Kick Off Your Philadelphia Marathon Training With This Group Run and Party

Ready or not, Philadelphia Marathon training season kicks off July 14 — which puts us 17 weeks before race day.


Photograph by Bailey King

Welcome to Run Month at Be Well Philly! Every week, we’ll bring you the best and the latest on info on running around Philadelphia. Stay tuned for more great running articles!

Runners and runner’s to-be: Did you know that the Philadelphia Marathon is celebrating a big birthday for this year’s race in November? It’s the 25th anniversary of the race and, if that doesn’t inspire you to get on board and register for a breezy 26.2-mile jaunt around Philadelphia, I don’t know what will. Okay, fine, that’s not a good enough reason to strap on your running shoes in this heat? How about this: the Philadelphia Marathon Training Kick-Off Event on Saturday, July 14 is here to get you all amped up for the months of training ahead of you.

Join the folks of Philadelphia Runner and Bart Yasso — who’s often referred to as the “mayor of running,” a title he earned for running marathons on all seven continents and for his career at Runner’s World magazine — for a run to kick off the start of training season. Meet the crew of runners at 8 a.m. at the Art Museum steps where you’ll head out as a group and break off three smaller groups, each tackling different distances of three, six, or eight miles.

No matter the distance you choose to run on this inaugural training day, everyone will reconvene at River Field Park — located right across from the Art Museum and Eakins Oval (near the 676 on ramp) — where everyone is welcome to hang out until noon with some food, music, drinks, and giveaways from the race partners. This is also a good spot to drop your “non-valuable” items before the run that you don’t feel like lugging along, as there will be ample staff around to keep watch.

Here’s to a kick-butt training season, folks!

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