[Race Report] Rocky Run 5K, Philadelphia
Disclaimer: Writing this report took me longer than actually running the race. It is chock full of potentially boring detail. You have been warned.
About the Race:
I don't know how I found out about the Rocky Run, but it's a Rocky-themed 5K/10K event held in Philadelphia at the Museum of Art, the site of the famous training montage where Rocky Balboa runs up the steps. (Oh, and it's a world-class art museum, too!) The web site specifically noted, however, that running up the steps was not part of the race.
One of the big reasons I like running races is for the swag, and this race had great swag, especially if you're a fan of the Rocky franchise: entering either the 5K or 10K got participants a Rocky shirt with a yellow and black image of Rocky standing at the top of the steps of the Museum with his arms raised, a really nice two-sided embossed medal with the same image and a ribbon with images of Rocky Balboa, Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, and Ivan Drago, and a racing bib. Really well-designed stuff.
When I was deciding whether to go to the trouble of traveling to Philly for a 5K and leaving my cats all alone for a night, I took a look at last year's race results. There were almost 3000 finishers of the 5K in 2014, about ten times bigger than any race I've entered so far, but the times weren't all that competitive for the size of the field, in my opinion.
Last year was the first year of the Rocky Run, but it also falls a week before the Philadelphia Marathon, so I don't think many super serious runners enter this one. Plus, the faster runners that do enter the Rocky Run do the 10K, not the 5K I was looking at.
Age group placement was a definite possibility based on my PR, so I figured why not give the race a shot. Worst case scenario was I'd walk away with a neat finisher medal. Well, that's not actually the worst case scenario, but it's the worst that's likely to happen.
Training:
I started walking to lose weight in mid-2014 and transitioned to running early this year after losing 50 pounds. My training has been pretty informal, though. I mostly just run by feel, but somehow manage to keep the structure of a mix of long, slow runs and short, fast runs to keep things interesting. I generally run a minimum of 4 miles at a time and my long runs are closer to 8+ with the occasional ~HM distance thrown in when I'm feeling particularly ambitious. In the late summer, I started doing some track work inspired by the Extravaganza Bonanza, but I've pulled back from that because I pushed too hard and ended up slightly injured... nothing serious, just mildly irritating. For the past few months, my weekly mileage has averaged in the 40-45 mile range.
That mileage, coupled with the injury and the run-streaking, was leaving me feeling a little ragged. The four days before the race, I decided to take my foot off the gas a little bit and just do a mile or so per day to try to heal up some nagging problems and rest. I really wanted to do well at this race.
Goals
My goal was a sub-22:00 5K and, hopefully, age group placement. I've run one or two sub-22s in training, but my fastest race time was 22:31 in early October. I was feeling kind of crappy earlier in the week, so I figured I'd be happy with anything sub-23:00, and it all depended on the elevation of the course. (/u/palindrome27 was kind enough to fill me in that it was mostly flat, with a downhill at the beginning and uphill at the end.)
Race Day
The race was scheduled to start at 7:30. My brother and I planned to get up around 6-ish and leave his place at 6:30 to get there at 7, but my race-day anxiety had me awake at 5:30. Breakfast was just a peanut butter sandwich and some Coke Zero. Temperature at the race was supposed to be low 40s, so I ended up wearing tights in public for the very first time, and it felt like I was wearing nothing at all.
We left at 6:30 according to plan, but parking was pretty much a nightmare, so my brother dropped me off and I followed all the runners over to the event grounds. Lots of people milling about, many in Rocky-related costumes like the classic heather gray sweatsuit, and a few street vendors were selling hats and gloves. They had a stage set up playing Rocky music on what seemed like an endless loop, and tents set up for packet pickup, gear check, and a few photo backdrops you could stand in front of for pictures as well as a line of porta-potties.
As a designer that sometimes does work on marketing projects, I was kind of shocked that, with the new Rocky-related movie Creed coming out later this month, there was zero promotion for it at this event. It really seemed like a lost opportunity when you have thousands of people there, but that's the nerd in me talking.
Race Time
About ten or fifteen minutes before the race began, the announcer called for us to line up according to the pace markers. The starting corral was nicely set up with huge, highly visible signs with paces on them: 14:00/mile, 12:00/mile, 10:00/mile, and 8:00/mile with the faster at the front. I thought it was weird that 8:00/mile was the fastest they had on the signs, but it made sense later. I was hoping to run around 7:15/mile, so I lined up about a quarter of the way between the start line and the 8:00/mile marker.
Weirdly enough, no one was lining up in front of me. I started to get a little nervous. Everyone else stuck to the back of those pace signs. A few minutes before the start, the announcer asked everyone to move up closer to the starting line; at that point, a bunch of faster runners appeared seemingly out of nowhere from doing their pre-race warmups and lined up in front of me. I was still disconcertingly close to the front, but not right on the line at least. Whew!
After a great singer who sounded a lot like Frank Sinatra did the national anthem, the DJ started playing Eye of the Tiger (again) and the announcer started to hype us up, then the air horn blew and we were off!
The Race
The course started around Eakins Oval on the Museum grounds and led around a loop to Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Drive along the Schuylkill River, ran north to a little bit past West Girard Avenue, and back down to the Museum.
Mile 1: At the very beginning, I heard people muttering behind me about the crowd and how some slow people were in the front. I hope they weren't talking about me! I was passed by a few people and passed a few myself, but for as many people as there were, we spread out pretty quickly and course congestion was not a problem.
The course was slightly downhill to the river, then flattened out. I checked my watch a few times and was shocked that I was going as fast as I was. (Well, fast for me.) I pulled back a little, but my first mile was still 6:41.
Mile 2: I slowed down in the middle as I tend to do, but fell into a nice groove even though I was breathing heavy. There were a few dozen people ahead of me. I was kind of in a zone or something because I didn't pay much attention to any of the other runners... there just weren't that many near me. The only one I really noticed was a guy in gray that was trying to run strict tangents, who I will mention more at Mile 3. I hit the turnaround (ran it kind of wide instead of slowing down to run a hairpin turn... I never know how to best do turnarounds!), and felt pretty good. Passed the water station and didn't take any. My split for mile 2 was 7:05, still on pace for my goal.
Mile 3: After the turnaround, I could see the huge mass of humanity that was behind me in the race... it was pretty congested for those people. We were running on the left side; oncoming traffic was on the right side. I was still in my zone, but I did notice two things:
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Someone had passed out probably around 1K into the race. I never did find out what was going on there, but I saw a few people giving this person medical attention as he laid on the ground with a bottleneck behind him. Luckily, it was mostly walkers at that point.
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The serious runner tangent guy in gray insisted on running on the very far right of our nearly-empty lane. He had all of this room to move over, but, instead, he chose to keep yelling "YOU'RE IN THE WRONG LANE!" at the thousands of people who were ten wide in the oncoming lane and spilling over onto our side. It wasn't their fault and he was just being a total dick. The best part: I ended up passing him because he collided with someone in the oncoming lane because he was too busy yelling and not busy enough moving out of the way. I get wanting to do well and maybe I have a scrub attitude, but this isn't the Olympics and you're not in the top 10, even, so why bother trying to risk crashing into someone to shave a few seconds off your time?
My big worry at this point was trying to figure out if I had enough energy left for a kick and when to start. I figured I'd wait until I saw the finish line then run like hell.
Mile 3 split: 7:06
Mile 3.1 The finish line came up awfully fast on me... rounded a turn and saw it so I started running hard. I passed two people at the end, which felt pretty good, but I also felt like I was going to vomit. On the one hand, I had enough left to kick well at the end and probably should have started sooner, but on the other, if I had started sooner, I probably would have been sick on the course in front of thousands of people, so I think I did okay.
Mile 3.1 pace: 5:39
Official Result
This photo shows me crossing the line at 21:37, but my official time was 21:34, a new PR for me. My Strava activity for the race had me at 21:25 (TANGENTS MAN WAS RIGHT!), but 21:34 is way better than I thought I might do, so I was pleased. They only gave awards to the top 3 male and female finishers, so I didn't stick around for results, but I checked on the web site later and saw I came in 2nd in my age group, 49th overall out of 3,107 finishers.
Final Impressions
I've never run a race this big, but everything went very smoothly. My only real "complaint" was the lack of anything in the race packet. All I got was the bib and the shirt... I thought there might be something like coupons or maybe promo postcards or something from the sponsors, but it was pretty barebones. It seems like a lost marketing opportunity to me. The medal is my new favorite for sure, though, and the shirt looks fantastic.
The race is great if you're like me: not particularly fast, but a little faster than the average person and wanting to try placing in your age group. The times of this year's finishers were better than last year, so I think next year will probably get faster still since this is only the second year this event's been run, but for someone like me to finish in the top 2% means it's not all that competitive. I saw a ton of happy people here, though... it's a well-run event with lots to see, great for a casual runner who just wants to have a good time at an event and walk away with a nice medal.
Bonus Pics
My brother was my gear check this year, so he was kind enough to take some pictures around the event since he had my phone.
If I keep running races for swag, I'm going to need one of these medal racks.
Posted Nov 16, 2015, 12:25 PM UTC · edited