More Marathoning

I was hoping that it wouldn't take me this long to get around to doing this post, but due to some technical issues beyond my control, it's taken me this long to get the pictures that should have been ready to download instantly.

So, here are my Official Philadelphia Marathon Photos:

I've actually never bought race photos before, and after this experience, I'm not sure I'd do it again as I'm still not sure it's worth it, but I did it and it's done and I'm actually pretty happy with some of these!  Although, it should be mentioned that if you're wearing a green shirt and then stand in front of a green screen, this is what happens:

Right.  I have no arms.  Just a weird hand holding a cup of water.  The truth is that I actually have arms.  You can almost see them in the last photo.  I actually don't even mind the arms so much as the neck part.  It's weird to see something other than my neck/chest where skin should be.  Oh well.  At least I've got a good smile after running 26.2 miles!

In other Philadelphia Marathon news, they finally updated the split times, so they're fixed.

First half: 2:19:37 (10:39/mile)
Second half: 2:21:51 (10:49/mile)

To put this in perspective, my stand-alone half-marathon in Atlanta was a time of 2:22:32, so I ran both halves of the full marathon faster.  The first half was almost three minutes faster!  I slowed down by 2:14 from half to half, but I'm still pretty happy with all of those times.  I also think that if I wanted to, I could easily get down to 2:15:00 for a stand-alone half.

Except I don't think I'll be working on that just yet.  My big news (that I've saved for last) is:  I'm running another marathon!  And it's in January.  On January 8 to be exact.  I found a trail run in New Jersey that looked fun.  It costs $20 so I'm sure that there is little to no aid for this race, so I just invested in a Camelbak in the hopes that it will be better than the Fuel Belt that I have.

I don't have any hopes and aspirations for this marathon other than wishing that the weather isn't dreadful.  I think it'll be a good way to keep me running over the holidays (although weekend commitments from now until the race will make this an interesting challenge).  I also know that since this is a trail run, it'll likely be a lot slower than Philadelphia, so again, my main goal is to finish.  I think it should be a blast and I'm really looking forward to it.

I went for my first post-Philadelphia run on Saturday with Drew.  It was good.  Not great.  It was colder (and windier) that day than any other day that I've run this fall/winter season and although my legs felt 100% fine, I was having trouble breathing.  I sort-of refuse to believe that I could have possibly lost that much cardio fitness in 6 days, I'm going to go with the cold weather.  Obviously, I'll need to work on this before January!

Running
4.20 miles