This past Sunday was the Valley Forge Park Revolutionary 5 Mile Run. The run is in benefit of the Valley Forge Park which is a nationally known park for the role it played in George Washington and his Army.

My review of the race:

Pre-Race:

Packet pick up was somewhat easy. They held it at a local business complex that was close to the race. They didn't have the race bag pre-made like most races do. You picked up all of the contents individually and could put them in the bag at the end. My bag was filled with my bib, a shirt and a water bottle. I remember seeing other things like a tote bag and some other items with the race logo on it. It was nice of them to give out more than just your bib and shirt. Can never have too many water bottles!

Probably the best thing the race organizers did as far as race logistics were concerned was the way they handled race day transportation. The race brought in somewhere over 1,000 runners. Which meant parking in the park would be near impossible. So they set up an area in a local business complex where you can park your car and shuttle over to the race. Typically this can be difficult because the race organizers do not have enough shuttles and the runners end up waiting forever for a shuttle. This was not the case. In fact it looked to me like they had too many shuttles. I got in and out of a shuttle too and from the race with barely no waiting time because of the amount of buses they had on site. This may have cost the race organizers a little more money, but this runner thanks you for the efforts you made.

Another part of the pre-race festivities was the mini expo that was happening outside. It was a beautiful day for a run, somewhere around 60 degrees. So they were able to have vendors set up offering merchandise and other things you might be interested in. The only part of this I took advantage of was the post race foods. But they had merchants selling items, companies with giveaways and many other things. So it made for a more festive event than just the race itself.

Now onto the race.....

The Course:

This course is by far the most difficult I have run to date, the amount of hills was too tough to count. Truth be told I signed up for this race very last minute. I am in the middle of half marathon training so I am comfortable with the distance, but I have not been preparing for the hills this course offers. And there were plenty of them.

Outside of the hills this was an amazing course to run. Valley Forge Park is 5 square miles long. As a result there are miles and miles of 360 degree scenery to take in. So when you finally make it to one of these large hills you are looking down at a beautiful sight. Along with this, the park is a historic preservation sight. As such they have re-created cabins that Washington's army would have camped in as well as memorials in remembrance of this. So there are plenty of things to see while running these trails.

On a personal note I was very happy to have run this race only 2 minutes behind my PR for a 5 miler. With as many hills as there were I was certain I would be a bit slower. So I was happy to cross the finish line faster than I expected.

Overall I would highly recommend this race. It was a true physical test for me with all the hills, but more importantly it was extremely scenic and there were times on the course that you forgot you were running a 5 miler because of the views. It is also a great way to take in the history of this park and how important it was to our countries birth.

This weekend was the Frostbite 5 Miler, hosted by The Ambler Area Running Club. For me it was my first official run of the year. The next few runs I am training for are a 10 Miler in May and Half Marathon in June. So I thought it would be good to get myself out there with a 5 Miler early on the year. In fact I have written this previously, but I do not see myself running many 5K’s in 2015. Instead I would like to keep 5 Miles the shortest distance I run in official races for the year.

As I mentioned I am in the beginning of a training plan for two 10+ mile races so my training for this run was just a part of that. So this race came at the end of the 4th week of my training plan. Based on my plan (in a perfect world) that would have given me 4 weeks to train for this race. And by train I mean start running again in 2015. Based on my Nike+ app (add me!) I only ran a total of 10 miles in January. So as I mentioned in a perfect world that would be 4 straight weeks of running to prep for this run. Unfortunately this world is not perfect. Realistically it was 3 weeks because I spent a week on a cruise in the Caribbean.

None the less I got a good amount of training in before hand and ultimately had a good race. I completed the race at the time I expected and overall the cold wasn’t as bad as expected. It is also important to note this was the first run I did outside since I think November. I have been training solely on the treadmill (more on that experience in a future post).

Waking up in the morning was a true shock. I have lived in the Philly area long enough to know what the cold feels like. And last year I ran in snow regularly. However having not done it in months I didn’t think I would make it. In fact, if my girlfriend wasn’t with me I cannot 100% guarantee I would have ever gotten out of bed. The cold sucks, there’s no way around it. Regardless I trudged out there and dealt with the weather. I even made the ridiculous decision of taking off and handing my jacket to my girlfriend as I got in the starting line (I was certain I was going to run in it up until the last minute).

The race director said go and off we went. This was also my first run using my Nike+ Sports Watch so for about the first 20 steps I fumbled with that (and my music) and was finally getting going.

The course was great. More hilly than I thought it would have been, but the hills were good. They were spaced out enough that when I thought I was cruising along, they snuck up to give me a challenge. Within the first mile or two my body started warming up so the cold din’t become too much of an issue. Minus of course the fact that breathing in the cold air made my lungs feel like they were on ice.

But back to the course. It ran through a mix of rural neighborhoods and some main streets. The Running Club did a very good job at blocking the road of two way traffic to let the runners through and had more than enough volunteers to help direct both runners and cars. Also since the runners ran through neighborhoods there were a good amount of spectators out during the course cheering the runners on. I remember specifically one woman at mile 2 or 3 out with her son and a radio playing music. Reminded me for a quick second of the Rock N Roll Philly Half Marathon.

The only complaint I had was nothing to do with the course or the Running Club itself. I believe at one point I heard a volunteer yell out to a runner “run don’t walk!”. While I will assume you were doing this to cheer them on, now is not the time to try your hand at being a running coach. Some people incorporate a run/ walk method into their runs. Just because you see someone walking a part of course doesn’t mean you should be discouraging them from it. Clapping your hands and shouting “you can do it” is good enough.

After the run the Running Club had a mini expo set up at the local high school gym it was held at. I didn’t spend much time in this (I wanted to get in my warm car and home immediately!). However my girlfriend waited in there before getting to the finish line in time to see me finish. She said they had a few local running shops that were set up selling items and offering discounts to their stores. Also they had a DJ set up and a table to exchange your race shirt. So while I didn’t spend much time in here, I think that was really cool for the running club to set something like that up. At most local suburb races (under 10K) it is usually just a table with drinks and bananas set up and you are gone.

The food line looked impressive as well. I saw people with chili, hot dogs, bananas, chips, etc. They seemed to really go above and beyond the post race festivities. Again, the line for food was long and I wanted to get home and warmed up so I didn’t stick around.

The pre race swag/ set up was great as well. The Friday night before they set up a bib location pick up at the local movie theater. You could pick up your race shirt and bib from 5-8 pm. My girlfriend is usually not a bib pick up fan. She never understands going out of the way to get something you can just get the day of the race. So I bribed her to go with me by taking her to dinner at a local BYOB in the area. Win – win. The bib pick up was very easy. You walked in and they had multiple tables split between bib numbers. And if you (like me) didn’t know your bib number they had a board to find it. So I walked in and in less than 2 minutes walked out with my bib and race shirt. I liked the bib. They put the running logo, the logo of their main sponsor and a QR code to pull up results. As someone who has kept all my bibs for every run I have run I enjoyed it. The race shirt was very nice as well. It was tech material and long sleeve. So a perfect shirt to help with winter running.

Overall I was very pleased with this race. The Ambler Area Running Club held it with no issues whatsoever. And if there were, they were not very noticeable. They offered a great course, awesome post run experience and picking up your pre-race materials were super easy. I would recommend this race to anyone who wants to challenge themself with something beyond a 5K, especially in the winter weather. It is one thing to run a race when it is 72 degrees out. Another when you are sucking in frozen air and your muscles are tight because of the weather.

The Philadelphia Marathon is the premier marathon for the city of Philadelphia. They offer both the marathon and half marathon options during the same time of day. Before I get into my review of the race I first want to discuss my training. Mainly because I felt like I under-trained for this but got my best results to date.

Training:
I followed the same training plan I always have for halves. 8 week training; 5 days per week, 3 days running, 2 days cross training. You run 1 long run a week and increase the distance 1 mile every week. Well my long runs stopped somewhere around week 4 (7 mile long run). For the remaining 4 weeks I only really ran 2-3 days per week. Usually about 4-6 miles per run. Overall I never ran over 7 miles.

However for actually doing little running I ended up PR’ing my 10K distance by a minute and my Half Marathon distance by 8 minutes. So clearly the lack of running didn’t have a negative impact. I attribute these results to two things. First being I decided to do some healthy eating this time around. I focused on eating chicken, steak and vegetables during the week and stuck to it pretty good. So overall my body felt better. And secondly this was my 3rd Half Marathon and 9th race of 10K or better, so as with anything repetition makes you better.

Now onto the race review…

Race Expo
Expo’s for major races in Philadelphia are always fun. And this one was no exception. Bib pick up was easy, the swag bag had some good things in it, and they allowed you to make corral adjustments on site. Outside of that there was plenty of shopping to be done. Typically in expos I do not take advantage of the shopping aspect. I get in and I get out. This time around I took advantage of it. My primary reason was because I got a hotel by the race location so I was in the city for the night and on top of that I was alone so had time to kill by myself. The other reason was now that I know what running a Half Marathon is like, I knew the things I needed to buy that I didn’t have. Things like gloves, socks, body glide and a few other odds and ends. So I took full advantage. I also registered for a free entry to the Broad Street Run, which is another major run in Philadelphia and hard to get into so I couldn’t pass that up.

Race Management
Gore-Tex is the company that manages this race. And overall they did an excellent job. Gear check was super easy. They used UPS trucks to store gear and there were plenty lined up making it easy to walk up and drop your gear off and pick up after the race. The corrals were properly listed and easy to get into and they roped off enough space for runners to make their way to the start line. These things all seem like common sense, but trust me I have run some races that have made these things a nightmare. After the run they had the proper amount of volunteers for medal, heat blanket and food distribution. Again I can tell you stories of nightmarish post race scenes. This race had 30,000+ runners, for them to handle these things with no problem is not something to be taken lightly.

The Course
The course was great. Philadelphia is not a very large city so mapping out 13.1 and 26.2 miles for a race can sometimes be difficult. The race started outside of the famous art museum steps. Rocky fans will recognize them easily. It ran through center city and down Columbus boulevard. The difficult part about running down this street is that you have a major body of water to your left hand side for about a mile or two. Normally this is not a problem because it makes for a great view, but this is November in Philadelphia. You don’t have to be a meteorologist to know that a major body of water creates cooler air pressure. So it was probably 5-10 degrees colder running down that road than the rest of the course.
The course than ran through the city of Philadelphia. This was probably the coolest part of the race. By now we had reached the 5 mile mark. I felt like by this point my body was in cruise control. Which was a weird feeling for me because as much running has I have done I never really felt like I have gotten to a pace where I feel like I am pushing myself but comfortable at the same time. It was an odd feeling. The cool part about this point in the race was that we were running down a two lane road that was pretty small for as many runners as there was. And the spectators were crowding the road cheering everyone on. So it felt like we were running down our very own personal 2 mile long receiving line. What made it better was the race printed the runners names on the bibs so every now and again I would hear “Way to go Chadd!”

By mile 9 the race turned to Fairmount Park. This was a little more difficult. The park is very hilly and winds around. So needless to say this is when the course started to test me. The cool part though was around this time I felt a large group behind me and the next thing I know the 4:30 marathon pace group was engulfing me. I heard someone yelling encouragement and the next thing I know I am running side by side the pace leader. My marathon time would be 5:00+ so needless to say I didn’t run with them for long. But still cool to be apart of the group for a little while. By mile 10 I had to slow down a bit and apply a walk/run method. All the while I was shooting for a 2:20 finish so I was checking my time at each mile marker and I was keeping a good pace. I ran mile 11 straight through and applied the run/ walk method during mile 12.

Finally I turned the corner and saw the thousands of people cheering towards the finish line. This finish was a lot cooler than runs I have experienced in the past in the same area. Mainly because the finish line was further back so runners ran longer through the spectators. It was really cool to run almost a quarter mile while thousands of people are cheering you on.

Overall this was a great run. No complaints can be made on my end. There were plenty of water stops, the course was great, the volunteers worked hard and the race organizers made sure everything went off with no problems. The Philadelphia Marathon is the premier marathon of this city and I can tell why.