Philly pictures

I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine was uneventful. (My folks live in Canada, and so Thanksgiving has never been a big deal for me. Although I like the idea behind it very much.)

I ran for about 15 minutes on Wednesday. I had a meeting to go to afterwards, and so I couldn't run more than that even had I wanted to. I was a little ambivalent about going out there for such a short run, but by the next day I was glad I had. The weather on Thursday (Thanksgiving) was so miserable. I had planned to go for a run, but without a specific training plan, I wasn't motivated enough to brave the pouring rain.

Today, on the other hand, was an absolutely beautiful day to run. Sunny, and high 50's to 60's. I went for a nice and easy 6 mile run here in the neighborhood. I probably should have taken advantage of the weekend, and gone in to run in Central Park. I had a flat tire though, and I didn't feel like fixing it in the morning.



(In the end, I couldn't even fix it afterwards. I've changed many tires in the past, and I've never had to depend on any roadside service. In this case, I loosened the lug nuts, jacked up the car, and then took off the lug nuts. But the tire would just not budge. I couldn't get it off for the life of me, and as I tried to pull it off, the car started rocking and rolling, and I had visions of it falling off the jack onto my hands. Eventually I called roadside assistance. The guy came about 45 minutes later, and took less than 4 minutes to do the whole thing. For those of you who are curious, he swung the spare tire into the flat tire, and it kind of bounced off the screws. Easy as 1,2,3. I'll remember that for the future.)

Anyway, as the title of the post implies, the pictures from the Philadelphia Half Marathon are up. Mine seem to have changed a bit over time, but there are actually a few decent ones. (I know most of you don't really need to see more running pictures, so it's mostly for my folks, who silently read the blog!)






Race organizers are always trying to stress that since you have a chip, you don't have to line up towards the front. In general, I actually prefer starting further back as it allows me to start slow, and it allows me to pass people more often than people passing me. However, I do find several things about it annoying. For one, my finishing picture is taken with the clock. I've now run four half marathons, all of them under 2 hours. Yet, the picture above shows the clock at 2:03:39. That's annoying.



Also, they sent me this certificate. I recognize that in terms of my finishing order they should use my clock time, since it is a race and the order of finishing is what should count. But why do they emphasize the clock time so much? For example, my pace is calculated off my clock time. That's ridiculous. In actuality, my pace was really 8:50 per mile if you use my chip time, which is more accurate. Just another thing I find annoying. Obviously it's not a big deal, but it does make me feel like trying to start closer to the front. (Although I probably still won't.)