2010 Flying Pig Marathon

Man, I keep getting behind. Here is the race report for the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati two weeks ago.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of this race is: Wet! We had a deluge on the walk from the hotel to the start line that continued through the first few miles. Water everywhere! Rain falling from above and splashing from puddles rising from below.

A photo of Mrs. P and I before we were soaked.

We stayed at the Hilton Netherland Plaza Hotel while we were in town. What an amazing building it was! I would like to go back and spend time walking around and photographing it. It was Art Deco straight out of the 1920's. Amazing! We had our normal running around to do on Saturday, including picking up our race packets at the expo, making a trip to The Party Source in Kentucky (where astonishingly enough we didn't buy anything), and meeting an old college friend of Mrs. P's for dinner. Upon getting back to our hotel, we spent some time sitting in the lounge, had a couple drinks, and listened to the three-piece jazz band. They were really good!

The Pig was a 6:30 start, so we were up super early. The rain had been falling all night, with some thunderstorms thrown in as well. The only saving grace was that it was nearly 70 degrees overnight. The run would be wet, but it would be warm. Lightning was still striking as we walked down to Paul Brown Stadium in the downpour. The trash bags we were wearing helped a little, but not much. It was dark and extremely hard to see, so we just followed the crowd down. The four hour pace group was as far as we made it in the corral before we couldn't go any further. I was still hoping at this point to make an attempt at re-qualifying for Boston. Once I crossed the starting mats I began bobbing and weaving through the mass of people. Since my shoes were soaked already, the puddles everyone else was avoiding became my personal running lane. Sorry if I splashed anyone.

I appreciated the challenging course, which I didn't think would be as tough as it was, although I may not have enjoyed it at the time. Having seen my mile splits not getting much faster, by mile four I decided 3:15 was out of the question and so I instead began aiming for 3:30 - 3:40. In fact, I caught the 3:40 pace group and hung with them awhile. To be more specific, I couldn't pass them. Either I wasn't strong enough or they were running too fast. I just got stuck behind them for a good eight miles. I eventually made my push past them on a long decent and just kept running. It would take them a while to catch me again.

A while being around mile 24 or so. I was just tanking at the end. I've been in worse shape, but the rain, humidity, and the hills had taken their toll on me and I was on the verge of completely falling apart. I had some minor leg cramping which I was able to run through, but the legs were threatening to lock up completely if I tried to go too fast. So I settled into a slow trot to the finish. 3:41:45 was my official time. I'm good with that considering I ran hard in Boston two weeks earlier.

I would like to return to The Pig someday and do it for fun. The crowds were great and there were many street parties along the way, similar to Boston. As serious as I was for part of the run, I did try to embrace some of the "fun". At mile 18 I got lei'd, and finished my race proudly wearing it around my neck.

Mrs. P ran a 2:18:12 half marathon. She was stuck in a large group of people for her entire run, missing some aid stations because she couldn't get over to them. I suppose we weren't prepared for the size of this race. We'll know better next time!