Through the City

Today was the weekly long run. The way the program works is an increase in long run mileage for a few weeks than a decrease week. The run today was a decrease week seven miler. I decided I'd use to run the first seven miles of the marathon program.

I got up very early and was out and running just after 6 PM. I started on the Ben Franklin Parkway. I actually went down Race Street instead of Arch initially so that added some time to the run. It's a cool route by a lot of the historic and interesting parts of the city.

At 4th Street, I turned up and went to look for Race, but actually missed it and wound up going all the way to Callowhill before turning around and finding it. During that portion, I had to use the bathroom very bad. After walking briefly, that went away. I then proceeded to Delaware Avenue. It was weird seeing that road so desolate (because it was early in the morning).

After going up Front Street, I had to go to the bathroom again. Again, I walked it off, but this time strongly considered wandering over to Penn's Landing. Next was a quiet South Street. That was dirty and disgusting after I'm sure it was crowded on Friday night. Hopefully it's cleaned up better because it's really embarrassing and I can't believe it's a destination in this city.

After that, I ran up along Independence Hall. That was really cool. Then went down Chestnut all through center city. That passes Liberty Place among others. I finally I ended at Drexel on 32nd Street. It'll be cool to run through my old school during the route.

Running on sidewalks was tough, so it'll be nicer to have streets during the actually race. There were a lot of lights, but at least that early in the AM no cars are out yet so I wasn't slowed much. The route I ran was mostly flat, but it'll be so early on that I just want to get in a groove running it. I'll especially want to do so on the long stretches of Delaware Avenue and Chestnut Street. I won't run this route much more in my training so most of my training will be focused on the final ten miles and the much more familiar Kelly Drive out and back.

I actually went out so early that it was still dark when I started. Rain started coming down in the last couple miles, but it was never too hard. All in all, the weather was nice.

I didn't plan to push very hard to begin with in this run. Add in all the lights and bathroom issues and I was slowed even more. It wasn't quite junk miles, but I didn't feel too far off of it.

Tomorrow will be an early AM hour long bike ride. I think I might head home and run my three mid week routes there.

7.45 miles - 1:10.17 (9:26 pace)