Glen Rock Tri Club

Did the Philly Marathon with my son Jon. Wanted to break 5 hours. The night before we meet for dinner at Marra's in the Italian Market section of Philly. In attendance along with my son was club member Sal Mastroeni, along with his buddy, Al, and a friend of mine, Moses Lee. All of us are signed up to do the race.

The next day we awake at 5:00 AM, eat some oatmeal, and take the underground Trolley to 22nd St. and walk the remaining mile to the Philadelphia Art Museum, the start of the race. We find our corral (Philly Marathon uses a wave start) and I run into a camp buddy who I hadn't seen in 30 years. The weather is in the high 40's, projected to go to 58. I dress in compression tights, a club bike jersey, arm warmers, a throw away long sleeve shirt over this, and running gloves. To top it off, I have a garbage bag cut out to complete the outfit.

We start the race at 7:20 AM after removing our garbage bags fitted over our heads to ward off the cold. We "high five" the Mayor of Philadelphia as we pass the starting line. Weather is perfect, a bit chilly at first, but after 1.5 miles we throw off our shirts and roll up our arm warmers and settle in. Great crowd, slight downhill, mostly flat and fast. We go through downtown Philly, head to Penns Landing, and come back through South Street. We go up to Chestnut Street and take it about two miles West. Spotted amidst the crowd is Drew from Ridgewood Cycle, who yells encouragement as we pass him by. Fans are loud, bands playing on the sidelines, a big party. We head up towards the Penn Campus and Drexel, and pass by some frat houses with the frat boys and cheerleaders rooting us on. Then up through a park and back down to the Philly Museum where we started. This completes the first 13.1 miles. Our time is 2:19, and things looked and felt great. Thought we would come in around 4:45 if we just took it easy.

But the bottom half, a relatively sedate meander through a park up to a local town, caused Jon to cramp up screeching the train to a halt quite a few times for some stretching and walk breaks. My quads were burning and the sides of my legs were beginning to talk. Starting to run after these breaks was now painful. We see club members and Marathon runners Bill Begg and his daughter, and then shortly afterwards, Tom Begg and his daughter, and give both a big hello and shouts of encouragement. It is just so nice to see friendly faces when you are out there.

Watching the clock, we had slowed and slowed and it was not looking too good to break 5 hours. The cramps did not subside and Jon was having severe difficulty even walking. He managed to shake it off every now and then, but the cramps would return.

We were down to the wire as we closed in on mile 25. According to my wrist band pacer, we had 1.2 miles to go and ten minutes left if we wanted to break 5 hours. That meant we would have to do an unthinkable kick and do under a 9 minute mile for the final 1500 meters to the finish. After 25 miles and in grueling pain I just told Jon it was OK and we should just coast and be proud of what we had done. To be sure, Jon was hurting, fighting off charleyhorses and cramps for most of the second half. I didn't want to put even more pressure on him and risk injury.

However, Jon would have none of it. He says "No way" and starts kicking a** pulling me in his draft. We keep passing runner after runner as the crowd swells and the cheers begin. I am on the brink of collapse in excruciating pain, just praying for the finish line to materialize. I am nearly dying of pain, but if my son is up for it far be it for me to wimp out.

We finish at 4:59:12, and must have done a 7 or 8 minute mile at the end. Unbelievable...I said from the medical tent as I could not frickin' move my legs! I mean, I could not navigate over a curb even with leaning on Jon. I had to walk down a bit where there was no curb to get to the medical tent. I was really hurting worse than I had ever had before (But no amount of pain could wipe the smile off my face for having broken 5 hours and seeing Jon kick like a beast after 25 miles). The doc looks me over and we chat about Ironman and things and he diagnoses an IT Band issue, nothing major. I will be fine with some rest. Jon had some knee pains and I need to check with him today. But we both came back with some memories.

Today, I go for a walk (gimp?) to the Pharmacy to get some Motrin. My biggest fear is navigating across the street. It takes about 2 minutes. Then I am not sure if I can get over the curb, so I walk to the driveway. Then I find I can't take the Motrin. So I head back home and now I think I will run the bath. I just have to figure a way to get in and out of it.

-- Larry Schwartz