Well here we are, just past the first weekend in May—alive.
May is a beautiful month. It’s the time when spring feels officially sprung, whether you’re celebrating Justin Timberlake-style or getting out there like Jonathan Coulton. Of course, that feeling of spring disappeared almost entirely this past weekend here in Philadelphia, when the clear skies and upper 80s of the previous week transformed into thick clouds of persistent mist, with high temperatures barely scratching the 60s.
There’s not a whole lot to say about Saturday. My wife started the day with her first full volunteer shift at a local animal shelter, cleaning up after cats while trying to sneak in a scritch or two. Then we spent most of the day relaxing, watching TV and playing MarioKart while waiting to switch to coverage of the Kentucky Derby. It was another great race, this one culminating in a three-way photo finish, but we didn’t end up celebrating in our normal way, with a glass of bourbon.
That’s because Sunday was our own mega-race day. First, we ran the Broad Street Run. Then we drove an hour away to watch a bunch of goats run their own race at Sly Fox Brewery’s annual Bock Fest.
Race day started early, as they all tend to do. We woke at 4:30, coffee already bubbling away. After sleepily munching our way through breakfast, we got gussied up in our race duds and stumbled down to the car around 5:30, then headed towards the Philadelphia sports complex. We parked on the north end of the lot, between Citizens Bank Park and the subway station. Making note of the landmarks to better locate our car after the race, we trundled off to the subway, where SEPTA was offering free express rides to the starting area, which was one stop short of the end of the line.
As we emerged from the Olney station in north Philly, we found the weather had not improved. The air was chilly, and a thick mist was blowing in a moderate breeze. Neither of us were dressed for the conditions. How could we be? If I had worn the kind of gear that would have kept me warm in the damp chill before the race, I would have boiled like a kettle before reaching the first mile. The only concession I made to the weather was to choose a shirt with sleeves. Short sleeves, mind you. My concession was to have sleeves at all.
My wife watched me go through my ridiculous warmups, kindly not mocking me for how much work this old body needs to get going. We then bid each other adieu until the end of the race, having selected different starting corrals. She’s much faster than me, and she planned to finish the race between 1:40 and 1:50. My corral, on the other hand, was last, with an expected finish time of 1:50+.
I was solidly in the “+”.
Although the first corral was scheduled to start at 7:30, all runners were requested to be in their corral by 7:10, and my wife and I being who we are, we found our places right on time. By 7:25, I was ready to go. I found this curious sense of calm, an all-encompassing stillness, one of my most zen moments in recent memory. My legs were warm, buzzing with a kind of harmonic energy, ready to get the pavement flowing beneath my feet. As anxious as I was to get going, I felt at ease knowing I still had a little time to wait. All I knew at that moment was that I was going to run 10 miles, there was no choice not to, and I was going to let the race come to me.
As I said, the race was scheduled to start at 7:30, with the seeded and elite runners kicking things off. After that, each corral would be released every 3-5 minutes, meaning that my corral, the one at the very end, should have started running at 8:05 at the latest.
Perhaps that’s why that sense of stillness and peace had disappeared completely when I looked down at my phone to see the clock read 8:30. Our corral had not yet moved. The rain had picked up, as had the wind. I moved around as much as I could, trying to build up some warmth and keep my muscles from contracting too hard, but it wasn’t enough. My fingers grew cold, then swollen, then very, very stiff. I had to flex them to reassure myself that I still could, and each flex got harder with every passing minute. Finally, our corral moved forward, in fits and starts. In the end, we didn’t get to start our race until 8:50—more than 90 minutes after the time I had lined up.
Running a race really makes you confront who you are as a runner. During training, especially when you run on your own, it’s easy to get lost in your isolation, to judge yourself based solely on your pace and your energy level. But in a race, you’re competing against other people, even if you’re not really competing. I mean, I’m slow AF, so I know I’m not going to win any awards. But I find it’s impossible not to compare yourself to others, especially when you’re grouped with other people who have decided they run at about the same speed you’re planning to run.
I made the mistake of starting near the front of the corral, mostly because that’s where the entrance was and I got there pretty (exceptionally, as it turned out) early. Because of that, once the race started I was immediately passed left and right by what felt like the entire corral. I like to start running much slower than my eventual pace, just because my legs need that time to warm up and get accustomed to running again. During the race, I let my opening pace get away from me, even when I tried to slow myself to my normal gait. I found myself working very hard to block out the other runners and concentrate on my own run—and not feel too disheartened about all these other runners blowing past me.
The first mile was…difficult. It took that long for my body to unkink, for muscles to loosen to the point of use. As I predicted, I was already too hot with my sleeves, but my extremities took longer to get going. My fingers—and my forearms—started burning and tingling during the second mile, as the blood flow returned in earnest. I was apparently that cold. But by the time I was midway through the second mile, I was feeling loose. I was feeling good.
And I was feeling in desperate need of a bathroom.
You could tell I wasn’t the only one having this problem. Thanks to the tremendously delayed start, scads of runners made early trips to the portapotties, some even before the race began. I hate stopping to use the bathroom during races—I care about my time, apparently—but by mile 4, I knew it was going to happen one way or another. I found a line with only 10 people for a row of 4 portapotties, which moved rather quickly, and was back on the road in under 4 minutes.
As much as I hated stopping, it did have some benefit. One, it let a lot of slower people get past me, which meant that for the next couple miles, I was the one doing the passing. Psychologically, it just feels good to pass other people, even if it’s meaningless beyond a fleeting and superficial feeling of personal superiority. But more importantly, I felt a drive to make up that lost time, to push myself harder so I could still finish in less than two hours, my personal goal.
The city started to feel familiar around mile five. City hall came into view, and as we crossed the bridge over I-676, the west side of the convention center appeared as well. Fan Expo Philadelphia was taking place this weekend, and racers were dodging anime girls and X-Men and Ghostbusters as they scurried across the course from their hotels to the convention.
Once past city hall, I recognized the more familiar sites of Center City, as well as the grittier but still very expensive row homes in South Philly. Then past the sports complex, where we had parked what felt like days before, which meant we had about a mile left until we reached the Naval Yard, this year’s finish line.
A final banner appeared in front of me, stretched high across Broad Street: ¼ of a mile to go. I decided in that moment it was time to turn on the jets and give it all I had left. I may have overestimated how many jets I had remaining, but I definitely underestimated how long a quarter-mile is. I started passing more and more runners at a brisk clip, including several of the runners who had passed me at the starting line. I pushed hard, driving myself well beyond my comfort level, to the point where I started to worry, just a little bit, that I might die. But I didn’t care, because I wanted that finish. I wanted to shave whatever seconds I could off my time. And I didn’t want to leave anything on the course. I wanted to finish as strong as I could.
And I did.
According to my running app, which I paused during my bathroom stop, I finished in 1:54:58, which came to a pace of 11:32/mile. That was well below my goal of two hours. My official net time, including bathroom stop?
1:59:21.
After most races, runners are treated to water and a banana, and often other snacks provided by sponsors. I did receive a water, and the tables at the refreshment tent were loaded with huge piles of bananas. Well, huge piles of brown, squishy bananas. And I don’t mean just ripe bananas. The four or five bananas I picked up felt less like ripe fruit and more like pulpy water balloons. The number of smashed and squished bananas along and underneath the tables told me these would be inedible. And so I didn’t get my banana. It may seem like a small thing, but I was both sad and angry. I wanted my 15-cent banana, dammit. If you’ve never run a race, especially a long race, trust me, the banana is an important part of the experience. It kinda sucked.
But there was no time to dwell on sad bananas. I grabbed my medal, snapped a quick pic, then started on the mile-long trek back to the car. Unlike other races I’ve been in, where transportation is provided to the main parking lot if it’s not at the finish line, runners were left to their own devices. My wife, who had finished well before me thanks to pace and her earlier corral, reached the car about 15 minutes before me. I trudged my way through slow-moving walkers, many of whom stopped in the narrowest parts of the path, trying my best to get my aching legs to push faster, the persistent mist making my efforts all the more trying.
Eventually I found the car, and inside the car was my wife. We spent the next hour making the ten-minute drive back home. Once there, we scarfed food, traded sprint showers, and geared up for part two of the day: the Sly Fox Bock Fest and Goat Race.
I’ve written about the Goat Race before (here and here), and while I still dearly love the event—I’d go so far as to call it perhaps my favorite annual event in the Philadelphia area—I’m not going to go into great detail this year. Despite the late start to the Broad Street Run, the long drive back to our apartment, and heavy traffic most of the way to Pottstown, we made it into the Bock Fest just as they were ramping into the initial heats. The weather was still cold and drizzly, but we were dressed much more warmly, and frankly after that morning, nothing could have been more miserable.
The experience was great, much better than we were anticipating. There was a moment when we both wondered whether we should just skip Bock Fest this year, if it was going to be worth the hour-long drive. But we persisted, and the race was just a different flavor of fun. We had our beer and our bratwurst and pretzels. We watched goats racing and their handlers slip and slide all over the course. And while smaller than usual, the crowd was just as dedicated, cheering on their favorites and buying in to the race completely.
As a reminder to you readers, the prize for the annual Goat Race is the honor of having that year’s maibock named after them. For the past four years, Princess Jenny had won the title, a streak of dominance unmatched in the 20-year history of the event. But she wasn’t competing this year, and so we were guaranteed a new winner, and therefore a new maibock name.
The final race had four competitors, and as I list them, I cannot emphasize enough that Sly Fox had committed to naming their beer after the winning goat. The racers:
Godiva
Walter Ranochak
Bumper the Humper
Dirty Steve Buckwheat
I was pulling for Bumper the Humper, but in the end the winner was Walter Ranochak, meaning Sly Fox is now selling the 2024 Walter Ranochak Maibock. Which, while not as good as the Dirty Steve Buckwheat Maibock, is still pretty dang funny.
In previous years, we’ve made our way to the exit pretty much right after the race, hoping to beat traffic and get home. But this year, having arrived much later, we decided to stay for some festivities. We watched as Princess Jenny had her jersey retired, the first time such an honor has been bestowed in the history of Bock Fest. She then immediately took a shit and tried to fight Walter Ranochak. What a feisty doe, or filly, or nanny. I don’t know, I’m not up on my goat terminology.
Soon after the #22 jersey was retired, the first firkin of the Walter Ranochak Maibock was tapped, and the music stage exploded with amplified accordion. We listened to polka versions of songs like “Crazy Train” and “Du Hast,” drinking in the sights of our first-ever polka mosh pit. And then, just like that, it was time to go home.
All in all, it was a crazy exhausting day. Today, writing this on Monday morning, my legs feel, um, tight. My right hip is quite mad at me, and the left is complaining in solidarity. Oddly, my lower abs are also tight, a testament to just how far I pushed myself at the end as well as how cold the weather was Sunday morning. I’m at the point where I wonder what fit of madness could have compelled me to do this to myself. In short, I hurt.
By next week, I suspect I’ll be signing up for my next race.
MetaFrizzics 