#AYCJ : Philadelphia – Day 1

American 50k Ultramarathon record-holder Josh Cox and Elite Racing representative at the ING Direct Cafe

From New York to Philly, September 19, I took the Bolt Bus. It’s not your usual charter bus though. The seats were more comfortable than I’ve ever been on, plus it has Wi-Fi on board! That in itself was well worth the $13, 2 hour, bus ride. Little did I know, that was the start of my serendipitous day in Philadelphia. I’ve never been to Philadelphia, PA and my only plan was to run the ING Philadelphia Distance Run (Half Marathon) the next day.

I arrived at the Philly bus stop, which was about a mile away from my hotel. A few days prior, on a whim, I decided to go to the Radission Plaza – Warwick Hotel vs the official ING Philadelphia Distance Run official hotel because it had free internet, plus it was a little cheaper. It seemed pretty close to the start/finish line of the event so I went for it. When I finally got to my hotel, I realized that it was in the middle of a very busy and active area full of shops, bars, and restaurants! I had no idea!

I also checked Twitter and found out 50k Ultramarathon record-holder Josh Cox was hosting a “Tweet & Greet” at some ING Direct Cafe, that ended up not even a block away from my hotel. I won a $25 P.F. Chang Gift Card for being one of the first ten people to show up. Score! Honestly, I did not know how much of a big deal he was until I attended his event. He’s the first elite runner I’ve met in person, and he’s one super friendly guy. He was especially happy that I found out about the event through Twitter, and he remembers having some conversations with me about the Half Marathon. He hosted a 3 mile run around the blocks of Philly as a preview to the event, then came back for a Q&A. I was familiar with most of his answers because of Team in Training, but one thing that was interesting was in terms of running form and stance. One good way to know if your feet is hitting the ground correctly is to try running barefoot. When barefoot, without all the shoe padding, you’ll notice that you should not strike on your heel. If you do, all that impact with domino back up to your shin or other areas of your leg. At the end, he held a raffle, and I ended up winning a nice pair of Oakley running glasses, a box of Gu, and an event T-shirt! Another score! After the event, I rushed to the convention center to the Health & Fitness Expo to grab my race number and did a quick tour of what they offered.

Another instance of serendipity happened when I went back to my hotel to recharge my phone. I happened to remember a friend of a friend, who I recently met at a Team in Training fundraiser, lived in Philadelphia. So I messaged her on Facebook, and we eventually exchanged numbers. It so happened that she was only 2 blocks away from I was! She lived in the outskirts of Philly, and she doesn’t normally hang out where I was, and we thought it was crazy how we were in the same vicinity! She took me to a few bars, all of which I met some of her close friends. The bar life in Philly was alive and poppin, especially on a Saturday night. The first few bars were a good warmup, to a bar called Ladder 15, which seemed to be the “hotspot” of the city. A DJ spun the hip-hop mashups, drinks were relatively cheap, and everyone was in good spirits. I think I hit up about 5 different bars that night, and I almost forgot I had a half marathon to wake up to a few hours later!