Here's a story about girlfriends running Broad Street-- Rebecca Watermulder is running next Sunday's race with friends from her college days. It'll be the first time she's run this course, and she writes:

I am running this race with a group of friends from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. There are a group of six of us girls who all went to Dickinson together (Class of '96) and make it a point to get together a couple of times a year. We are fairly spread out and some live in Boston, DC, New York. But we find time to get together for "just the girls" even beyond all the weddings and events like that. This year, we are all turning 30 and wanted to do something together as a group. At one of the girls' wedding in January, we made a pact to run this race together. Two of us have made fitness a top priority and we've both lost over 20 pounds each. So, of the 6, three of us are running the race. The other three are coming in from D.C., Boston and Harrisburg. They've assured us that they will be on the sidelines cheering for us, although they are teasing us that they will be eating Philly cheesesteaks and smoking cigarettes, but that's ok. :)

We're all going to spend the weekend together at my friend's apartment in Old City. After the race on Sunday, we'll have a big dinner together with lots of drinks to celebrate our achievement. And, we're all taking off on Monday to go and treat ourselves to a spa day after all our hard work. So, that's my story. I'm just hoping that I'm in shape enough to run this race. This winter has been so bad that I seem to have caught every single, solitary bug going around, so I hope I'm up for this!!

Thanks for sharing, Rebecca! Readers can "CLICK FOR MORE" to see a photo of all six of you.

Who else out there is running the race? Girlfriends April, Theresa, Julie, Jenice and Yvonne W. are running as part of two co-ed Daily News teams, along with our publisher, Joe Natoli, Ivan Sample from HR, Scott Hilton from Finance; and Greg Burns and Jeff Berger from Systems. Some of us are meeting up with the Philly Runners tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. for a training run along Kelly Drive. We hope to see you there!

And please tell us your plans for the Broad Street Run! We want to hear how your training's going and what you think of the race!

These six college pals will gather in Philly next week for a fun visit together and the Broad Street Run. From left-right, Rebecca Watermulder (runner), Rebecca Galligher Nazzaro (cheerleader from Boston), Allison Coccia (cheerleader from Harrisburg), Lisa DeCoteau (runner), Karen Pettit (runner), Stephanie Ackerman (world's best cheerleader, Watermulder says!)

WENDY: Hey, good luck this weekend, everyone -- we will be rooting for you. Can't wait to hear the race-day stories...