As I sit here trying to write my race report on the Philadelphia Distance Run (PDR) I struggle to come up with anything amusing, gross or just plain exciting. You see, this was my 14th attempt at this my favorite race and there simply was nothing out of the ordinary. No butt skiing, no running through freezing streams to try and clean off the muck and mud from your shoes, just a very nicely done road race ? albeit a 13.1 mile road race.

The weather was probably the best of any of the 14 total times I ran PDR and I was thinking it would be nice to complete the race in a goal MP of 8 mpm. It was weird standing in the starting coral ? I was in #4 of 12 or 13 ? I was really calm and just standing there waiting for the gun. No pre-race anxiety, no silly jokes, just standing there calm as a cucumber as my grandmother used to say.

The race started and I stood in place for about a minute and then we were moving at the normal tortoise-like pace at the start of any big race (there were close to 12,00 finishers). After about 2 miles things finally started to thin out and I was done with the runner?s shuffle ? you know, when you are jumping all over the road in an attempt to avoid running over, or being run over by, your fellow racers ? and I settled into a nice pace. For some reason I did not see the first 5 or 6 mile marker clocks nor did I even really care; it was weird! Was it because I was focused on the cross country kids and their first meet later in the day? Or did I, deep down inside, know that I was not ready for this race and just was going to run as far as possible then push through any subsequent pain. I believe it was the later as I have not put in a good long (greater than 10 miles) run in about 5 weeks and I was wanting to see how much fitness I had lost. The head cold I was battling really had nothing to do with it. Did it?

Anyway, I was really enjoying the temp in the mid-50s, bright sunshine, great scenery, thousands of fellow runners ? except for the one ipod clad butt head who was not paying attention and ran into me and at least 6 separate people I saw without ever excusing himself ? and just moving without thought. Really kind of a boring story to tell then I spied mile marker 10 and see that I am almost 5 full minutes ahead of my goal pace and understand that it is my effort and not the cold that is making breathing so much more difficult than it should be. I immediately back down the pace but find out within ½ mile that it was too late. The lower back is sore, fatigue is setting in and I really want to walk for a bit, but I push on.

I continue through mile 11 saying to myself just make it to mile 12 and then you can walk for 1 minute. There it is, the mile 12 marker is just up the road but my GI system, being the rebel that it has always been, says stop now or else. I don?t pay attention and immediately start dry heaving. So I stop and walk for a minute until things settle down. Now the battle is on. Resuming my running effort works for about 3 minutes and the heaves start up again - I have to remember to take in water as well as Accelerade next time ? and we?re walking, we?re walking for another minute or 2. This happened 3 separate times before I reached the 20 K mark. At this point I put my head down, suppressed the heaves and pushed through the final half mile or so to the finish line.

Yep, training is important. If this was a 10 miler I would have had a great day. As it was, I finished in 1:46:22 according to Garmin. This was good for 2754th place out of the 11,629 who finished the race ? I finished in the top 24%. Not bad for being out of shape and sick. Maybe if I train for next years race I can improve on things.