My workouts now resembled actual ones I ran in college, except at a much slower pace and more recovery. Right now my training plan is still building to summer 5ks, so I was not specifically training for broad street. Going into the race, my long run had only moved up to 8 miles, so I was not really in shape to race 10 miles.
The night before the race, I stayed down at Nick DeSantis' house and talked race plan with Coach Jason Kilderry. He told me he didn't want to go out any faster than 5:45 for the first mile and that I was in shape to PR. I wasn't as confident and told him that I was thinking of going out 6:15 and my goal was to just break 64 minutes. Part of it probably stemmed from not running well last year. I ran 1:08:42 in 2010 and felt terrible. I knew from my 5k result at Adrenaline was 15 seconds faster than last year, so I was in better shape.
He didn't have a problem with that, so my strategy was to run 6:15 miles for the first 5 miles, then depending on how I felt pick it up from there. Then after spending the day mentally preparing myself and psyching myself up, I shave my facial hair into a Fu Manchu to channel my inner Brian Sell. Race morning, I woke up at 5:15 and after a quick Wawa trip, headed over to the sports complex with some of the Breakneck team. We took the subway up to the start and waited a while before warming up. The weather was by far the best I've ever had for any of the times I've run Broad Street. The temperature was in the mid 50's and it was sunny. By the start, I ran into Bill Ling and we warmed up together. He told me he was shooting for sub 65 and asked if he could run with me for most of the race. I had no problem with that because I knew it would keep me more accountable for the pace and it's always easier running with people.
After working my way up to the back of the elite seeded runners, I heard someone ask attractive local 6 ABC weather woman, Cecily Tynan what she was looking to run. She said she wanted to see how long she could hold 6:15s. I then told Bill that we should run with her for most of the way. The gun went off and the 30,000 runners took off down Broad Street. This year I held back in the first mile, but still felt like I was being sucked out too fast.
The first mile felt relaxed, but we were feeling good and moved up from Cecily's pack of runners shortly after a half mile in. We went through the 1 mile mark in 5:49. I knew it was faster than I wanted, but I still felt comfortable. My threshold workouts have been at around that pace, so I knew I could hold that for a while. I ran 5:50 for the second mile and still felt good, so kept the pace going. I clipped off another 5:50 for mile 3. At that time, Bill asked if we should back off the pace. I thought that it was probably a good idea. We ran 5:57 for mile 4. I still felt pretty good and we started passing a lot of people that went out too fast. We ran 5:48 for mile 5 for a halfway split 29:15.
I knew we could pretty much cruise and hit our goals, but Bill was feeling good and started moving up. I started easing up slightly before City Hall and was passed by newly engaged Breakneck member Erik Geisinger. He blew past me and just kept moving. I hit 5:59 for mile 6 and 6:00 for mile 7. In the 8th mile, I was starting to struggle and felt myself slowing up even more. Luckily it wasn't too much. I ran 6:05 for mile 8. At the 8 mile mark, Coach Jason was standing there and told me I looked good and yelled at me to break an hour. I wasn't sure how I'd hold up the last 2 miles or if breaking an hour was a possibility, but I knew my PR of 1:01:06 was still in easily within reach.
My 9 felt a lot worse than any of the previous miles and I was struggling even more. Luckily, I latched onto a couple runners that were moving up I didn't fall off my pace too much. Mile 9 was a 6:10 and then I knew sub 60 was still in reach. I noticed Bill Ling wasn't to far in front of me, so I moved up and ran with him. Bill then ended up dropping his phone that he was running with and turned to pick it up. I kept on going with the pace. When Bill caught up, he was already well into his kick. I knew he was going much too early, so I let him go, but started gradually picking up the pace. With about 300m to go I had caught up to Bill and started my own kick. I passed a couple people and finished officially in 59:23, 5:51 last mile. Bill was about 5 seconds back.
After finishing, we met up with the other Breakneck guys that finished well in front of us and began our post race celebration. I'm happy with shaving 1:43 off my PR and destroying my goal time. Over all it was a good day.
