Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati

The Flying Pig Marathon has some really good reviews.  And I can't disagree with what others have to say, but I do really wish my first marathon wasn't on this course. 

Cincinnati folks are big supporters of the Flying Pig marathon.  There were so many people out on the course with entertainment.  Random strangers were standing on the side of the road, in front of their businesses or their houses handing out bottles of water, gummy bears, bananas, paper towels, etc.  There was constantly someone around cheering you on.  There are water stops at EVERY mile.  I had to skip a few to avoid taking in too much fluids.  I also liked that the water stops were placed in the middle of each mile.  It helped mentally to convince myself to make it first to the next mile marker, then the water stop, then the next mile marker.  I ran the last 6 miles that way. There were even non-race sponsored live entertainment.  It's a pretty awesome race if you're not focused on time.  It's also a scenic course.  The views at the top of the hill in Eden Park give a gorgeous outlook of the river.  At one point we even cross the bridge over to Kentucky for a couple of miles.  There's a course tour on the website that I should've read before running so I could recognize some of the major landmarks. 

Unfortunately, the course is also really really hilly.  Others online have said that the major hills are from about mile 3.5 to mile 8, and then after that it's gentle rolling hills.  I would disagree with that.  The hills after are anything but gentle.  And as a first time marathoner, come mile 22, I really needed flat road or downhills to carry me to the end and not have to dig deep to find the will to tackle yet another hill.   

Going into the Flying Pig marathon, I was nervous.  It was my first marathon and I knew I was undertrained.  Only one 20-miler and I was terrible at the taper.  I also knew that this wasn't the right week for my body or for me to run fast.  Nonetheless, I was hoping to run it really well so that I wouldn't feel compelled to run the marathon again.

When I expressed my nervousness the week before, people encouraged me and said, "You're ready. You've done the training." But I knew I hadn't.  I reached the required mileage but my weekly mileage had still been low.  I should've gotten to the point where I could do 17 miles at marathon pace, or at least do 24 miles.  But I was here and I couldn't come this far only to downgrade to the half.  With how my body was feeling, I doubted I could do really well in the half anyway. 

Some sort of bag as part of race swag.

Expo:
I left Madison around 8am on Saturday morning and headed straight for Ohio.  I was staying with my friends Ben and Blythe near Dayton, which was about an hour away from Cincinnati.  The plan was for me to go to packet pick up first and then drive back up to their place.  I made pretty good time on the road and with an hour time change, I got to the expo around 5pm.  Parking wasn't difficult but downtown Cincinnati was expectedly busy around that time.  Once I found a parking garage that wasn't full, I drove in and made note that it'd only be $2 for the first 30 minutes and $8 after.  Trying to save on parking, I made it a point to get in and get out of the expo. 

The expo was huge, but I was annoyed that after I picked up my bib, they designed it so that I HAD to walk past all the booths to pick up my t-shirt. They S-shaped the booth and directed me around and around.  Had I figured out that there was another entrance into the back of the expo room so that I could go straight for the t-shirt, I would've done that.  Instead, I annoyedly speed walked to the end.  Don't they know that I'm trying to save $6 on parking?

The t-shirt was white with a pig flying over the Cincinnati skyline.  We also got a "premium bag" that confused me with the way it was designed.  I didn't really know what the bag was meant to be used for.  It looked like it was meant for carrying a cold six pack of beer.  They also gave us a poster that was conveniently curled up in a box for transportation.  I appreciated that.  But I was less interested in all that.  I was more interested the nice printed race events guide of information that told me about the corraled starts and where to park and course information.  When I was at the expo, there was a poster up of Flying Pig marathon winners with their times.  About a week before, I had remembered someone telling me that the course was really hilly.  The times of the winners confirmed that this was a tough course.  Last year's female winner had a time of 2 hours and 54 minutes.  Comparatively, the Chicago marathon course which is known to be flat and fast has a time of 2 hours and 22 minutes for last year's female winner.  I had told Blythe that I was expecting a finish time of about 4 hours and 20 minutes to 4 hours and 45 minutes.  After the difficulty of the course was confirmed, I knew that 4 hours and 45 would be closer to reality. 

Pre-Race:
I got to Blythe's around 7pm.  Being the excellent hosts that they are, they made me pasta for dinner and made sure I had bananas, tea, and a meal bar for breakfast the next day.  I was planning to leave their place between 4 and 4:30am and get to race start shortly before 5:30am.  I figured that should be plenty of time for me to park and get ready for a race start time of 6:30am.  I said good night to my hosts and went to bed around 9:30pm.  But the anxiety kept me up for another 45 minutes as I looked at more information about the course and parking on my phone.  I didn't learn any new information but I was worried that I'd forget something.  All told, I got maybe 4 hours of sleep as I was tossing and turning and woke up at 3am.  This, coupled with the lack of sleep Friday night meant I was feeling tired race morning.  I expected this, but this couldn't be helped.  I'm anxious before a big race. 

It was actually super easy to get to race start.  The highway dropped me off pretty much right by parking lots and garages.  They had told me parking would be about $5 so I turned toward the garage I had saw yesterday by the expo and parked there along with the many other cars turning in.  It was about 5 blocks by the start and as I walked toward the race start, more and more runners joined me until we were a huge group moving toward the event.  I debated back and forth the shoes I was going to wear.  I hadn't done any long runs in my old shoes, but I knew my new shoes would start giving me issues right around mile 12.  They just didn't have enough padding on them.  In the end, I went with my new shoes.  I was nervous and I felt more comfortable with a pair that I had become familiar with and the pair that I had done my long runs in.  This turned out to be a mistake, but more on that later.  I brought my old pairs with me just in case I changed my mind, but by the time I got to the race start, I wasn't interested in overthinking and rethinking things anymore.  I wanted to drop my bag off, get my bib on and line up in the corral.  Let it be what it will be. 

The marathon and half marathon starts together and shares the course until about mile 9 where they split with the half marathoners bearing left and headed back to the start and the marathoners bearing right for more hilly nonsense.  This makes the marathon race feel big for the first half, but actually only has about 4000 finishers.  There's also a relay component to the event.  A 4-person relay team runs the marathon course with change overs at mile 6.8, mile 12, and mile 19.6.  So that also contributed to the race feeling larger.  The one positive I was happy for was the extremely nice weather we would have.  60 degrees at the start and predicted to stay there all the way until noon.

There were porta potties right in the corral which was very convenient.  Since there was a very short line for one of them and I had time to kill, I decided to use it.  Why not?  Better safe than sorry.  I met a nice lady while in line who asked if I had run this before.  I told her it was my first Flying Pig and my first marathon in fact.  She told me it was a beautiful course and I told her I was worried about the hills.  She asked if I had trained on any hills and I said a little bit.  Really, other than the rolling hills of the Arb, no, not at all.  She reassured me that I'd be fine and to not let the relay runners discourage me when they with fresh legs past me on the hills at mile 7.

During the Race:
I lined up between the 4:20 and 4:30 pace group.  My strategy was to not worry about the pace groups and to just stick with my training motto: "do what feels right for your body."  It is a bit weird to be behind the 2:10 half marathon pace group, but it turns out that even if I had been running a half marathon, this would've been exactly the right place for me.  Soon we were off.  There were so many spectators and stuff happening that I didn't even pay attention to the time on the clock when I crossed the start mat.  I tried very hard to not go out too fast.  At first I was going to make sure that I didn't past the 4:20 pace group, but they were going just a bit slow for me so I got just a little bit ahead of them.  I crossed the first mile marker with 15:58 on the clock.  After that I ran a very consistent 10 min/mile until about mile 7.  I was surprised and quite proud at how consistently I was running that 10 min/mile pace.  The only problem with sharing a course with half marathon runners is that when they're congratulating themselves on a halfway point or encouraging themselves at mile 3 that they only have 10 more miles to go, it only serves to remind me that I have so many more to go.   

The first few miles had hardly any hills.  The start of the hills in Eden Park at about mile 6.5 is when my pace started to fall behind.  It took me an extra minute and a half to get to the mile 7 marker.  And there were more uphills to come.  My pace started to slow to about 11 minutes a mile.  The hills took a lot out of me and when the half marathoners split off at about mile 9, I was jealous that I wasn't going with them.   

I was having a tough go of it at this point.  I've started to notice my wrong choice in footwear.  I can feel my feet starting to hurt and the concrete feels so hard.  I didn't want to run anymore.  I wanted to walk and my legs feel tired and uncooperative already.  I wasn't even at the halfway point and I knew this was going to be a long race.  This wasn't the day for me to run a marathon.  It wasn't even a good day for me to run a half marathon or any race for that matter.  But I keep at it.  I cross the half marathon point with 2:24 on the race clock.  Slowest 13.1 miles I've ever ran in a race.  I try not to think too much on it.  I tell myself that I need to run this smart and remember the miles I have left to go, not the miles I've already ran.  I can make up time later.  So I keep going. 

There's a nice stretch of flat running between mile 15 marker and mile 18 marker.  I'm feeling better at this point, and I split a couple of 10 minute miles.  3:07 on the race clock at mile 17, and I'm encouraged at the idea that I'm now in the single digits in miles left to run.  When I near the mile 18 marker, I'm remembering the first time I witnessed the LA marathon.  We were trying to go to LACMA, which happened to be right at marker mile 18.  I saw a young woman running and right before the mile 18 marker, she slowed to a walk and told her friend running with her that she had to sit down on the sidewalk.  She didn't look ill, just lacked the will to keep going at the moment.  I marveled what it was like to be all the way at mile 18 and decide to stop running.  I vowed to run all of mile 18. 

About to cross the finish. I'm a little blue dot.

When the hills start up again at mile 19, I'm now angry at them.  At nearly every daunting hill, there are spectators encouraging you to keep going and make it up the hill or that there's a downhill coming.  They also lie and tell you that it's the last big hill.  I've stopped listening to them at this point.  The downhills that follow are supposed to make up for the uphill but they just made my feet hurt worse.  Come mile 20 with 3:40 on the race clock, my feet are killing me. I'm starting to feel my groin hurt, and I know that there will be pain that follow in the days after this race.  At mile 21, I've let go of my anger at the hills and focus instead on each mile.  When my knee starts to bother me, I stop to walk it out.  Feet and groins can be stretched out and iced.  A knee problem may mean the end of running.  When I stop though, my legs suddenly feel like deadweight.  I better keep running, I thought.  So I do.  I keep adjusting my time expectations at each mile marker.  I knew by mile 20 that 4:30 was out of reach, but I hoped unrealistically for 4:40.  By mile 24, I'm hoping for under 4:55. 

When I see the mile 25 marker, followed by yet another hill, I'm irritated again.  I've been running the entire way with the idea that maybe at the very least all that suffering through the hills would be rewarded with a downhill toward the finish.  Nope.  At mile 25.2, I know that my friends who are tracking me online or signed up to receive a text message when I get close will get one with my time, so I resolve to run the last mile faster than I've ran all race.  Knowing that I've only got a mile to go and that I'm SO close to the end definitely put a boost in my step.  I'm now a lot less focused on the pain I'm in and instead focused on the end.  Despite the 3 more short hills before the finish line, I somehow managed to split 9:33.  Seriously.  After running 25 miles, I split 9:33 for the last mile.   

Me at the "Finish Swine." I'm smiling
funny because I have a mouthful of food.

After the finish line:
Final time of 4:48:40.  Much too slow, but really, nothing but the weather was right for this race.  I was
under trained; I wasn't well rested; wrong week for my body; and the course was notoriously tough.  My splits are as follows:

6.8 mile: 1:10:11
Half marathon: 2:18:06
19.8 mile: 3:33:28
Last mile: 9:33

Still, I'm happy that I finished and with how well I ran that last mile.  When I was hurting at mile 20, I was sure I'd never run a marathon again.  But even then I suspected my disappointment in my time and knowing that I can and should be able to do better might cause me to sign up for another marathon.  It's the day after and I've come out with surprisingly little injuries.  Things are a bit stiff, but I feel like I could go out today and jog a couple of slow miles. That next marathon may be sooner than I had thought.