Running Rocky's Roads

The Philadelphia Marathon begins and ends at Eakins Oval which is situated right in front of the Rocky steps or as we in Philly like to call them, the steps to the Art Museum. A statue of Rocky was placed at the top of the steps for one of his movies--3 I think it was--and it caused a lot of controversy over the meaning of art; was the statue art or a movie prop? Rocky now resides at the bottom and to the right of the steps. Tourists can take their picture with Italian Stallion before or after running up and down the steps.

It was a beautiful day on Sunday as we lined up in our corrals for the race. Brian and I were near the back because as I've said before, I run slow. We ran down to Old City, across Penn's Landing, over to South Philly (Rocky Territory), up through University City, by the Zoo (and a killer hill I might add), and finally looping back to the Oval.

It was a great race. I have run in Philly before when I'm working on a show and it's a bit difficult to stop and negotiate traffic and pedestrians. But Sunday was great because all the roads were blocked off and the sidewalks were full of well-wishers. Our names were on our bibs so people could yell out to us as we passed. That was extremely helpful coming down along the river during the last mile: as I turned to run up into Eakins Oval, I heard a man say, "That's it Kate, that's the way to go." And it spurred me on to run in at full speed (okay, full speed after 13 miles) across the finish line.

I so enjoyed my run even though, two days later, I'm still sore; I've never run so far or so fast before but I was encouraged by the other runners, the volunteers and the on-lookers. On Sunday, I really felt that Philly is the city of brotherly love and "sisterly affection" as the Mayor added.

After the race, we returned home and our neighbors all came over to cook us brunch and make us coffee and bloody marys. Brunch turned into early afternoon appetizers and wine as people stopped by to chat with us on the porch and the kids played in the field. They discovered that someone had tossed lots of bottles and cans into the stream so they spent a good hour picking up the litter. I was duly impressed at their civic mindedness. Such a spectacular day, what a way to kick off the holiday season!

Oh, what was my time? I ran it in 2 hours, 11 minutes and 59 seconds. I almost made the 10 minute/mile pace...maybe next year.