Harvard Yale and Philadelphia Marathon

This weekend was “The Game,” or the Harvard-Yale Game. In honor of the annual event, here are some vintage images of Yale dorms and banners!

I think this is from 1897! Glad to know the dorms have changed in the last 100+ years!

I really think this is Yale in the background, though I’m not 100% certain.

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And some old Harvard-Yale memorabilia from Sterling Memorial Library’s Manuscripts and Archives collection (found while researching a feature article).

So many items were from a century ago!

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I, however, have no pictures to show for the Game (or of my Harvard guest, Anne Marie, with whom I went to high school), because I was on a train to Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Marathon.

"Yeah, I look awful; you would too after 26.2 miles."

I started running in June and started actually training in July, but it was kind of a miracle that I finished. After a bit of a hip injury/pain, I drastically decreased my training a month ago. In fact, I barely ran at all the last month – certainly less than 15 miles in my one long run this month – due to pain and lack of sleep due to coursework (seriously averaging 3 hours per night last week). But when I hit that 13 mile mark, my hip was virtually pain-free. Perhaps it was adrenaline, or cold air numbing the pain, but I decided to scrap my previous day’s plan of just running the half, and headed towards the marathon path. By mile 22 though my hips were definitely in pain. I originally planned a 04:30:00 as my (overestimate) goal time, but when my hip started hurting, I predicted a 06:00:00, that is, if I could finish; so I’m pretty happy with 04:57:34. I’m even happier about my half split.

Distance	MAR
Clock Time	04:58:06
Chip Time	04:57:34
Overall Place	8353 / 10213
Gender Place	3185 / 4224
Division Place	25 / 55
Age Grade	45.8%
Pace	11:21.1
10K	1:00:36
Half	2:07:53
30K	3:18:01

To me, running is unlike figure skating – it’s about the journey, not the medal at the end; it’s about setting goals and working towards achieving them; it’s about determination and trying my best with full knowledge that I will not place anywhere near number one. When you’re running, and eight miles away from campus, all you can do is keep moving forward.

The fact that I completed a marathon – one of my life goals – has still not set into my brain (though I did start researching a second marathon today). Moreover, I am not yet able to express my emotions eloquently, but I remember what I always told myself during those difficult or long runs:

“If I can do this, I can do anything.”