Philly Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon 2012

On Sunday, I ran in the Philly Rock 'n Roll Half Marathon.  It was a great races and I am so glad I decided at the last minute to do it.  I don't have the best memories of Philly.  My daughter spent a lot of time in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.  We did not have the best experience there, so my memories of Philly are very tough to think about.  Honestly, I was very reluctant to every go back there again.  I am very lucky that I have some amazing friends who talked me into making some good memories in Philly.

My runDisney buddy, Chelsea, offered me to stay with her for the night.  She had a room with the Team in Training group from Texas.  It was so weird going to a race that started at 8 am.  I am so used to Disney races where you have to be at the start by 4 am.  We are usually done by 8 am.

We walked to the start where I meet my local friends Michelle, Lish and her momma.  We did the usually pre-race potty visit, bag check, then headed to the start.  One thing I really like about RnR races is that they use many, many small corrals.  I believe for this race in Philly there were 20+ corrals, each with around a thousand runners.  They let off a new corral about every two minutes.  This greatly allieviates the start line bottleneck. I started in corral 17.  Each corral got their own "Ready, Set, Go!"

I think this race had the most spectators I had every experienced.  Maybe not most in total number, but for sure most spectators in the area they covered.  At the other races I have been in, spectators were very concentrated in major areas, like the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.  In Philly, there were spectators  for the entire first five miles, like a parade.

The first five miles of the race were in historic Philadelphia.  We passed all the historic places--the Liberty Bell, Constitution Hall etc.  Then four miles up the Schuylkill River, over the bridge and back to the finish line.  Running by the river, I saw something very strange to me.  The road we were running on was at the bottom of a 3-4 story cliff.  On top of the cliff was a huge cemetery.  It seemed so out of place to me.  The run along the river was very pretty.  The race ended on a huge up hill right in front of the Rocky steps--classic Philly.

This was a good race.  Thanks to my friends for convincing me I should do it!

A dream is a wish...

--Amy