A View From the 2018 Blue Cross Broad Street Run

For my spring race I wanted to target a race shorter than a marathon. I found a few good ones at the end of April and beginning of May in my area. One of those races was the country’s largest 10 miler, the Blue Cross Broad Street Run.

The race is so large that it has gone to a lottery system. Since I wasn’t even sure I would get to run the Broad Street Run I targeted a half marathon the week before. As luck would have it I did get into the Broad Street Run, but by the time the lottery results were announced I had already started a training plan for the MudHen Half Marathon.

I knew I would still run Broad Street, but since everything went well at the half I decided to run Broad Street easy and focus more on the surroundings as I ran through various sections of Philadelphia.

I have been cynical of Broad Street in the past. Despite it being my first major race in 2009, it only took another year or two for me to think it was over rated. It seemed like everyone wanted to run it (and just about everyone does) and the start area is not designed to hold over 40,000 people. The race is extremely crowded from start to finish and it can take half an hour or more to even get started.

But I came to a sort of enlightenment as I ran it this year.

From what I remember from past years the corrals can become a cluster fuck at times. People can get trapped in the field of the girl’s high school. The green corral becomes a sardine can on the side street.

However, when I got there this year it looked like these were old problems. Yes, the area was still crowded, but it appeared the that the parks and recreation department made adjustments over the years that allowed for better crowd control, more volunteers, more access to toilets and water, and an overall better experience.

I was immediately impressed with what I saw.

Something that I did know from the previous times I have run this race is the incredible crowd support, but again, it wasn’t until this past weekend that I had a moment of enlightenment.

In a time when so many things in this country are divisive, this run shows that the city can really come together and be one.

Tens of thousands of people and volunteers lined the streets to cheer on and support the runners. It did not matter what anyone’s race or religion was. It did not matter what their economic status was. Sexual preference did not matter. Nor did political affiliation. Nothing mattered.

People came from their houses to cheer on complete strangers. The houses of worship and churches and temples that line Broad Street had huge groups of people cheering for everyone. Students from the schools and colleges were out cheering.

Everyone was supporting everyone else.

And there was never a single stretch of Broad Street that was empty.

10 miles of the human race, supporting each other.

Broad Street is a fast course. A straight line from North Philadelphia to South Philadelphia that runs downhill. But there is something about running this race without speed in mind. When you aren’t running for a hard personal best and you are just going with the flow of runners…okay, maybe occasionally weaving through some of the crowds…you become a part of the city.

I ended up finishing with 1:46:48 which is just around my long run pace.

I also took the opportunity to try out a new camera on the run. It is a GoPro knockoff that I got for a pretty cheap price.

I didn’t record stills though. I recorded video with the intention of taking stills from that and possibly using the footage for a cool video.

A lesson, even when you think you are holding the camera pretty steady there is still a lot of shake. Now I need to find a gimble that isn’t more expensive than the camera.

Also, since I had only been using the camera for about a week or two I was still getting used to it. Which means some of the clips I got were faulty or completely unusable.

So no video of this race is coming.

I did, however, get a few good pictures out of the whole deal so check them out…