Broad Street Run 2012

It is only after the last (13 mile) leg of my 30-miles-in-3-days-in-order-to-cram-35-miles-into-the-longest-work-week-of-my-young-life that I am, at my core, ready to embrace the first race of my running season (May through November).  As last week popped with four runs and three strength workouts it rounded out with hot yoga, a heating pad and the familiar tingle of the 2012 Broad Street Run Registration.  This was my first real race two years ago; the first real physical challenge I'd faced since Melanoma; and likely is the race that set my confidence and drive on fire.

When you take a leap you will, inevitably, fall.  But you never forget what it felt like to soar into something unknown and empowering.  This is what the Broad Street Run is for me.

My first leap;
Rainbows under open fire hydrants;
10 assembly line Peanut Butter and Banana (PB&B) sandwiches;
A personal best (81minutes);
The way the ships quiet the crowd approaching the Navy Yard;
Water Balloons;
Students Run Philly Style Blue T-Shirts peppering the crowd;
Our Lady of Hope's stillness;
Fresh cut grass;
Safe landings after jumped fences;
The Gray Corral;
The beacon that City Hall becomes;
Father Esmilla's message of love and steadiness;
GU packets, like confetti, floating just above our feet;
The sound of the plastic water cups crunching into our strides;
Fairmount Park tailgates;
Red cheeked photographs;
Milestones through the initial mayhem of the first miles;
Digging in the last of the miles;
Chills that always come from cowbells (because they remind you of high school and because that seems so far away now);
Watching the Lehigh Drop;
The adrenalin pushing you through Temple, leaving you in South Philly and returning again as the Navy Yard welcomes you home;
The split breath of that last sprint; and
The teary-eyed look back at the finish line where you left it all.

It is not just a race, but a movement.  Not just a run, but a straight, flat, fast shot down to the quick of a City; The Broad Street Run is my beginning and the high after my low.  Tired after another long week in the off-season,  this race is ever still my reminder that it is not how we soar that defines us, but how well we rise after falling.