Overall I had a great time at the race; it was my little brother’s first long distance race, my dad’s 29th consecutive Broad Street Run, and we had the whole team of my dad, brother, my wife and myself.

Training

Usually I have a detailed training plan for my races, but with Hot Chocolate 15k only a month before this race, I really just did maintenance running. This meant I did the following schedule:

Monday	Rest Day
Tuesday	Easy Run (30-40 min)
Wednesday	Easy Run (60 min)
Thursday	Easy Run (30-40 min)
Friday	Rest Day
Saturday	Easy Run (45-60 min)
Sunday	Long Run (usually 90min+)

Race Day

I had a family member pick up my race stuff, so I can’t say how the expo was. For race day, mother nature has shown how much she likes to challenge Broad Street Runners. To my memory, this was in the top 5 worst weather conditions for the race. It was on the cooler side, which is fine, but it was raining hard before the race, with a constant light breeze. Once the race started, there were periods of downpours and high, chilly gusts of wind. Since it had been raining all morning before the race, there were a lot of huge puddle obstacles as well. In short, it was one wet race.

That didn’t stop my family or the masses from coming out though! Ponchos and umbrellas galore…and a bunch of crazy people were in shorts and short sleeves or tanks only.

I was in the grey corral with my wife, and my brother and dad were in the green corral. When the race started and got to the green corral, it seemed to never end. I wouldn’t be surprised if green had a good 10k people in that corral alone. Unlike other years though, it didn’t take as long as I expected to get to the start, which was really nice, especially with the weather like it was.

After that, pretty much a flat race with the slightest of rolling “hills”. I always get a nice motivation boost as I see Ben getting closer as I approach city hall, which is a little over half way. Despite signs and people waving everyone on, there were still a bunch of people who stopped thinking they were finished once they entered the Naval Yard. However, you still have a quarter mile to go.

Once the race was done, we waited to get our snacks and medals. That would be my only complaint for the race; that part seemed a bit unorganized and chaotic; it was basically a mass of tired and cold people trying to figure out how to form lines when they were exhausted.

I didn’t really see what there was to offer after the race since we all just wanted to get out of the rain. Plenty of port-a-potties though and picking up your race bag was fairly easy.

Final Thoughts

A big thanks to my mom, who is our chauffeur and a real trooper enduring the fiasco of parking, then helping haul our tired butts back to the car. Even though the weather was not ideal, I still had a great time and will probably do the race again in the future. Hope everyone who ran had a good time as well!