Broad Street Run
I had signed up to Philadelphia’s “Broad Street Run”, a 10 mile race running straight along Broad Street, on a bit of a whim. Locally, the race is iconic, attracting forty thousand people. I figured I should get around to actually running it as part of my integration. I was giving more serious thoughts about getting a good training block in for it come February and planning to have a decent eight week block after the PRTC 3000m indoor early March.
However, I had gotten a bit injured right before that 3000m race, then managed to make things worse the week after the race (though, surprisingly, seemingly not during that race). That injury messed up training for Broad Street, but I was going to run it regardless, even if it were to end up a slower jog.
Training
| Week | Dist (km) | Wednesday Workout | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Feb (-9) | 63 | Moose Fartlek | Got myself injured on Saturday’s long trail run |
| 2 Mar (-8) | 42 | - | Hip survived PRTC 3000m and actually felt better after |
| 9 Mar (-7) | 20 | Repetition | Did a rep, got reinjured, and worse so. Walked rest of the week |
| 16 Mar (-6) | 56 | - | Switched to many short jogs, which seemed better for the hip |
| 23 Mar (-5) | 62 | - | Continued previous approach |
| 30 Mar (-4) | 38 | - | Big Bend trip involved a lot of walking, did not dare much running |
| 6 Apr (-3) | 68 | - | Trying to get that volume back again |
| 13 Apr (-2) | 70 | - | Beginning to feel more secure again |
| 20 Apr (-1) | 70 | LT | A careful 2×2 km on the track. Wanted a feel for the 1h 10 mile pace |
| 27 Apr | 65 | LT | Another 2×2 km on the track, same reason. Distance includes the race |
I’m starting this story from when things went to shit. While doing a long run on the Horse Shoe Trail on 28 Feb, I fell. I lost a bit of my ear and, worse, hurt my hip. I skipped some runs, made those I still did a lot easier, then showed up for the 3000 metre race I had the week after. In the warmup, my hip worried me still, I was ready to call it quits immediately, but once the race started, my hip felt fine. After the race, my hip even felt better than it had all week. Confused, but happy.
Thinking things were OK again, I planned a workout on Wednesday. In the first rep, my hip immediately said nop. Things felt worse than they had before and that continued for a while. I switched to walking instead for the rest of the week.
The week after, I tried out jogs on many days. As long as I did not run too long, my hip seemed to hold up. I also did these on the nearby rail trail, to keep them flat and easy. Yes, in retrospect, maybe I should have just taken more days off. It is so much harder to decide in the moment though. And thus I continued that many jogs approach for another week. I just wanted to run.
The week after that, the week of 30 March, we had a Texas trip planned. This involved a lot more walking, especially once we got to Big Bend National Park, so I ran a lot less. That gap in training I had already planned for though.
Once back home, I went back to building my base back to “normal”, i.e., the 70 km per week that I had reached prior to breaking myself. I did make a change. Before, I had been spreading the 70 km out over five days and, wanting to have fun weekend long runs, threw too much distance at my long runs: up to 25 km. In my less desperate-for-running times, I would have been the first one to say that with only 70 km in a week, you should not bother with a long run over about 18 km. So I listened to old self (really, to JD) and I now spread the 70 km out over six days while aiming for a 16–18 km long run. I am thinking I will keep it that way for a while after the race too.
Finally, the week before race week, I wanted to actually try some faster running again. No hope remained for the time I had originally filled in for seeding (58:15), but, being a sucker for round numbers, I decided I should still aim for sub 60 minutes least. Sixty minutes at race pace tends to be about what gets suggested for “Lactate Threshold” (LT / T) kind of workouts. You see where I’m going with this. I just did some T work at the pace that would get me to the finish in one hour (3:43.6 per km). Did 2×2 km of it on the track because I wanted to get the exact right feel and because I wanted the flat stability for my hip just in case. It felt… fine? I did the same workout again the week of the race. I had not slept anywhere near enough, but got through it on grit. That gave me even less confidence in actually managing to hold the pace on race day. Oops.
Goal and Strategy
As I said, originally I had filled in 58:15. It seemed like a good goal going by my 5000m in November and is supposedly equivalent to just about a sub-17 5000m. Again, I’m a sucker for round numbers to aim for. Anyway, that was out the window.
Instead, I was just going to aim for the hour (well, for 59:59), at a pace of 3:43.6 per kilometre. Do that for the first maybe five km, see what my heart rate is at, adjust for more speed from there if heart rate is too low. If my heart rate was too high by that point, the plan was to just hold on to the pace anyway and live with the potential crash and burn.
Pre-Race
Ugh.
With my goals and hopes out the window, I had been ignoring the logistics until the week of the race. Not that I could have changed much about them, but boy was that annoying to think about. American races start pretty early compared to Belgian ones. This one was poised to start at 7:00 in the morning. From where we live in the suburbs, there was no train option to get to the start early enough. Instead, my two options were a last minute $200+ hotel room or waking up really early, driving to the parking lot near the finish line, and taking the metro up to the start line (the race is point to point along Broad Street). I was tempted, but decided not to spend that money.
Thus the night before, I started my evening routine by like 20:00. Took some melatonin, went to lie in bed, read the book I had been reading. All the usual approaches to when I have trouble falling asleep. To my surprise, that actually worked somewhat. I don’t know exactly when I fell asleep, but I think I might have even gotten six hours of sleep.
My alarm went off at 4:20. Good thing I’m pretty good at immediately getting out of bed most of the time. I got going with the usual morning routine, but with more purpose than usual. I had three bites of the pasts leftovers from the night before. I had a banana. My wife (who was nice enough to tag along for this madness) and I headed out the door at 4:40. The drive to the parking lot took about 50 mins, we arrived by 5:30 or so. I changed into my running gear, threw a sweater over, was too cold, but we made our way to the metro station that was right there. Got to the metro platform by about 5:38–39 (I remember looking at the clock too often, waiting for a metro to show up), waited five minutes for the express train to arrive, got in like sardines, and after some more delay we were on our way. The express line still stopped a few more times and every time our idea of being in there like sardines got hit by a “it can always be worse”. By the end of the 30–40 minute ordeal, I was sweating a little from the heat of the mass of people in that cart. Dicht bijeen is warm.
We arrived at the start area with about 40 minutes till the start. Walked to the toilets. There were a lot, but the lining up was a bit disorganized, you had to kind of guess which line belonged to what number of toilets. Anyway, that was uneventful and we headed to my corral. Everyone under 62 minutes seed time got in the red corral, right behind the elites. I did not really have time to jog around for a warm up (and did not want the mess of figuring out a good spot nearby to even try that), so I made do with swinging legs, some running in place, some jumping up and down. Not ideal, but I also was not really worried about it? It helps that I did not expect a PR here.
Race
The start was given a bit abruptly and off we were. I started off partly by feel and partly by glancing at the watch. Early on, there is not much trust you can put in that GPS time reading anyway. The pace felt right though. Once the GPS caught on, my feeling was confirmed. I assumed the people around me must also be aiming for an hour and we all just stuck around that same pace. Specifically, I tried to stay near a guy that, going by his jersey, was part of the club that organised my previous two track races. They have some speedy boys and girls and I had noticed a lot of their shirts in the start corral.
Watch splits kilometres one and two, rounded to the second: 3:43, 3:43
Pretty much bang on. After those two first kilometres though, I realise that my heart rate is not going up to where it should. Historically, my LT-aka-one-hour-race-pace heart rate is around 170–173. My watch said my heart rate was around 155. At that point I decided to let the reins go. Speed up by feel, keep an eye on the heart rate, and see what happens. Finishing in an hour while running an entire race in the high 150s would not have sparked joy.
Anyway, I started blasting.
I picked up the pace and I picked off people. Always a little worrying when you suddenly go faster than most people around you, but hey, I had the idea in my head now. Things felt fine, running fast is fun.
By about halfway, I did get the first thoughts of “you know, letting the body relax could be fun too”. We ignore those feelings.
Kilometres 3–9: 3:34, 3:33, 3:32, 3:36, 3:33, 3:33, 3:34
Since the race is a straight line, you see the city hall from quite far away already. A little over halfway, at about 9 km, you finally reach it. With it, you also reach the only four turns as you have to go around it. They are not tight turns though, so you can just keep it rolling.
Just a little past the city hall, I spot my wife’s bright yellow jacket. She yells at me I’m doing great. I had told her about the one hour goal, naturally, so she knew I was ahead of schedule.
And ahead I was. The race provided mile markers and a (gun) timer at every one of them. For a race where you know you need to run just faster than six minutes per mile, that works out to some easy math. I saw my time get further and further ahead of every next multiple of six. I was over a minute ahead of schedule, so projected finish of 58:xx. I would have to implode pretty badly for sub 60 to fail at this point.
A few kilometre later, I realise I have to reign myself in some, I need to slow down. While my heart rate is still just hovering around 163–165, i.e., lower than I would expect, I feel pretty sure I cannot keep up the pace I was running. I don’t worry about it though. Accept faith, see if there is someone I can follow for a while. I tell myself one thing though: I can’t let myself go slower than 3:43.6, the pace I had originally had in mind for the entire race. I am on track for 58:xx and I want to keep it that way.
Kilometres 10–13: 3:37, 3:38, 3:42, 3:42
A lot of this stretch is spent thinking “right, follow that person” … “OK, I can’t really follow them right now” … “Well, they’re also not pulling away very far, so keep them vaguely in sight”. Rinse and repeat. It keeps my mind occupied though. I just want to make sure I keep going. I also already am thinking about when to start pushing to the finish. Last 800m or so sounds good.
Those last bits, there’s actually a slight double bend in the road. Everyone else seems to be sticking to the lanes painted on the road, I aim for what I think is the straighter line. I’m also pushing a bit again, but there’s not much to push.
Kilometres 14–16.1: 3:40, 3:41, 3:37+31
Results
Official results and my own GPS.
My official splits (chip time), compared to the goal pace.
| Split | Time | Leg | Pace/km | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 mi | 17:32 (-28) | 17:32 (-28) | 3:38 | 277 |
| 5 mi | 29:04 (-56) | 11:32 (-28) | 3:35 | 252 |
| 7 mi | 40:45 (-75) | 11:41 (-19) | 3:38 | 257 |
| 10 mi | 58:28 (-92) | 17:43 (-17) | 3:40 | 268 |
Honestly, can’t complain. Sure, the course helps (slight net downhill, one direction). Since I was still already going to be happy with sub 60 today, going faster makes me happier still. Technically this is a PR since it is only the second 10 mile race I have ever run. In reality, the pace of my half marathon PR was a 57:06, without even accounting for being able to run it faster if there is no expectation of another five km tacked on after it. Ah, to be in that shape again.
Right past the finish line, a guy walks up to me and asks me about my Belgian themed shirt. Turns out he is a Belgian too. He saw my singlet during the race and it motivated him to beat me. He managed to, he finished nine seconds ahead of me. We chatted for a bit, commiserating the lack of talking Dutch in our respective areas.
After that, I walked to a shuttle that would bring runners back to the nearby parking lot. By the time I reached the shuttle, I felt like the parking lot was not too far any more anyway and I just walked the rest of the way.
Future
I think my main takeaway from this race is my body might have been lacking in endurance and my mind in the will to push through the pain. That will be a matter of running more again and running harder more often again, both in workout settings as in race settings. Time will tell whether I manage.
As for actual future plans, I don’t really know. Past two months distracted me some from even looking ahead much. I’m thinking I’ll look for a race in fall just to keep something on the horizon. Probably should do some smaller stuff sooner.
In the near future I want to get my consistency back. I’m thinking along the two obvious fronts here: distance per week and workouts. I think my distance per week will be back at 70 km per week again easily enough once the week of taking it easier post race is past. I want to finally push towards 80 km again. Really I want to push beyond that, but given my recent history I will take the build up there nice and slow. In terms of workouts I will see what makes sense, but I think I will start with just some more LT work, it feels less destructive to play around with. I really do like “Repetition”, i.e., 200s and 400s, though, so who knows.