Got an email a couple days ago with links to upcoming local races. Among them was the Mayor's Icicle 10-miler taking place in Wilmington this coming Sunday. I'm a little wishy-washy about taking part, but most of my mind is on the go-for-it side. Right now I'm doing 10-milers on Sundays anyway so regardless of my time, I'd get the mileage in that I want to. I haven't done any pace or speedwork since before the Des Moines marathon, so I'd have no high expectations as to a finish time, but it will be illuminating to see where I am now at more or less baseline, and later contrast to where I will be in the spring. The course overlaps a great deal with other longer races that are held in Wilmington, so I'd be familiar with it (particularly with its long and arduous hill(s) in the middle). Unfortunately, while the temperature is forecast to be in the 50s on Sunday (though no doubt cooler at the 9 a.m. race start, pretty good for racing), it's also forecast to rain. I did the cold rain in Boston last year. It wasn't pleasant by any means, and obviously this is way below Boston in importance, so my mental softness about running in cold rain would keep me away in that case. I can get my miles in later if it stops raining, or do them on the treadmill.
Online registration closes tomorrow, but in-person registration is open race morning, so I have until essentially the last hour to decide. Right now it's the specter of cruddy weather that's holding back my 100% about it.
I haven't done a 10-mile race since I last did the Broad Street Run in 2008. It is not a particularly common race distance, but I actually kind of like it -- more challenging than a 10K, but not quite the challenge of a half-marathon. I've avoided doing the Broad Street race since then for a number of reasons, chief among them being that it falls on a weekend that's either too close before or after to some marathon I've done in the spring. Also, because it's ballooned in size/popularity, you have to decide many months in advance that you want to run it, and I was not always ready to make that decision when I had to. And then there is the size...
This phenomenon of skyrocketing race participation leaves me feeling cold. It's nice that road racing is more popular, but I very much dislike the idea that for some races I would like to run, I have to decide half a year (at least) in advance that I'm going to do it, because the moment registration opens it's going to sell out, and I won't have an opportunity to decide later. (I'm not talking about marathons, because obviously, given the training required, that decision must be made many months in advance regardless of registration times.) When I ran the BSR in 2004 for the first time, there were approximately 10,000 runners, which to me is a good size; big enough so the field is competitive and you are never alone, but you don't have the jam-packed feeling that a larger field can give. In 2006, when I ran it for the second time, it had swelled a few thousand, but that still felt manageable. I could still get on the subway in Center City to hitch a ride up to the start and was not crammed into the train car. By the time I ran it last in 2008, it had grown to almost 20,000 runners, and I had trouble getting onto the subway way down at its start at Broad and Pattison -- never mind making stops at City Hall, no one could get on. It was awful being squashed so tightly into those subway cars all the way up to Olney. It's a terrible way to get psyched for a race. Last year, there were nearly 40,000 participants; can't even imagine what it must have been like trying to get a ride on the train. Even though they've opened up the field to such a grossly large number, not only do you have to decide in the winter that you want to run this race in May, they have to hold a lottery -- so you even when you decide while it's still winter that you want to do it, you still might not get to.
I liked the Broad Street race. The course really couldn't be more conducive to good racing; it's straight (except for the brief bit going around City Hall) and no uphill to speak of. It's a rush to run a race through the heart of a big city, and you get a very good flavor of Philadelphia (good and bad). I had not lived near Philly for very long when I ran it the first time, so my memories of it are pleasantly linked to those feelings of excitement and awe of a big-time race in a big-time city. When I ran it in 2008, I was somewhat disillusioned; the horrid train ride, missing the start of the race because I was stuck in a porta-potty line*; it was only after a couple miles that I was able to relax and get back into the right frame of mind to just race. By the end I was feeling better about it (I was shy of my debut PR by only 8 seconds -- how do I always do that, miss a PR by 10 seconds or less?), and always intended to run it again -- some day -- better prepared to deal with what evidently I had not been prepared to deal with. I thought this year could be the year, because I'm not running Boston and my planned spring marathon is later in May. Leery about the field size, though; as years have gone on, I've found I want to deal with giant crowds less and less, so I felt that if I did not get in through the lottery, it wouldn't break my heart. Registration opens in February, so I didn't have to really make up my mind quite yet.
Then I got this email a couple days ago, which, in addition to the 10-miler this weekend, listed another 10-miler in Lewes, DE on April 23, a week before the Broad Street Run. It's an inaugural race, so there may be some hiccups, but the option of this race at about the same time of year has led to me toss the whole Broad Street idea. The Lewes race will be a good alternative to get the same race distance in at about the same time of year, and without the hassle of Broad Street and the 40,000 other runners. Just a guess, the course probably won't be very hilly (I haven't been to the Delaware shore all that often, but my experience on the east coast is that the coast doesn't have much up and down to it -- if I'm wrong about Lewes, please, let me know!). Also, being a week earlier, I could still do one of the Triple Crown trail runs on April 30, which I was actually looking forward to trying for the first time.
Sorry, Broad Street. Looks like the next time we maybe can hook up again will be 2018 (I'm planning on Boston next year).
*Porta-potty timing is crucial for any race (there could be a whole post about it on its own), but here it was especially critical. It had been quite a while since my last pit-stop. I'd driven up from Wilmington to Philly; the train ride from Pattison to Olney is not short, even when "express", and somewhere in the middle of it, while I huddled among the arms and legs and shoulders of thousands of others, I realized I needed to go, all the while knowing that these thousands of others were feeling the same way. I had thought the timing was OK, but I was using 2004/2006 as my standard, which was a mistake. Twice as many people, etc. I was still in the porta-potty line when the race started. I was infuriated, but there was no way I was going to be able to run ten miles without making this stop now. The reasonable side of my brain piped up and tried to console the irrational side, which was the one that was front and center just then: come on, Crusher, you were not in contention to win this race -- you were going to start miles behind the front anyway -- chip time is all that really matters here, so not being blocks back on Broad Street at the time of the gun isn't a big deal. (I had a 5:30 differential between gun and chip times -- not much worse than in 2006 when I was lined up properly (5 minutes); in 2004, it was only 3 minutes.)
It still felt like a big deal. As I said, it took me a couple miles to get over it.
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