A waterfront run in Philadelphia? Yes, please.

On Father's Day, 2011, I discovered a few things, on an early morning run, about the simultaneous absence and beauty of the Philadelphia Waterfront.  

Passing Front Street, Columbus Boulevard bound, you dead-end at a closed sandwich shack and wonder "who goes here for lunch?" because it's so far out of the way, surrounded by empty buildings and no parking lot.  There is a river just on the other side of this small shack, larger warehouses in the background, I'm sure of it at this point.

Municipal Pier (or what used to be a working pier) is on the horizon - rough with echoes on a Sunday morning, not even the lost seagulls stop here.  Running beneath this building's shadows is both humbling and slightly creepy and still I'm sure the view on the other side is perfection.  I can almost hear the docks welcoming the water.

Just before you cross Callowhill to find the Moshulu, there is an empty space where only trash and weeds gather.  A little desperate, footsteps absently pick up here but the view of the river is uninterrupted in its crispness.

From the Moshulu to just before the SugarHouse Casino, the path is clear and manicured, the river at your fingertips, boardwalk laid out at your feet with fishing piers and docks, oh my.  Just after the new fishing pier at Race Street - simple in its boards and trees - is where exhaustion and its old buddy dehydration tapped me on the shoulder.  Stupidly, I didn't turn around to say, "hello."  Instead I trucked on through Northern Liberties, passing the Piazza, and let dehydration kick me in the shin.  Still nothing.   3 miles later, as I rounded the corner to my house, I stopped moving and didn't start again until the following morning at about 6AM.

This was one of those beautiful runs where my body was screaming and my mind was pretending it spoke a different language.  I should have stopped.  This run was a day ruiner to the tune of being hit by a large truck.  However, the stupid in me looks at this experience and says "mentally, you're tough enough to do this Marathon thing."