PSCI Icicle 10 mile run - Wilmington, DE

Got up at 7am to get ready.  OK, thats a lie.  My Nathan woke me up cause he wanted pancakes.  Luckily, I had gotten all ready the night before.  Ipod and phone charged, playlist on ipod created and synced, bag packed with spare clothes.  I was all set.  Just needed to eat something before I left.  Got some of my home made mac and cheese (for some carbs) and of course a Coke.  Breakfast of champions.  I think I read somewhere that Steve Prefontaine used to have the same meals before he ran.

Now here came the scary part of the day.  I had to leave the boys with Grampy (cause Gammy wasn't going to be home for like an hour).  The question was going to be:  What are those boys going to do to their grandfather while nobody else was there to help him.  I expected that when Gammy came home, Grampy would have been locked in a closet somewhere, tied up.  I left him with the boys as they were watching Shrek 4.  I just had to cross my fingers and hope for that everything would be ok (not worried about my kids, just worried about my father.)

So, met Chris Felix at Kelly's Sports, and we drove down to Wilmington together.  We met at 7:30, race was at 9.  We figured this was a good idea.  Well sure enough, there was no traffic at all on the road, so we got down to Wilmington by about 7:50 (way too early.)  Oh well, we went in and registered at the YMCA in Wilmington.  Sure enough it is right in the middle of town (which I didnt know).  I mean, literally right in the middle of downtown corporate Wilmington.  That was pretty cool.  We registered, got our shirts and race numbers, and just hung out and stretched for a while as more and more people piled in.  I was impressed with how organized this race is.  It was also interesting to see all the runners.  Being that this was a 10 mile race, all the runners were mostly serious runners.  That was cool though. 

race number:
This was a critical thing to have, because if you show up with it at the Washingtson Street Ale House, you get a free beer

here is the race shirt.  Not a bad long sleeve shirt.  It is an XL, but I am working on it.  Next year, I will just need an L.

Here are a few pics before the race started:

Downtown Wilmington on Sunday morning at 8am

Chris and I

Wilmington's finest getting ready to route traffic and make us safe

Downtown YMCA.  This is where registration and the finish line is

Getting ready to start

So, its 9am.  About 400 runners or so gathered in Wilmington.  I got my ipod ready to go, just waiting for the start.  BOOM!  (a cannon went off which scared the bejesus out of me)

and we are off:
First 2 miles were through downtown Wilmington

crossed the first mile timer at 9mins 57sec (which, since I was in the back when I started, didn't cross the starting line for 30 seconds until after the cannon went off, I was very happy with this pace.  About 9mins 30secs.)  If I could do this for 9 more miles, no sweat!

mile #2

and now we are starting to run out of the city, towards Rockford Park

mile #3

this is the "Delaware Art Museum"  I thought about running up the steps of these, since I was listening to Rocky music.  Much easier than the Philadelphia Art Museum steps

mile #4

mile #5

this is where I start to pass a lot of runners in front of me, coming the other way

mile #6

past the turnaround, heading back in the direction of the finish line.

mile #7

mile #8

running up this was a pain earlier on, but now, its all downhill

Its hard to tell in the pic, but this was a brutal hill, right at the 9 1/2 mile mark.  I had no problem pushing through it.  Having said that, as soon as I got to the top, I was exhausted.  Luckily, only a quarter mile to go.

final stretch to the finish

 

clock:  1 hour   48 mins    03 secs

chip:    1 hour   47 mins    37 secs



So, I finished 393 out of 427 finishers.  Now that doesn't seem great, but it could've been worse.  I could've finished at 394.  There was a 10 year old girl who ran the race.  I beat her by 4 minutes or so.  That made me feel pretty good inside!  However, there were 3 men over 70, and they all beat me (2 of them kicked my ass)

Chris finished in 1 hour  26 mins  (206 out of 427) 

Chris was waiting for me.  We went into the Y, grabbed some pizza, soft pretzels, and gatorade.  

The most important giveaway was down the street at the Washington Street Ale House.  If you give them your race number, you get a free beer.  It would have been Un-American for us to give up a free beer, so we went here and got it.

What a great race.  This was my first 10 mile run, and I can't wait to do another one!