On Sunday, I did my TENTH half marathon which was the Rock N’ Roll Philly Half Marathon. I’ve heard of RnR before but this is my first time doing an RnR race.
Pre-Race
This Philly race reminded me a lot of last November’s race when I did the Philly Marathon. Bib pick up was held at the Philadelphia Convention Center and the start and finish were in the same place.
That being said, I thought that this was 100x a better race – from the expo to the post-race party. The pre-race expo was huge with a ton of vendors and samples: Brooks, Sparkly Soul, Apera, etc.
Bib pick up was a breeze. I just had to print out my registration form and I got my bib and shirt and walked around. My sister, who wasn’t even running the race, did some serious shopping while I kept running around the large expo looking for her (spoiler alert: I stayed for an hour and could find her, that’s how big this expo was)
Race morning
We stayed at the Residence Inn which was a short walk from the start line. When you share a room with a bunch of 20 somethings who aren’t racing – you don’t get much sleep (although I did have delicious leftover pizza and cookies post race). I went to sleep around 1am for an 8am start time. I got up at 6:30 am and slowly got up and left around 7:15.
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| Taken on the way to the start also by the first mile of the race |
There were 20+ corrals and I was in corral 17 or so, which is all the way by the finish line and the museum. The corrals were probably the smallest I’ve ever seen at a race but there was no race congestion during the start, or at least during the first few miles.
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| Views from the start |
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| Views from the start part 2 |
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| Views from the start pt 3 – also where the post party will be held |
Minus the physical pain that I was in – the race was pretty awesome. I much preferred this course to the Philly half/marathon course (which the half and marathon course share the first 13 miles together). The course took you through a tour of the city of Philly through all the historical points of interest, which RNR had signs for (i.e. This is where Ben Franklin is buried, this is where the liberty bell is, etc.). RnR also had great motivational signs (a favorite = WTF? Where is The Finish? around mile 9 or 10 I think). Plus of course they had great music during the race.
What do you do when you’re sorta injured? I’m sure others have ran through worse pain.
Disclaimer: A bib was provided to me via Bibrave’s Bib Rave Pro ambassadorship. All opinions are my own.
