philadelphia airport at around 9am. I then made my way over to the train stop to take the regional rail into downtown Philly. You could purchase tickets ahead of time ($6.50), but you could just pay the conductor onboard for a little more ($8.00). I found it somewhat amusing that he was punching the tickets the old school way with a handheld hole puncher. I got off the train at the Market East station.
Took the train from the airport into Downtown (Market East)
What I found convenient was that you could walk from the train station to the Convention Center without even having to go outside. I suppose they built it that way to help people move about when there's bad weather outside. The expo was your standard Rock n' Roll expo. You first pick up your bib, then your shirt, and a drawstring bag to carry your stuff. Then you walk through the official merchandise before you go through the exhibition area. I picked up my friend's bib and shirt as well. I also picked up a luggage tag for another friend that collected them. Going through the exhibitors, it was great that there was a booth promoting beef where they were giving out beef sticks. It was also nice to pick up a bag of King's Hawaiian hamburger buns. That pretty much took care of my pre-race breakfast. As per the usual, they were offering a special discounted price ($70) for next year's race. I did not sign up.
They were giving out beef sticks!
King's Hawaiian Bread
Nice deal, but I pass
To pass some time before lunch, I sat at the stage area with about 2 other runners to listen to Khalid Khannouchi. I suppose that a lot of runners do not know who he was. He was the first male to break 2:06 in the marathon. At one point, the Penguin asked him what he thought about runners that run a marathon or two every weekend. He said that was stupid... a no brainer, don't do it! He pretty much said that you will never run your best if you did that and you will for sure get injured. I agree 100%. :)
Khalid Khannouchi, first male to break 2:06
For lunch I made my way over to Nom Nom Ramen to eat my customary pre-race bowl of ramen. Before my trip I had scouted on Yelp for ramen shops and found that there wasn't much of a choice. I came here because it was conveniently located close to the expo and my hotel. I ordered the large shio tonkotsu ramen and added an egg. It was pretty decent, but a bit on the greasy side. I wasn't expecting too much since Philly wasn't known for ramen. It was good enough that when I come back to town for the marathon, I'll probably come here to eat my ramen.
Large shio tonkotsu ramen with egg
After lunch, I walked over a block to check into my hotel room. I used one of my free nights to book this nicer hotel and it happened to be the host hotel for the race. There was a bathrobe waiting for me on the bed and everything was pretty dang fancy. I guess I had gotten used to staying at cheaper hotels or motels. :)
No cheap hotel this time
Fancy soap shaped like a leaf
For dinner, I thought that I would check out Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks since my friend back home wanted to know which one I thought was better. So I took the Broad Street subway from the City Hall station down to the Ellsworth Federal station. I thought it was a bit strange that the turnstiles still took tokens. It was $2.25 for cash or 1 token. Each token cost $1.80, so it was cheaper to use tokens. I walked about 6 blocks east on Federal St to the restaurants. The two restaurants were located diagonally across from each other. I first got in line for a sandwich at Pat's. The ordering instructions were on the wall and pretty easy to follow. I got a steak sandwich wit Whiz. The beef was actually pretty tender and the bread was soft. After finishing the sandwich, I walked across the street to order one from Geno's. The ordering procedure was pretty much the same. So I got my sandwich and was ready for the comparison. The beef from Geno's was tougher and so was the bread. For me, both weren't very good. But if I had to pick, I'd rather eat one from Pat's. The lines were pretty long for both places and both felt like tourist traps.
They still use tokens here
Pat's wit Whiz
Geno's Whiz with onions
After getting back to my room, I laid out my race gear and watched the race course preview on the TV. I guess that's one of the perks of staying at the host hotel.
Race gear
Course preview in my room
Sunday
After I ate, showered, and got dressed, I met my friend down in the lobby so she could get her bib and race stuff. The race started at 8am and the starting area was several blocks away. So we started making our way over to the starting area. There was a little bit of chill in the air so we sat down on a curb and waited for a while before checking our clothes at gear check.
Spandex!
The race
I ran with my friend for the first 3 miles or so before she took off. She went on to finish sub 1:40. I just wanted to finish under 2 hrs. I thought this was a very nice and fast course with lots of nice greenery. The majority of the time we were running along the Schuylkill River. I started having trouble around 10k. The left lower leg felt a little sore, so I slowed down the pace a little bit until it felt better. I picked up the pace for mile 12 to try and make sure I had enough time to reach my goal. The left leg wasn't feeling too good, so I had to slow it back down a bit for the final mile. I thought that it was pretty cool that the finish line was right next to the Rocky steps.
Starting corral
1: 8:17
2: 8:06
3: 8:10
4: 8:45
5: 8:51
6: 9:18
7: 9:58
8: 9:50
9: 9:27
10: 9:11
11: 9:29
12: 8:48
13: 9:20
13.1: 0:54
Finish: 1:58:25
Post race
"Yo Adrian, I did it!" After a couple of bad half marathons at Pasadena and Chicago, it felt good to finish under 2 hrs. I had the help of a flat fast course and much nicer cooler weather. My friend had to catch a bus after the race, but waited around for me to finish. We traded race stories as we started heading over to the bus stop. It was sort of along the way back to my hotel.
Finish back under 2 hrs
After getting back to my room and getting cleaned up, I grabbed my stuff and checked out of the hotel. Then I made my way up to the famous Rocky statue and the steps. There was a lot of fountains and other statues along the way. The weather actually got a little bit on the warm side. It was cool to finally cross those things off of the bucket list. Pretty neat since I'm a big time Rocky fan having seen each movie millions of times.
"Don't give the man a statue! Give him guts!"
The famous Rocky steps!
After finally getting that out of the way, I made my way over to the Good Dog Bar to eat something and drink some beers before heading to the airport for my flight home. I stopped in here because of the name. They had some drinks with some interesting names, but I stuck with a couple of the local Yards Philly Pale Ale. It was a pretty decent tasting beer. For food I got the duck quesadilla. It was okay, but I wouldn't order it again. I'm not even sure that the meat was duck. It sure didn't taste like duck. As it got closer to my flight, I made my way over to the Suburban Station to catch the train to the airport. I'm quite envious of other cities with good public transportation system. Los Angeles is taking a long time catching up to the other major US metropolitan cities.
Good Dog Bar
Interesting selection
Yards Philly Pale Ale x 3
No thank you
Duck Quesadilla
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