Well, we did it. Yesterday, Rich and I completed the fourth and final leg of the 2009 Pittsburgh Marathon. As always, Rich took a bunch of photos, which are recommended viewing (and should make some of what I write below make more sense).
The weather distribution of our four Sunday runs ended up being about right for Pittsburgh: one sunny day, two cloudy, and, yesterday, cold and snowy. It was probably a good introduction to the way our training will go over the next 5+ months, because it was cold, but it wasn’t that cold, and it snowed, but only for part of the run. So now I know what it’s like to run in winter weather, without having to freeze to find it out.
We began where we ended up last time: Home Depot in East Liberty. From there it was up North Highland, past the seminary, to Bryant Street, where we hung a left. Some of this territory was familiar to me from visiting friends who live in Highland Park, and it was odd to be running past it because trips to their houses had always seemed like epic, distant voyages. (This was mostly true when I had no car, but still.) From Bryant we turned onto N. Negley and headed back to the gritty part of town, after the nice, leafy interlude of Highland Park (which I expect will be extremely pleasant to visit on the day of the marathon, in May).
At Baum, I turned right and ran that way until Liberty Avenue. The good news is that Liberty is the last turn you have to make; once you’ve done that, you’re on the long straightaway heading towards downtown and the finish line. The bad news is that from the corner of Baum and Liberty, in whatever neighborhood you want to call that (I would say Bloomfield but could see the case for Shadyside or Friendship), there’s a long way to go. Although I think having a long straightaway will be a good thing, I wonder if it will be dispiriting to make that turn and know there’s five or so miles of monotony coming up. On the whole, I think it will be a good thing. I’m especially looking forward to making the soft left at the Bloomfield Bridge and watching Lawrenceville give way to the Strip, and seeing the Downtown skyline loom bigger and closer as I draw nearer to the end of the race.
That part of the route—from the end of Bloomfield’s busy “Little Italy” portion of Liberty Avenue, through Lawrenceville and the Strip District, and into Downtown—was mostly pretty dull and quiet yesterday, though. I think that, like the part of the race that we completed last week, this will be a fairly straightforward, even mundane part of the race. It was mostly flat but was slanted a little bit downhill most of the way, but not enough that it will probably force anyone to run faster than he or she wants to or is able to go. (This is my big complaint about downhill running.) I could be way off in my assessment of what it will be like to run this final straightaway on race day, though, because there are two factors I can’t really estimate yet: one, how incredibly exhausted I will probably be after 22 or so miles; and two, how much of an emotional boost it will be to sense downtown getting closer and know that I’m closing in on finishing the marathon. (If anyone reading this has run a marathon, I’d love to hear, in comments, about how these factors play out at the end of the race.)
As far as number two goes, I can barely imagine the difference between actually crossing the finish line on the day of the race, and the scene yesterday as I closed in on the corner of 9th Avenue and Fort Duquesne Boulevard. In my mind, there will be all sorts of pageantry and official-looking people standing around in May, with the roads blocked off and people standing around watching the runners come in. Yesterday, there were a few official-looking people, but they were cops helping direct people toward Heinz Field, where a Steelers game would soon be starting. And there were people on the street, but they were mainly dressed in Steelers jerseys, moving slowly toward the river in the direction of the stadium.
After the run, it started snowing a lot harder, and turned to something like hail on the way home. There was a miscommunication and Rich ended up waiting for me at my car for a long time, while I had been waiting around the finish line. Fortunately, it worked out and we both avoided hypothermia. We agreed on the way home that it was good we’d be getting back to our normal route, the difficult-to-get-lost-on trails of Schenley Park.
Tags: Adam Reger, Bloomfield, diet, fitness, Lawrenceville, marathon, Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Marathon, Rich Walters, running, Schenley Park, snow, Steelers, training, winter
