Back in the early/mid summer of 2017 I was hemming and hawing about a fall marathon. I knew I wanted to do one – to get my vengeance on Boston I would have to qualify to get back there after all.  I was torn between the Marine Corps Marathon and Philadelphia. I’ve been registered for MCM twice and been injured both times, plus it’s local and a fantastic race, so it’s always on my fall radar. Then there was Philly – not local but very easy to travel to from DC, and later in the season by a month.

Philly doesn’t sell out, but my access to an MCM charity bib had a deadline. As it approached I weighed the pros and cons of each race and changed my mind every hour or so for a week, testing Josh’s seemingly abundent well of patiene. (One day I’ll push him to the edge.) He pretty clearly wanted me to do Philly to give my legs more time after tri season to be BQ-ready. I wanted to run MCM after missing out twice but in my heart and hamstrings I knew PA was the better choice for the 2017 season. At just about the last possible second I pulled the Philly trigger and that was that.

Then a month or so later I came down with a stress fracture, which of course turned out to actually be tendinitis, but either way I was off running most of August and half of September, so the later date ended up being unequivocally the right decision. Even with race day not until Nov. 19th, I was looking at a more truncated marathon training cycle than I would have preferred, and I was starting a run fitness deficit.

After Nation’s Tri in mid-September I got back into regular slower, shorter distance run workouts, and after wrapping up tri season with Waterman’s Sprint the first weekend of October I started marathon training in earnest. (Seven weeks sounds like enough weeks, right??) I was also in weekly physical therapy which was painful and productive. After no running and then short, easy runs, in the short ramp up to Philly I was able to load the miles on pretty quickly and safely. Finding my speed was another question.

My long runs went decently each weekend, but I never felt like I had any of those big, breakthrough workouts – long or short – that keep runners and triathletes sustained and energized through often-tedious hours of training. I can’t recall anything too defeating either, it was just, I was running ok. Not my best, but probablymaybe strong enough for Boston.

Particularlyprobably because a few weeks out from race day I discovered that your Boston-qualifying threshold is based on the age you will be at Boston, rather than your age at your qualifying marathon. The Philly Marathon is late in the year which means it qualifies you for Boston seventeen months away, i.e. my November 2017 BQ would net me a 2019 Boston berth. And I will be 35 in April 2019. And that extra year nets me five minutes of wiggle room. I would only need to be sub-3:40* rather than 3:35 at Philly.

Come race day after my seven weeks of good-not-great running, I felt like I was probably fine for that sub-3:40, but sub by how much I had no idea. And I was definitely nervous from my terrible performance at Boston in April. My original summer goal had been to go under 3:20 and I knew at least that wasn’t in the cards. Josh of course never gives me a number like that, he just puts together race plans based on heart rates and RPE zones. I felt like I was a little unmoored heading toward race day. I made a vague plan to go out with the 3:30 pace group and see what happened.

I was a lot more anxious about the weather than my fitness as race day approached. I think I’ve documented here – and prolifically on Instagram – that I hate wind. Give me rain, cold, heat, just please, not wind. And wind was exactly what Philly was serving up on Nov. 19th. As is my wont I obsessively checked the forecast, horrified to see the predicted windspeeds. I thought I could probablymaybe BQ, but I was sure it was positivelydefinitely going to be a miserable morning.

And with that optimism in my pocket I caught a mid-morning Amtrak to Philadelphia on Nov. 18th. Keeping my cyncicism from really spinning out, my mommy was flying up from Atlanta to be my race support for the weekend. Scott’s mama and aunt were visiting in DC, and he deserves periodic breaks from my athletic neediness. And I love my mommy so much, so in the face of compulsive weather-checking and ambivalence toward my run-abilities, I was excited for the weekend.

I got to Philadelphia and a quick taxi from the train station got me to our hotel mid-day. I’d wisely (if I do say so myself) booked a hotel teh same night I registered for the race – about a month before the AACR race org sent out hotel recs. I’d found a good rate at the Embassy Suites about a half mile from the start/finish, and proximity to the finish line is where I always say, race-splurge if you’ve got the means. I was able to check in early, and my mama arrived soon after I got to our very nice suite.

It was past lunch time, so we headed right back out and much to my glee, found a great dim sum spot – Nom Wah – halfway between the hotel and the Expo at the PA Convention Center. We even lucked out and got a table right before several large groups showed up. Once sated on bao and scallion pancakes we rolled on to the Expo a few blocks away.

I picked up my bib and we did a loop through the booths. Between my probablymaybe BQ, feeling personally affronted by the weather, and my original MCM plans, I felt pretty blasé toward the whole Philadelphia Marathon apparatus – a sentiment that staid my credit card. We did jointly raid the Run Janji booth for Xmas presies for my dad and brother, and I stopped by the pacer station to make sure I didn’t have to offically register for the 3:30 group. I didn’t.

We walked back to the hotel, finances generally intact. On the way we passed lots of folks who had raced that morning’s half marathon. They all looked so happy to be done with their race day, and they’d gotten a pretty good day for running. It was grey and a little misty, cool, and the wind was keeping a low profile. I thought uselessly how unfair that the full marathon athletes – like ME!! – by contrast would have such crappy conditions.

That night mama and I got a good Italian meal at a restaurant called, 24. It was exactly what I want pre-race: decent but not too rich or decadent. I watched thirstily as she enjoyed some vino, while I contented myself with a perfectly bland pasta and a beet salad. At the hotel I laid out my clothes – a task that always feels disconcertingly simple when you transition from triathlon to plain running. I went to bed at my regular tried-for-9-didn’t-happen-till-10pm.

I was up around 5am. I force-fed myself some of the bagels, peanut butter, and bananas we’d bought the evening before, and my mommy took care of me by brewing some coffee. (I didn’t used to drink coffee before races but my caffeine addiction has gotten bad and I need a little to stave off a mid-run withdrawl headache. [Is that bad? That’s bad, right?]) I dressed in the tights, tank, sleeves, and windbreaker I would race in, as well as a throwaway sweatshirt and space blanket. Apprehensively and masochistically I stepped out onto our suite’s balcony to survey the bad weather that had been promised. Many stories below me I could see athletes leaning into an already-aggressive wind as well as sideways rain. The almost-dawn lighting was eerily magenta and my stomach reflexively clenched at the thought of decamping into that hellscape.

But head out I did, around 6am. What would have otherwise been a ten minute walk was around fifteen thanks to the wind and rain blowing not perpendicular from the sky but parallel to the ground and sharply into my face. I pulled the space blanket as tightly as I could around my torso and legs, but it inevitably billowed behind me like a heat-trapping sail. The race was an hour away and I was already miserable.

Perversely my early irritation with the weather and my lackluster training cycle had me so unanimated about my race prospects, that I just took the misery and the conditions in stride. I slowly got to the start area. Thanks to the proximity of the Embassy Suites I was there early enough to find short porta potty lines. And here too my ambivalence was a benefit: my stomach was as unenthused as the rest of me – no gastric pyrotechnics, not even a question of whether to take Imodium – I didn’t need it. I bathroomed just once and headed to my corral near the start line.

I staid bound up in my space blanket and old sweatshirt as long as I could. I tried some plyometric warmups, but mostly just huddled emotionlessly. The corrals and whole start area were remarkably empty until the last minute, I guessed people were lining up at the last possible second in the awful conditions. It was truly horrible out. There were no spectators – and who could blame them – it looked and felt apocalyptic. Around 6:45 the announcer became more consistent and energized, but the sky was still angry neon pink. The race started facing the east, so now my neck and back were being pelted by the sideways wind and rain – a minor improvement.

At 6:55 the gun went off for the handcycles, then the first run corral at 7am. My wave was second, and I was over the start sensors at 7:04. I thought I’d lined myself up close to the 3:30 pacer, but somehow within the first 50 meters he was out way ahead of me. I hadn’t felt too attached to finishing with the 3:30 group but I didn’t want to lose them in the first quarter mile! So I hussled toward the 3:30 sign faster than I had had any intention of going out of the gate. Once I was within twenty or so feet of the pacer I dug my heels into a steady pace and maintained that distance from him. I didn’t look at my pace or my heartrate – I knew both were already high but I decided to wing it to an extent, and to put more faith in the people around me than in my numbers. (AWWWWWW.)

When my Garmin buzzed to mark the first mile I looked down and saw 7:42. ‘Shit, that’s way too fast’ I thought. ‘Why the hell is he going this fast?’ My first thought was that the pacer was way off, but then I rationalized, we’re running the first few miles with the wind, he must want to bank extra time. And so I decided to keep pace with him, though there was a niggling voice in my head sounding the alarm that I might be dooming myself. (There was also a hubristic voice screaming, no! We’re gonna PR this bitch! 7:40s the whole way weeeeeee! [To be fair, I felt more deference to the warning voice than the asshole telling me to go win the Philadelphia Marathon.])

Just before the third mile marker we started heading south and up an incline, and after three miles in the 7:40s we dropped into the low 8s for a couple miles before turning back east and dropping back down into those 7:40s. At each aid station the pacer got a little further away from me and I tried to catch up, spiking my speed and my heartrate dangrously. At one point around the first 10k my heart was creeping into the 170s and I glanced at my pace to see myself in the 7:10 range. Even the hubris-asshole voice was like, ‘pump the breaks Icarus, you don’t have a sub-3:15 in you and you’re gonna burn out before the half.’ And so I let the pace group that I’d put all my (too much?) faith into drift further down the course away from me. I could still see them, and as we wound up some climbs I made up some ground, but they staid far enough in front of me that by mile ten I knew I wasn’t going to be in sub-3:30 territory.

For the first ten miles, the wind held back. At times we ran with it or across it, at other times downtown Philly’s buildings and the crowd acted as shields. Plus, being 4’10” has a few distinct advantages. When the breeze picked up I tried to find clumps of people – or a few times just one tall person – to run behind. After stressing for days about the wind, I was pleasantly surprised over most of the first half that it didn’t seem to be too big an issue.

That all changed in mile ten though, as we bore down a straight away near a number of circus tents and trailers – clowns (and animal abuse) shudder – a few miles outside downtown. For a quarter mile or so the wind huffed directly into our fronts and in the wider open spaces there was no one to run behind for cover. My pace dropped for several minutes into the 9 minute mile range. I wasn’t panicking about my BQ yet,  I was just unhappy. That stretch was misery plain and simple. It was brutal and sucked the joy out of what, to that point, had been a surprisingly pleasant course – weatherwise and aesthetically.

Just before mile 11 the course wound a wide u-turn and we were once again running with the wind at our backs – and after some early climbing we now got in a nice descent that helped me get my wind-elevated heartrate back down. The next few miles through the halfway point felt pretty good. The sun was getting to be right overhead and miles 13 and 14 were out in the open next to the Schuykill River, so my heartrate did start to head back up, and at one point I had to switch out my earbuds that I’d apprently sweat through. But I got my pace back into the 7s and started to enjoy myself again.

Just past the mile 14 marker we flipped another u-turn – a bitch if you will – and headed back north along the river. I knew this stretch of water-adjacent headwind was coming, fortunately the few miles before it had been pleasant enough to bolster my spirits as I entered the hardest stretch of race.

Also fortunately, I had banked some good time in the preceeding miles, so I was mostly unstressed as my pace slowed back out of the 7s and into, first the low 8s, and then the mid-8s. I ran the numbers manically in my head every few minutes, and despite the long-gone 3:30 pacer, I was still on track to do around a 3:31 assuming I could pick up the pace again once we hit the final turn around at mile 20.

I tried to remain bouyed by those calculations – my BQ was still safely in reach, even as miles 15 through 20 were miserable slogs into the 30mph headwinds. At times I was blown back into the 9s, at times I felt like I was just standing still. But I leaned forward, having mentally prepared for this  kind of slog. The course continued to be prettier than I had expected at least, and since the last ten miles are a switch back, I could see the elite runners on on the other side of the road but course-wise miles ahead of me heading toward the finish line. I enjoy seeing the first few men, but I always take these opportunities to watch for the first women and to yell my support and admiration as they pass.

I stayed mostly-patient and expletive-free counting down the minutes and miles until the wind would be at my back again. The last mile before the turnaround snaked downhill through a cute town where many spectators had come out to cheer. The descent and the people were great boosts – I wasn’t worried about having to run back up the hill since at least no more blowing in my face and I’d still have the crowd support.

Right at the mile 20 marker we flipped around for the final 10k to the finish. I knew I needed to pick up the pace on the way home to hold onto that 3:31 finish. Careful not to spike my heartrate too much I stepped on the gas a little uphill, passing some people and riding off the goodwill of the crowd lining this cute suburban Main Street. I got myself out of the mid-8s and back into the low 8s, still holding back some to really push the final 5k.

The tailwind didn’t feel like it was helping as much as I’d been hoping, but when does it ever? Admittedly I’d been expecting to reclaim some 7:40s or something like that once we’d turned around, and of course I still had delusions of a sub-3:30 if I could really pull some speed out of the last six miles. I was a little deflated to face the reality that that wasn’t going to happen, but I stayed the 3:31 course. And as I’d been inspired by the elite seeded athletes running past me earlier, now I was sadistly cheering myself, ‘at least I’m not still running into the wind with double digit miles to go like the people on the other side of the road.’ It sounds mean but I’m sure the elites thought the same, at-least-I’m-not-that-person of me when they were in the home stretch and I still had ten to go!

Just before Mile 24 I was feeling pretty solid, uncomfortable and ready to be done, and unable to dig back into the 7s like I’d hoped, but still solid and like I could do what I needed to finish with a 3:31:something. I was focusing on staying in those low 8s and keeping just enough gas in the tank to sprint the last few minutes when a runner maybe fifty feet ahead of me staggered suddenly to the left and collapsed into the hill on the side of the road.

There were five or six runners between this injured athlete and myself; they all glanced at her, some paused, but then every last shitty one of them kept going. I know exactly what they were thinking: they all did the quick mental math that they were on BQ-track and if they stopped for someone in trouble they’d jeapordize their qualifying time. I know that’s what went through their heads, I know how hard they’d worked to be on that BQ cusp, and I think every last one of them is despicable.**

I ran to the shoulder of road where this young woman who was now lying in the dirt and rolling around agitatedly. Another woman from the other side of the course also dashed across the foot traffic to help. The injured runner couldn’t speak, I was instantly terrified by how dire her situation appeared to be. She was moaning and clearly in some kind of agony. She started making a sort of open close motion with one of her hands. The woman who had run over to join us – who happened to be a nurse I think she said – astutely questioned, “inhaler???” Then the injured young woman slapped her right thigh as if we’d gotten the clue in the highest-ever stakes game of charades. I saw she had a pocket in her tights by where she had slapped, I reached in and found a pro-air/albuterol inhaler – the same rescue one I use! I felt like, oh my god I can actually help, I know how to use this!’ I shook it and told her I was getting it ready then brought it to her mouth, cupped her head, and discharged it twice. She gasped in right as two more people came running up saying they were doctors. I gave them the inhaler and they took over as I took a step back, unsure what to do. They started calming her and assessing her vitals. One of them looked back to me and asked, “are you racing?” I nodded and she said, “then go! Go!”

I was really grateful she had told me exactly what to do because I was standing there at a loss – do I continue to try to help? Am I that one cook too many in this kitchen? I turned back to the course and took off for the final two miles.

The whole episode I would guess took about four, maybe five minutes, thought it is admittedly a blur. Obviously my 3:31 was out the window; I glanced at my Garmin and did some quick math to figure out what I needed to still secure that Boston berth – if it was even still possible. It had been a wholly terrifying encounter but my heartrate had come down quite a bit, so as I got going I was able to start making up some time with a faster pace than I could have managed without the unplanned pitstop. I’d been hanging onto around an 8:15 before the incident, and now I dropped down into the 7:50s and then 7:40s. I couldn’t make up all the time I’d lost but I clawed back at least a minute of it.

As I came down the final few hundred meters I found a repleneished reserve of energy and sprinted into the low 7s. I crossed the finish line with a 3:34:38. With that extra five minutes (thanks, aging!) that should be more than enough to secure a spot at the 2019 Boston Marathon.

All told I think the emergency stop at mile 24 cost me about three minutes – a small price to pay compared to the debasement of one’s soul that I assume occurs when you turn your back on a fellow athlete in crisis. The stop took longer than three minutes but the unscheduled rest stop meant I was able to deliver a much faster final two miles than I would have if I’d run straight through.

The Philly Marathon starts and ends at approximately the same spot near the Museum of Art. Crossing the finish line there was none of the sideways rain and gloom that had marked the begining of the race. It was chilly but sunny and, with the wind at your back, pretty pleasant. I collected my medal, some food and water, and exited the finish area to find my mama right there waiting. She was a sight for shivering, conflicted, quickly-becoming-sore, eyes.

She gave me a warm coat and was enthusiastic about my finish time. I was feeling too off still from seeing an athlete in a medical emergency to soak in the BQ and the usually inevitable excitement that accompanies finishing a marathon. I recounted the story as we walked the few blocks back to the hotel. I was so happy to have her there – even as I age into more forgiving BQ thresholds, I revert to being a needy mommy’s girl when she’s around, and it’s been so nice to have her support and company in Philly and at Boston back in April.

Unlike Boston, I could actually walk the whole way to the hotel without too much pain or pitstops in the middle of the road this time. Once we got there mama sadly had to pack up and head to the airport pretty quickly. We said goodbye and I was happy to know I would get to see her in just three days for Thanksgiving. I packed up my stuff as well, checked out, and got some lunch (and champagne) before catching an Amtrak back to DC.

The Aftermath…or more bathroom talk, just different kind…

I was excited once home for a night with my legs up and feasting on whatever called to me – which that night happened to be, as is so often the case, ramen. We feasted and Walking Deaded, I normatec’ed and wined, and afterward, as I was taking the pups out for a final walk, I started getting terrible heart burn. My penchant for always ordering the spiciest food I can find, and then slathering it in hot sauce to the point of physical discomfort – I like my hobbies and my eats to be a little painful! – means I’ve always got tums and zantac on hand. I popped an antacid and went to bed not thinking much more of it.

Within a few minutes of pulling up the covers though, I knew something wasn’t right in my belly and throat. The agita wasn’t subsiding at all, it was actually getting more intense and uncomfortable. I got up and tried another tums. I started to get back in bed, but before I could even lie back down I knew that whatever was unhappy in my stomach was coming back out the way it went in. I rushed to the bathroom and, ya know.

I thought, ok, maybe a bad piece of chicken or something, it’s out now, that’s done. I tried to get back in bed again, telling Scott that I’d weirdly just thrown up. Before even completing that thought though I knew I was in intestinal trouble again and rushed back to the bathroom.

And I’ll just skip ahead now for everyone’s sake. That was about 11pm, the throwing up…and other belly-evacuating stuff…continued through the night. Everything I’d eaten or drank that day demanded to be released back into the wilds of the DC sewer system. (Which is just the Potomac, right?) When I tried to put water back in, my stomach said hell no and expelled that would-be helper too. And so twelve hours after a marathon – an exceedingly dehydrating and calorie-depleting activity – my body rejected all rehydration and calories, leaving me feeling like death by 5am when I finally stopped wretching. I’ve rarely felt that horrible in my life and Josh was concerned that maybe I should get myself to a hospital.

Around 7am I was finally able to sip water and the pedialyte and gingerale Scott had gotten me. By noon I could nibble slowly on saltines. I slept through most of that Monday, writhing feverishly on the couch, then the bed, trying but failing to get comfortable. And then I woke up on Tuesday and felt 90% better. It was a bitch of a bug, but a shortlived one.

This may seem like an unpleasant tangent down which to lead you, dear reader, but when I think back on the 2017 Philadelphia Marathon, my marathon night of puking…and other stuff-ing…is inextricably linked. Between the young woman who collapsed and the 8 hours spent curled around my toilet, the race left a bad taste in my mouth, quite literally.

But that’s really not my final verdict for the Philly Marathon. I found that I liked the course a lot more than I thought I would, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Philadelphia the last few years and really enjoy the city. I came away with a BQ, I got a weekend with my mama, and logistically it was smooth sailing. So the bad taste isn’t really fair and I’m actually considering going back this fall. If you’ve made it this far and want some sort of qualitative recommendation I say I would highly recommend Philly Marathon to any and all.

Oh and whatever I contracted turned out not to be food poisoning because Scott got it next and was down for the same count on Thanksgiving. A much worse day to be sick, although at least he hadn’t just run a marathon before? Yay?

*Minus whatever next year’s BQ cushion will be. To be safe I really wanted to be actually sub-3:35, whereas for my last BQ I felt like I needed to be sub-3:30 to have enough cushion to safely qualify.

**I was appalled in the moment but this runner’s health emergency distracted me from my anger. In the ensuing months that ire has grown though and I’m actually surprised by how mad and disgusted I am by my fellow marathoners’ behavior.