Race Post-Mortem: Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon

DC Front Runners at the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon.  We survived!

Sunday, September 18, 2016
Philadelphia, PA
Difficulty score: 4/10 (2 for weather, 2 for course profile, 0 for altitude)

I ran the Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon as a tune-up race for my fall marathon this year, the Richmond Marathon.  I had done this race three times before: in 2012, in 2013, and in 2014, and I had thought very highly of it.  Back then, the course used to be flat and fast, and given good weather conditions (or even not-so-good weather conditions in the case of 2014), it was a great PR course.  Plus, a number of DC Front Runners members had registered for it also, which would make for a fun weekend in Philadelphia.

But after last year, the course had changed slightly.  Previously, the first four miles would be spent running through the streets of Center City.  Now, that segment had been shortened to about three miles.  To make up for that missing mile, runners would now do and out-and-back segment along Fairmount Avenue past the Eastern State Penitentiary.  That segment featured some very noticeable and long uphills, the likes of which were not experienced ever on the old course.  The remainder of the course along the river still remained the same.

However, an even bigger issue that foiled my plans during this race was the weather; at the start it was 72 degrees, with almost 90% humidity and a dew point close to 70.  These were perhaps the most undesirable conditions under which I had ever run a half-marathon (even more so than the warm and humid race in 2014 and the Navy-Air Force Half-Marathon in 2015).  The warmth and humidity really took a toll on most runners, including myself; I saw many runners out on the course struggling, including a number who were walking or had dropped out, and each of us that ran the race had reported seeing at least several people being taken away in ambulances.

I ended up finishing in 1:27:20 (6:40/mile); not a terrible time, but I knew that under better conditions, I was capable of faster.  But I did place unusually high this time; 150th human overall out of 12206, 122nd male human out of 4965, and 29th out of 688 in the male 30-34 age division.  And I did at least meet my "bare minimum" goal of achieving 70 points toward the DC Front Runners Race Circuit: a 1:27:20 half-marathon would translate to an age grade score of 67.02, times 1.05 in accordance with Race Circuit rules to produce a score of 70.371.

The new Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon course.  Map from the race website.

Training

Like my training for Chicago and Hartford, my training during this summer consisted of six days of running per week, with a very similar weekly structure:

• Monday: OFF
• Tuesday: a two-mile warm-up plus 25 to 40 minutes at tempo effort (between 6:18 and 6:36/mile, with adjustments for the weather) followed by a cool-down
• Wednesday: 30 to 40 minutes very easy to recover from Tuesday's tempo run
• Thursday: mini-long runs lasting between one hour and one hour 30 minutes, with most of these miles being easy (7:48 to 8:24/mile); I did occasionally throw in some marathon effort miles
• Friday: 30 to 40 minutes very easy to recover from Thursday's mini-long run
• Saturday: 50 minutes to one hour 20 minutes easy (7:48 to 8:24/mile), with hill sprints
• Sunday: long runs of one hour 30 minutes to two hours 30 minutes at 7:48 to 8:24/mile pace, with some of these being fast finish

So far, my mileage most weeks have been in the fifties or high forties.  But my highest mileage weeks were still to come.  Training was made a little more difficult by an unusually hot and humid summer here in DC, but overall, I was able to remain very consistent with my training up to now.

The Race

Initially, predictions for race day temperatures were not ideal but tolerable: temperatures in the low sixties at the start with relatively high humidity.  But as race day approached, the predictions got progressively worse.  I had thought about just powering through the conditions and targeting about the 6:30/mile pace I would have been able to do in better conditions (similar to what I did in Philadelphia in 2014), but the temperature and humidity on race day were higher than any under which I have ever run a half-marathon before.  After some more thinking, I decided to start slower; 6:40 to 6:45/mile pace for the first two miles or so, and then I would work my way down.  After all, I knew the course from Mile 6 on to be relatively fast and along the river; I could use the terrain to my advantage, and hopefully the river would keep temperatures from getting too high.  I also knew based on previous years of running this, the final segment after that bridge at Mile 9 was very fast.  If my start turned out to be too conservative, I could probably make up the time after I crossed that bridge.

Miles 1 through 5 (6:54, 6:40, 6:38, 6:43, 6:34): As planned, the first mile was conservative.  I had no idea how fast I was going for a good part of this first mile because the tall buildings around me were screwing up the GPS signal; at times, my Garmin had indicated I was going as slow as 7:30/mile pace.  It wasn't until I approached the first mile marker that I got an indication of my actual pace; even though my Garmin indicated a first mile split of 6:54, I noticed that I crossed the one mile mark at 6:45.  The second mile was more of the same.  However, during these first two miles, I noticed that surprisingly few people were passing me, yet I was moving ahead of quite a lot of people.  And my Garmin indicated a 6:39 split for the second mile near the actual two-mile mark, which would mean a 6:46/mile pace for the first two miles; a little slower than I would have liked, but not by much.

The segment in which runners go by the start and get to see people from later corrals starting, which had been my favorite part during the Philadelphia Half-Marathon the past few years that I ran it, now occurred at Mile 3 rather than Mile 4.  This part had always been an energy boost as quite a few of the runners starting their races would be quite enthusiastic; plus, this part was flat and fast and was good for picking up a little speed.  I did push the pace a little and ended up doing a 6:38 split for this third mile.  I figured if I could stay around this pace for the remainder of the race and push it a little toward the end, I could go under 1:27:00.

But then I came to the hill leading up Fairmount Avenue.  I wasn't expecting this hill to be this long and noticeable; the course video never showed anything like this (funny how course videos always seem to make hills seem much less long and steep than they actually are).  We did get a bit of a break after the first hill, but we then came to another before the hairpin turn.  I focused on constant effort throughout this segment, and, as expected, it was quite a bit slower; but I kept telling myself that I would get a long downhill on the way back.  I did take advantage of the downhill fifth mile to cover my fastest mile so far, a 6:34.  High-fiving the DC Front Runners on their way out along this segment helped also.

Miles 6 through 9 (6:37, 6:35, 6:41, 6:38): Once that out-and-back segment down Fairmount Avenue was behind me, I knew I had a flat and fast segment along the river.  I focused on keeping a steady pace for the next few miles.  Aerobically, I didn't feel particularly taxed, but my legs were really working.  I found myself catching up to and dropping runners I recognized from the early miles that had pulled ahead.

I have been unable to explain the sudden slowdown in Mile 8.  I tried pushing the pace a little when I saw that my Garmin was indicating I was running at a nearly 6:50/mile pace; I hoped to get the split for this mile down to below 6:40.  After my Garmin indicated a 6:41 split for this mile, I considered the possibility I might be able to pick up the pace a little.  Initially, I thought I was able to; my Garmin indicated I was going 6:31/mile pace for the first half of this mile.  But then the hill leading up to the bridge smacked me in the face; every year that I had done this race, this segment has slowed me down, and this year was no exception.

Mile 10 through the end (6:38, 6:35, 6:34, 6:34, 1:00 for the last 0.17 miles): After the bridge, I tried to take advantage of a downhill segment to accelerate, but my legs just would not listen.  I just could not go faster than 6:38.  But even so, I was still passing quite a lot of people, and no one was passing me.  I noticed a lot of people were not having great days today; I passed one woman and overheard her apologizing to the man she was running with for her performance today.

After passing Mile 10 and some colorful words when I noticed that my 10-mile split was almost 1:07:00, I made one last attempt to pick up the pace.  Unfortunately, when I passed the Mile 11 marker and saw that more than I was more than one hour 13 minutes into my race, I realized that a sub-1:27:00 was not going to happen today.  I even resigned myself to the possibility that a sub-1:28:00 was not going to happen either.  I did my best not to slow down, but I felt like I was just holding on.

But it was almost as if I was closing quickly today; I passed dozens of people as I approached the finish line.  When I got to that last hill leading up to the Art Museum, I mustered whatever energy I had left and tried to cross that finish line as quickly as possible.  My Garmin indicated 1:27:20; I knew at that point I was going to get more than 70 points for this race toward the Race Circuit (my previous calculations indicated I needed a 1:27:41 or better).  Now all I needed to do was find an age grade score calculator to see how much above 70 points I got.

Next Steps

A 1:27:20 half-marathon time would indicate that I was currently in at worst 3:08:00 marathon shape (this half-marathon time times 2.15 given my mileage, training, and experience level would be 3:07:46).  However, since I am only about halfway through my training and because of the conditions, there is a good chance that 3:08:00 would be a little conservative of a target for Richmond.  But it is good to know that even so, I would still likely qualify for Boston by two minutes or more.

What I will use to determine a realistic target time for myself in Richmond would be the Army 10-Miler on October 9.  It will be closer to the day of the Richmond Marathon; provided I execute my training as written, I will have completed a few more higher-mileage weeks between now and then.  Hopefully, the conditions during the Army 10-Miler would be much better than the ones in Philadelphia.

Other Thoughts

• I really prefer the old course, even though I do like the concept of running past a place that was featured on World's Scariest Places.  I wonder whether the course was changed because of all that construction going on.  Perhaps when that is finished, they would change the course back.
• Humidity is a very insidious weather condition.  A lot of people, myself included sometimes, start out thinking they can proceed at a pace similar to what they can do in better conditions and power through the humidity.  Humidity saps your strength and often, you don't realize it until the later miles when you barely have the energy to hang on.  My race would have probably unfolded very differently had I started out faster than 6:45/mile pace.
• To get an idea of how much the conditions may have affected people, a 1:27:20 during the much better conditions in the 2015 Rock and Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon race would have been 313th overall, 226th male, and 47th in the male 30-34 age group.
• Working backwards, the race time adjustment calculator for temperature and dew point at runnersconnect.net predicts that given a temperature of 71 and a dew point of 68, a 1:27:20 half-marathon would translate to a 1:24:07 (6:25/mile) under ideal conditions.  Although I'm not sure how reliable this calculator or any race time adjustment algorithms are, I like what it's telling me.