I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now…forgive me if it seems somehow less timely now that it has sat in my draft queue for 2 weeks.

This past weekend I completed the Broad Street Run for the third time. I say completed rather than ran in homage to the real athletes who darn near sprint the 10 miles from North Philly to the Navy Yard. 10 miles is a long ways, and in the time it takes me to finish it (again, not using “run” here) one has a lot of time to think…and in those idle moments my brain almost always turns to burgers. How many different burgers could one get along the 10 mile race route? Which is the best burger? Would I run faster if I stopped and ate a few of them. Hmmm.

Not counting the McDonalds just behind the starting line, the first fast food joint on the journey comes just past the 1/2 mile mark. This Burger King got me immediately thinking at the complete lack of Breakfast Burgers in Philadelphia…next year I need to run a 10-miler through Queens so I can get a burger before 11am at Joe’s Best Burger (gotta love a burger with a nice runny egg on top!!!)

15 minutes into the race and the initial buzz has worn off. 20,000 people all hyped up at the starting line becomes a mass of humanity questioning why it is they signed up for this thing…the answer lies to your left…Checkers. Ok, so the Checkers isn’t open, but for me (and I am sure a large chunk of others) the reason we run is to off-set the colossal damage done to our bodies by the amazing treats offered by the fine folks at America’s favorite dual drive-thru fast food chain.

Though not a burger joint now, this Popeyes at 800 South Broad Street was once a White Castle (during the burger chain’s very short stay in the City of Brotherly Love). At 7+ miles into the race, a Slider definetly would have hit the spot!

No longer on Broad Street (though the parking lot touches Broad), the Phillies Ballpark would be the last stop for a burger on the route (if I ran slower -not sure if that is possible – they did have a game that day). The team, like others in the major’s serves the supermarket favorite “Bubba Burger” which I can’t complain about. The homestretch from here was burger-free (good thing, by this point I was busy concentrating on making my heart beat).