"I Only Run in Purple." - Anisum's Road PRs in 2018

Week 12:
Monday: 3 mi @ EA
Wednesday: 4 mi @ EB
Thursday: 1 mile WU + 6 x 0.5 mile @ HMS w/ 1 min RI @ WU + 1 mile CD
Saturday: 4 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 5 mi Race @ EA
So this week was a struggle. The first day or two I was tired from the sunburn I got last Saturday when I was playing with my friend's dog at the beach post race. At least I hope it was that and not a result of the half. It was probably a combo though, realistically. I was tight, but fine. Wednesday I saw still tight. Thursday I was ever tighter. I stopped that run a bit early because my muscles were not loosening at all as I ran. Saturday was a flop. I had planned to run in the early afternoon but I fell asleep and didn't wake up until late evening when it was pouring rain. I decided it was a lost cause and let it go.

Sunday I did the race blind because I know I know during races I have a hard time not trying to beat my usual pace, especially on a course I'm familiar with. I figured my best chance of slowing down was to not know how fast I was going. It worked out, okay? It could have gone better but the rain the night before left the fields/dirt trails in the vineyard a bit muddy so there was no rushing. The hills were fun as always though I'm sure I took them too fast based on my splits. I ended up between a 12min/mi and 13min/mi which is not EA at all but I think it may still have been slower than I would have run if I had looked at my watch. At least I hope it is? It is my slowest attempt at the course so that made me feel somewhat better.

Overall, I'm not sure how next weekend will go. I think it will be close. My 10 miler PRs have always been the tightest and best indication of my abilities. I missed way more training runs than I wanted to between winter deciding that snow into April was a solid idea and my traveling. In that sense I think I would have been more prepared to PR next weekend. It's also my first time running Broad Street and I know it's a very crowded race. I'm not sure how that will play into things since dodging and weaving generally serves to slow people down in the long run and I'm not sure how much of that takes place on the course. On my side, I had gotten very sick the day before my last 10 miler PR so being healthy could help me improve, right? The course is a net downhill which when combined with a good tailwind could serve to help my attempt a lot. It also has great on-course support which should help me stay strong in the mental game.

I figure it's like this. I already PRed one big race this season and that feels great. I'm doing a new course for the experience and should have a great time. The PR would be an awesome but if I don't get it, there will always be other opportunities as I live in the one region that is apparently in love with 10 miler courses meaning there will be several opportunities within the next year.

Edit: Wrote headwind, meant tailwind. Fixed.
 
Absolutely! I'm in the Pink Corral.
OK! I'm in yellow. I have no idea what order those corrals are in. I ran this race a few years ago and I just remember it was a looooong wait for my corral to be released that time. Whatever color that was. Prepare for a bunch of waiting around. My only advice will be, if you are taking Septa to the start (I am), leave early. Everybody with a bib can ride Septa for free to the start and it is mobbed. Parking is near the first stop going south to north so the trains basically fill up at that first stop. Each train goes express and doesn't stop anymore until Olney or whatever the stop at the race start is, once it gets full enough. I'm staying near City Hall so I'll try to cram myself in at the Walnut/Locust stop.

I love this race. The weather looks like it will be nice so you should have a great time. Crowd support is wonderful, City Hall is beautiful IMO. My experience was that I could run my own speed the whole way because, even though there are a lot of people, it's a very wide course (they don't call it Broad Street for nothin' lol). If you want to do a mini meetup before the race, as I said, I should be there early so you can DM me.
 


OK! I'm in yellow. I have no idea what order those corrals are in. I ran this race a few years ago and I just remember it was a looooong wait for my corral to be released that time. Whatever color that was. Prepare for a bunch of waiting around. My only advice will be, if you are taking Septa to the start (I am), leave early. Everybody with a bib can ride Septa for free to the start and it is mobbed. Parking is near the first stop going south to north so the trains basically fill up at that first stop. Each train goes express and doesn't stop anymore until Olney or whatever the stop at the race start is, once it gets full enough. I'm staying near City Hall so I'll try to cram myself in at the Walnut/Locust stop.

I love this race. The weather looks like it will be nice so you should have a great time. Crowd support is wonderful, City Hall is beautiful IMO. My experience was that I could run my own speed the whole way because, even though there are a lot of people, it's a very wide course (they don't call it Broad Street for nothin' lol). If you want to do a mini meetup before the race, as I said, I should be there early so you can DM me.
Yellow is just before pink I think. The waiting for a start never thrills me but it's the norm with large races. I am fortunate enough that my local tri club is providing a bus to the start so I just have to wake up early and drive to the bus pickup point. The harder part for me will be how I want to get back home since I don't see myself wanting to ride a bus or Septa anywhere in my race clothes. It may actually be one of the first times I use bag check.

I'm very excited for the weather. It looks perfect, especially after this hot week. I'm glad to hear you could run your own pace! I will have to see what time I get there and DM you. I anticipate being there early enough.
 
So I've finally had time to do my Broad Street write up. I woke up at 5:00ish? This was because I was driving south to where my tri club met up to take the bus into the city. The more I think about this, the more I think it might have been counter productive to my sleep since I could have just woken up later and gone straight to the city. The bus ride was fine. Someone gave me a Swedish fish which was delicious. The thing about using the tri club bus was that they claimed it would drop us right at the start. I was promised this repeatedly by my cousin who has run Broad Street before. She said it was so convenient.

They parked a few blocks from the start. Was it convenient? Overall yes. It wasn't what I was promised though. It was kind of like walking from the buses when doing a runDisney race. It's not terribly far, in fact it's an acceptable warm up but Disney doesn't promise to drop you right at the start. There was a school field with port-a-potties. Did I go? Of course not. My biggest fear with waking up early to go to a race is that I will have to use a bathroom during said race (hello Magic Kingdom) because my body won't have time to sort itself out before hand. I had been prepping my body for this race for a few days so I was hoping I didn't run into this issue. Also they were threatening to shut to doors to the field in 10 minutes to get everyone to the start and no way was I willing to watch that mess happen.

Getting to corrals was a trial because of where the bus parked. People in faster corrals were pushing forward to get to their corral while people in the slower corrals were pushing back. I don't know how to make this better with 40k people. It was just a hot mess. My cousin said that they never push back to their corral because there is no way to get there. She is tiny so for her this may be true. She's more likely to break a bone getting swept through the crowd. That being said, she also would have run the risk of being trampled if she didn't corral correctly. That's none of my business though. In a race I've never run before I wanted to be a rule follower even if no one else was. So I just pushed through to my corral. The PINK CORRAL. The pink corral is the last corral and I am definitely in there. If you don't submit a sub 1:50 10 miler you would be there too. It's a big corral with everyone from people who look like regular runners to people who are definitely going to be chafed everywhere based on their clothing choice.

At this point I'm in my corral and thought, since I'm at the front of it and can easily hop back onto the sidewalk to try to see @SheHulk in the yellow corral that would be my goal. I forgot that 40k people wrecks havoc on my cell phone service. I never got logged into Disboards. :( That also meant that even once the race started I had 45 minutes to kill before my corral ended up starting. This btw is faster than previous years. At the start there was a guy with a Westboro Baptist Church style sign that said 'Jesus or He-double-hockeysticks-fire'. He had a megaphone but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Some people closer could since they started chanting that he was a particular orifice on one's rear end to put it in a more Disney friendly term.

Soon we were off and I began to feel that the downhill of broad street was a bit of a lie. I mean, I knew it wasn't majorly downhill for the first part but I didn't realize how many small up-hills there were. I stayed strong focused on settling into my pace while taking in the sights around me. The crowd support was amazing. Lots of people were out and cheering. There were some great signs and overall it was an enjoyable atmosphere. The first few miles went quickly as they are known to do and I was well settled into my pace (12:04, 11:56, 12:02, 12:04, 12:00). After the first mile city hall is just about always visible so it's great to watch it get closer and closer as you run. I saw the Temple Band out playing and they were great. A sign that said 'This run is way easier than dating' which was hilarious. Really the only downside at this point was the water stations. Lots of people stopping so I usually tried to run further down so I could grab and drink while I ran but even then there were some bottle necks as a lot of people wanted to walk through the water station.

Once I got to city hall things fell apart. I had both GPS and GLONASS on because I was hoping the slight increase in accuracy of using both would be enough to get through the tall buildings on this part of the course. It was not. I apparently ran an extra .2 miles somewhere without knowing it (at least according to my watch) which means it thinks miles 6-7 were my fastest at 11:22 and 11:41. This is not true. They were my slowest because I was using my watch for my pace. When I run this fast blind I usually slow down to 12:15 or 12:30 which is what happened according to the official results. By the time I was able to get back to knowing my pace by watching the race clocks I had lost at least a minute. According to the official results I was sitting at 12:02-12:03 between miles 1-5 and ended up at a 12:31 pace between 5 and 7.

I tried to make up some of that time once I realized but I wasn't confident I would get all of it. In fact, while I definitely upped my pace again, I was still slower than I had trained for. I attribute some of this to the amount of weaving that occurred towards the end as we seemed to bottle neck with a ton of people who lost steam just walking. It was unlike any race I had seen or been in. Even the finish line photo of me shows almost everyone walking across the finish line. I did not PR and in fact was at 2:01:41 which is less than a full minute above my PR. I'm disappointed that I didn't get it on the one hand and I think if I had been away less and trained harder I may have but I also think I could have pulled it out if I had my GPS or I didn't have to weave at the end. Every race is a bunch of small decisions and surely there are some that might have gotten me that PR but there's always another race. I have three 5ks to finish the spring season and maybe I can PR one of them.

Overall, while the race was not everything I had hoped it was a great crowd and experience. That being said, after the half mile walk back from the Navy Yard where we crossed the finish to the stadiums where the bus (and people's cars and public transportation) and then the ride back home I am pretty confident that having experienced it Broad Street would not be my first choice in 10 milers next year. This mostly relates to my love of sleeping and the fact that no other 10 miler is quite as much of a trial just to get to and from. For those who haven't done it and want a great high energy race environment I can't help but recommend this race to try at least once.
 
Sounds like a huge race with some challenges. Sorry you missed the PR, but sure sounds like a solid effort and outcome for you. I wish we had some 10-milers around here since I think I would really like that race distance, but they are rare to find here.
 


So I've finally had time to do my Broad Street write up. I woke up at 5:00ish? This was because I was driving south to where my tri club met up to take the bus into the city. The more I think about this, the more I think it might have been counter productive to my sleep since I could have just woken up later and gone straight to the city. The bus ride was fine. Someone gave me a Swedish fish which was delicious. The thing about using the tri club bus was that they claimed it would drop us right at the start. I was promised this repeatedly by my cousin who has run Broad Street before. She said it was so convenient.

They parked a few blocks from the start. Was it convenient? Overall yes. It wasn't what I was promised though. It was kind of like walking from the buses when doing a runDisney race. It's not terribly far, in fact it's an acceptable warm up but Disney doesn't promise to drop you right at the start. There was a school field with port-a-potties. Did I go? Of course not. My biggest fear with waking up early to go to a race is that I will have to use a bathroom during said race (hello Magic Kingdom) because my body won't have time to sort itself out before hand. I had been prepping my body for this race for a few days so I was hoping I didn't run into this issue. Also they were threatening to shut to doors to the field in 10 minutes to get everyone to the start and no way was I willing to watch that mess happen.

Getting to corrals was a trial because of where the bus parked. People in faster corrals were pushing forward to get to their corral while people in the slower corrals were pushing back. I don't know how to make this better with 40k people. It was just a hot mess. My cousin said that they never push back to their corral because there is no way to get there. She is tiny so for her this may be true. She's more likely to break a bone getting swept through the crowd. That being said, she also would have run the risk of being trampled if she didn't corral correctly. That's none of my business though. In a race I've never run before I wanted to be a rule follower even if no one else was. So I just pushed through to my corral. The PINK CORRAL. The pink corral is the last corral and I am definitely in there. If you don't submit a sub 1:50 10 miler you would be there too. It's a big corral with everyone from people who look like regular runners to people who are definitely going to be chafed everywhere based on their clothing choice.

At this point I'm in my corral and thought, since I'm at the front of it and can easily hop back onto the sidewalk to try to see @SheHulk in the yellow corral that would be my goal. I forgot that 40k people wrecks havoc on my cell phone service. I never got logged into Disboards. :( That also meant that even once the race started I had 45 minutes to kill before my corral ended up starting. This btw is faster than previous years. At the start there was a guy with a Westboro Baptist Church style sign that said 'Jesus or He-double-hockeysticks-fire'. He had a megaphone but I couldn't hear what he was saying. Some people closer could since they started chanting that he was a particular orifice on one's rear end to put it in a more Disney friendly term.

Soon we were off and I began to feel that the downhill of broad street was a bit of a lie. I mean, I knew it wasn't majorly downhill for the first part but I didn't realize how many small up-hills there were. I stayed strong focused on settling into my pace while taking in the sights around me. The crowd support was amazing. Lots of people were out and cheering. There were some great signs and overall it was an enjoyable atmosphere. The first few miles went quickly as they are known to do and I was well settled into my pace (12:04, 11:56, 12:02, 12:04, 12:00). After the first mile city hall is just about always visible so it's great to watch it get closer and closer as you run. I saw the Temple Band out playing and they were great. A sign that said 'This run is way easier than dating' which was hilarious. Really the only downside at this point was the water stations. Lots of people stopping so I usually tried to run further down so I could grab and drink while I ran but even then there were some bottle necks as a lot of people wanted to walk through the water station.

Once I got to city hall things fell apart. I had both GPS and GLONASS on because I was hoping the slight increase in accuracy of using both would be enough to get through the tall buildings on this part of the course. It was not. I apparently ran an extra .2 miles somewhere without knowing it (at least according to my watch) which means it thinks miles 6-7 were my fastest at 11:22 and 11:41. This is not true. They were my slowest because I was using my watch for my pace. When I run this fast blind I usually slow down to 12:15 or 12:30 which is what happened according to the official results. By the time I was able to get back to knowing my pace by watching the race clocks I had lost at least a minute. According to the official results I was sitting at 12:02-12:03 between miles 1-5 and ended up at a 12:31 pace between 5 and 7.

I tried to make up some of that time once I realized but I wasn't confident I would get all of it. In fact, while I definitely upped my pace again, I was still slower than I had trained for. I attribute some of this to the amount of weaving that occurred towards the end as we seemed to bottle neck with a ton of people who lost steam just walking. It was unlike any race I had seen or been in. Even the finish line photo of me shows almost everyone walking across the finish line. I did not PR and in fact was at 2:01:41 which is less than a full minute above my PR. I'm disappointed that I didn't get it on the one hand and I think if I had been away less and trained harder I may have but I also think I could have pulled it out if I had my GPS or I didn't have to weave at the end. Every race is a bunch of small decisions and surely there are some that might have gotten me that PR but there's always another race. I have three 5ks to finish the spring season and maybe I can PR one of them.

Overall, while the race was not everything I had hoped it was a great crowd and experience. That being said, after the half mile walk back from the Navy Yard where we crossed the finish to the stadiums where the bus (and people's cars and public transportation) and then the ride back home I am pretty confident that having experienced it Broad Street would not be my first choice in 10 milers next year. This mostly relates to my love of sleeping and the fact that no other 10 miler is quite as much of a trial just to get to and from. For those who haven't done it and want a great high energy race environment I can't help but recommend this race to try at least once.
Great race report! I didn’t have cell service at the start or finish of the race either so I wouldn’t have gotten your message even if you did send it. Also I accidentally got in the wrong corral because I entered at the yellow flags and walked forward (in the runDisney style) instead of back like you were supposed to. There were so many yellow bibs in the corral I was in, I didn’t even notice I was in the wrong place. Really disorganized.

I still like this race, warts and all. Definitely a mix of regular runners, general fitness folks, and race novices. I PRed but only because the last time I ran a 10 miler was maybe 3-4 years ago, when I was 20 lbs or so heavier. You came close to a PR even with training issues and weaving. That’s a success in my book.
 
Sounds like a huge race with some challenges. Sorry you missed the PR, but sure sounds like a solid effort and outcome for you. I wish we had some 10-milers around here since I think I would really like that race distance, but they are rare to find here.
It's all right. The 10 Miler is my favorite distance. I wish more places had it as a distance. I would love to do more 10 milers. I'm lucky enough that there are a few spring and a few fall ones even if some happen the same weekend it provides options.

Great race report! I didn’t have cell service at the start or finish of the race either so I wouldn’t have gotten your message even if you did send it. Also I accidentally got in the wrong corral because I entered at the yellow flags and walked forward (in the runDisney style) instead of back like you were supposed to. There were so many yellow bibs in the corral I was in, I didn’t even notice I was in the wrong place. Really disorganized.

I still like this race, warts and all. Definitely a mix of regular runners, general fitness folks, and race novices. I PRed but only because the last time I ran a 10 miler was maybe 3-4 years ago, when I was 20 lbs or so heavier. You came close to a PR even with training issues and weaving. That’s a success in my book.
Congrats on your PR!

I would have walked forward too if I didn't see a sign somewhere that said enter from back. I only saw it by one of the four corrals I walked by though so there's that. The corralling is a bit of a mess since I think many people can't see where they are walking through the person in front of them. I wish they came up with a better way of doing it.

I thought the mix was cool. I thought it was great that there were so many teens running as part of running programs and that so many novices who decided to challenge themselves by completing it. I also loved seeing the spectator's signs. I just think the pre- and post-race experience left a lot to be desired. If I was going just to have a good time while I ran and not to try and run my hardest but instead get all the fun pictures I think I would definitely consider going back. As someone who likes sleeping in and getting out of running clothes immediately post-race it just left me feeling gross so for future PR attempts I would probably pick a different race.
 
Hi everyone, I've been kind of non-existent since I haven't had a major upcoming race or Disney trip. That is all going to change though since I have a marathon to train for. I got my Coach @DopeyBadger training plan and I am mostly ready to go. Up until now I've been doing some triathlons which means more spinning and bike riding so switching back to solely running is a change.

Let's get started.

Week 1 (8/6-8/12):
Wednesday: 2 mi @ EB + Strides
Friday: 3 mi @ EA
Saturday: 3 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 4 mi @ LR


I messed up Week 1 a lot. I didn't realize I had a convention I was supposed to work. I was unable to get any of the weekend runs done since it was wake up, get food, work, go to bed for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.


Week 2 (8/13-8/19):
Monday: 3mi @ EA
Wednesday: 2 mile WU + 2 miles @ Tempo + 1 mile CD
Friday: 3 mi @ EA
Saturday: 3 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 6 mi @ LR

So I did pretty well this week but not as great as I had hoped. I read my calendar wrong and did my strides on Friday which worked out okay because Saturday my friend asked if they could run with me. Since I was staying at their house I said absolutely (plus it's always good to have someone to run with) so we did the route in a very hilly area. Things went well until the last mile when they started to have an asthma attack which led to some run/walk/run on the last mile. Sunday I woke up (I was still visiting friends) and discovered it was pouring rain. I normally don't mind running in the rain but I didn't have my hat,rain resistant running gear, or safety gear any/all of which would have allowed me to be visible when running and be able to see without clearing my glasses every 5 seconds so it was a wash. I decided I would try to run when I got home that evening and got my gear on but I got a text saying I should shower at my friend's because of plumbing issues. I couldn't attend work in the morning after a run if I couldn't shower so that was cancelled. Hopefully the issues will be fixed by the time I get home today so I can go out and get to running.
 
Week 3 (8/20-8/26):
Monday: 4mi @ EA
Wednesday: 2 mile WU + 3 miles @ Tempo + 2 mile CD
Friday: 4 mi @ EA
Saturday: 4 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 7 mi @ LR

I did all my runs this week. Most were good. It was a great week weather wise for running. Saturday I didn't get out early enough so it was a little hot when I did my run but overall it was a great weekend. Now I have to figure out how to get out and about for my Wednesday run this week since most of the routes I run in the pre-sunrise hours are not able to become 7mi long.
 
Week 4 (8/27-9/2):
Monday: 3mi @ EA
Wednesday: 2 mile WU + 3 miles @ Tempo + 2 mile CD
Friday: 3 mi @ EA
Saturday: 3 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 4 mi @ LR

Not a bad week. I had to cut my Wednesday CD a little short because I was going to be later getting into work but overall everything went well and all runs were completed.
 
Week 5 (8/27-9/2):
Monday: 4mi @ EA
Wednesday: 2 mile WU + 4 miles @ Tempo + 1 mile CD
Friday: 4 mi @ EA
Saturday: 4 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 9 mi @ LR

I finished all of my runs. Sadly there was a lot of rain. So much rain.
 
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This week was no good. I completed my Monday run and then by my Wednesday between weather and feeling under the weather I did not get my run in. I figured I would try to salvage part of it on Thursday and managed that but did not feel great on Friday or the rest of the weekend. I caught some kind of a cold so I ended up skipping most of those runs. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to running today.
 
Week 7 (9/17-9/23):
Monday: 4 mi @ EA
Wednesday: 2 mi @ WU + 3 x 1 mile @ T w/ 1 min RI @ WU + 1 mi @ CD
Friday: 4 mi @ EA
Saturday: 6 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 8 mi @ LR + 3 mi @ Tempo

So, this week was better. I had a few stumbling blocks with getting back to pace after last week but by the end of the week I was pretty good. I followed Coach's advice and did not do the hard portions of those runs. I tried to do them at either LR or EB pace instead. Yesterday was kind of a mess though, it was pouring rain to the point where I couldn't necessarily see at some parts so that combined with a 5k I had signed up for with the intent that it be my tempo (it was pushed to be LR and I placed it differently in my run, made my runs segmented. I would stop, take a 5-10 minute break so the rain calmed down enough that I could see and if necessary fueled up and I was back out again. The path I planned on using to get my last 1.75 miles was a bit flooded so I turned around and went back to the car and ended up a bit short.

For this coming week I realized I signed up to give blood on Tuesday and I am busy Wednesday night which means my initially plan to run on Wednesday morning might not be doable since it will be within the 24 hours where I shouldn't be doing heavy exercise after giving blood. I'm wondering if there's a way to shift things around and still get all the runs for the coming week in?
 
For this coming week I realized I signed up to give blood on Tuesday and I am busy Wednesday night which means my initially plan to run on Wednesday morning might not be doable since it will be within the 24 hours where I shouldn't be doing heavy exercise after giving blood. I'm wondering if there's a way to shift things around and still get all the runs for the coming week in?

Monday - 3 mile EA
Tuesday - 4 mile EB
Wednesday - OFF
Thursday - 1 mile WU + 5 mile Tempo + 1 mile CD
Friday - OFF
Saturday - 4 mile EA
Sunday - 6 mile LR

That's one option. OR

Monday - 3 mile EA
Tuesday - OFF
Wednesday - 3 mile EA
Thursday - OFF
Friday - 1 mile WU + 5 mile Tempo + 1 mile CD
Saturday - 3 mile EA
Sunday - 6 mile LR
 
Week 8 (9/24-9/30):
Monday: 3 mi @ EA
Wednesday: 2 mi @ WU + 5 mile @ T@ WU + 1 mi @ CD
Friday: 4 mi @ EA
Saturday: 4 mi @ EB + Strides
Sunday: 6 mi @ LR

I was actually on vacation starting Thursday. I full intended to get my run in on Wednesday morning but it didn't happen so I did my Wednesday run Friday and kept the rest the same. I was very proud of myself for running every morning I was scheduled to on vacation (with the exception of the last sea day when rain/wind closed the promenade/running deck). I'm feeling pretty good heading into the race in a little over a week but time will tell.
 

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