The 4th annual WHYY Y12k was held this morning, starting at the south side of the Philadelphia Art museum and heading out and back along the Martin Luther King Drive along the Schuylkill River. I rode my bike to PATCO, took it into the city, then rode my bike out to the art museum in time for the 9:00am start.
The race is now in its fourth year, and serves as a fundraiser for WHYY, the Philadelphia area's premiere public media organization.
Nearly 400 people started out in the race, and I started near the front. I hit my first mile in 7:20, but as the race continued I started to loosen up and hit my stride. By the end of the race I was hitting sub sevens, and finished with an average race pace of 7:02. This is, incidentally, almost the exact race pace I would need to keep up in a marathon if I ever want to qualify for Boston. But I was definitely hurting at the end from pushing myself so hard, and it's easy to see how far I have to go if I want to keep up that pace for an entire marathon.
Around the 6.5 mile mark, I passed the second woman, and she turned to me and said, "turning it on?" "Trying to!" I gasped back. In the final tenth of a mile, I gave it one last push in an effort to pass one last runner before the finish line. The guy just ahead had headphones in, and I thought I could sneak up on him, but he sensed me coming, turned and smiled, and took off at a sprint as well. He beat me across the finish line and we both high fived.
I finished in 52:22. Because I've never run a 12k race before, I have no idea if that's a good time or not. Overall I came in 16th place and 4th in my age group. The post race amenities were great, and I also got my picture taken with Elmo:
The best part, though, was when a fellow runner came up just as I was getting ready to leave:
Fellow runner: Excuse me, are you the guy from that documentary on YouTube?
Me: Uh, which documentary?
Fellow runner: The one about the Philly Marathon.
Turns out he was referring to this documentary, and he is attempting his own BQ next week at the marathon.
I've been recognized from this blog before, and I now I can finally say I've been recognized from YouTube.
The race is now in its fourth year, and serves as a fundraiser for WHYY, the Philadelphia area's premiere public media organization.
Nearly 400 people started out in the race, and I started near the front. I hit my first mile in 7:20, but as the race continued I started to loosen up and hit my stride. By the end of the race I was hitting sub sevens, and finished with an average race pace of 7:02. This is, incidentally, almost the exact race pace I would need to keep up in a marathon if I ever want to qualify for Boston. But I was definitely hurting at the end from pushing myself so hard, and it's easy to see how far I have to go if I want to keep up that pace for an entire marathon.
Around the 6.5 mile mark, I passed the second woman, and she turned to me and said, "turning it on?" "Trying to!" I gasped back. In the final tenth of a mile, I gave it one last push in an effort to pass one last runner before the finish line. The guy just ahead had headphones in, and I thought I could sneak up on him, but he sensed me coming, turned and smiled, and took off at a sprint as well. He beat me across the finish line and we both high fived.
I finished in 52:22. Because I've never run a 12k race before, I have no idea if that's a good time or not. Overall I came in 16th place and 4th in my age group. The post race amenities were great, and I also got my picture taken with Elmo:
The best part, though, was when a fellow runner came up just as I was getting ready to leave:
Fellow runner: Excuse me, are you the guy from that documentary on YouTube?
Me: Uh, which documentary?
Fellow runner: The one about the Philly Marathon.
Turns out he was referring to this documentary, and he is attempting his own BQ next week at the marathon.
I've been recognized from this blog before, and I now I can finally say I've been recognized from YouTube.
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