The First Time- Race Review of the 2011 Flying Pig Marathon

It’s been 360 days since I ran my first marathon.  Ample time to forget, the joy, the pain, the excitement; to let the emotions wash away with all of the year’s other races.

But you don’t forget your first time.

Not too long ago, I was just a young, naïve school teacher.  Yeah, I fooled around with running sometimes, a lot of guys my age did.  It was a harmless game to me; I didn’t really know what I was doing.

When I moved to Lexington in the summer of 2010, I fell in with a somewhat mischievous crowd.  Hind sight is 20/20, but they may have had a bit of a running problem.

I submitted to peer pressure immediately.  First it was an early morning distance PR after a night of margaritas and day-old Mexican food.  Then it was my first double digit run on Lexington’s most infamously hilly course.  By the end of the month, I was taking hits of 15 milers, and paying it for it bouts of plantar fasciitis.

But I was hooked.  And I began to think: “If I can run 15, why not 26.2?”  After a successful Half Marathon that fall, I set my sights on going all the way.

Just before New Year’s, I made my resolution.  I would become a man that year.  I decided that I would give my Marathon virginity to the Flying Pig.

I was overwhelmed by the crowds before we even turned off of the highway.  The city was alive with traffic, all heading toward a central point, all with a central purpose.  We found a garage to duck in to, made the long walk down to the football stadium, and the nerves set in.

Whatever anxiety I had was only amplified by the juxtaposition of the seemingly few minutes I had to stretch and march down to the corral (start time was 6:30am) and the pouring rain, which threatened to delay the start.  I probably spent as much time making sure my gels, bars, and Band-Aids were strategically placed as I did stretching.

In a rush, I kissed my girlfriend (now wife) goodbye, and searched for the right corral.  Knowing that there was no pace group for my projected time of 4:10, I sought out the 4 hour pace group, hoping the camaraderie would give me that extra speed.

As the rain continued to pour, someone sang the “Star-Spangled Banner”, runners stripped off wet clothes and tossed them in every direction, and I stood in awe of the mess I was in.  I’d reached the top of the water-slide, and it was too late to climb back down.  During my training, I had only managed to complete one 19-miler and one 20-miler, neither one of which was as fast as I hoped to run this morning.

A gunshot rang out, and 16,000 people began moving forward like a slice of lemmings.  This has been the only race in which I found it impossible to move at my preferred pace from the start (our first mile was around 10:00), and it was immediately apparent that running an efficient point-to-point race would be impossible as well (my Garmin would read 26.50 miles at the finish).  So I stayed with my pace group, plodding along through whatever space I could find.

Despite our slow start, it was easy to enjoy from step number one.  The rain was heavy and the crowd was thick, but the people, the people were electric.  No matter which direction I turned my head, I saw a friendly face smile, I heard an excited voice cheer, I smelled… well, wet runners, but I didn’t mind.

The excitement crossed the bridge into Kentucky with us, and our group steadily picked up speed.  The first few miles went by easily, but I don’t think they were the part of the course that anyone was really thinking about.

By mile 5, we were passing back through the heart of the city.  The rain was beginning to let up, but my shirt had picked up some extra weight from the rain.  I knew my wife had planned to watch the race from this point, so I scanned the crowds as well as I could, hoping I could toss my shirt to her, but the crowds, both runners and spectators, were far too thick.  We never saw each other, but she did manage to get a picture of me (barely visible), as she blindly snapped one photo into the hoard as my pace group ran by.  The jubilant trot through downtown ended much too soon, however, and we neared mile 5.5, ready for the climb.

I have to say, that the hype about the climb up to Eden Park, which is supposedly a gain of 400ft over 3 miles, is probably over exaggerated.  Perhaps it was all of the extrinsic adrenaline, perhaps it was the sounds of a two man rap group who just kept saying, “The Flying Pig Marathon!” and “Pump it up!” over and over, but something put a charge in me on that hill.

And when we reached the overlook in Eden Park, I felt a thrill I’d never known before.  It was a combination of the beauty of the river and landscape, the energy from the crowd, and inherent sense of accomplishment that was only a few hours away.

And it was all downhill from there, in every sense.

I felt so good at the top of the hill, that I left my pace group (which may have been too fast for me to begin with) in the dust, er, puddles.  By that point we had just about caught up with our intended pace of 9:10 miles, but I kept going.  I did a few 9:05s, some 9:00s, and even went as low as an 8:45.  I felt great, but the Marathon gods would not heed my hubris kindly.

The Half Marathoners left us at about mile 8.5, but the excellent crowd support continued (something that did not happen in New Orleans).  I still have a terrible sense of location in the city, but we ran threw a few pretty neighborhoods, and the locals came out to offer their support via cheers, cowbells, high fives, shots… I’m pretty sure someone would have given me a bike if I had asked.

While the fans never let up, by mile 12, the novelty of everything began to wear off.  I felt, not alone, but more focused on what I was doing and the reality of what still lay ahead of me.  Someone had told me that, although the course is all downhill after mile 8, it doesn’t feel like it.  He was right.

After a loop around a quaint neighborhood on Murray Rd, we were finally heading back toward the finish line.  But with about 10 miles to go.

At mile 17, the first bolt came off the wheel.  I was getting tired.  My original plan for this race was to take a 30 second walk break every mile.  I was adamant about sticking to this… right up to the start of the race.  Since I had not wanted to lose my pace group in the crowd, I had skipped my walk breaks.  Even after I left the pacers, I became too enveloped by the race and the atmosphere to remember my original strategy.  I finally remembered at mile 17, and decided to take my first walk break.  It was too little, too late.

For the next few miles, I took walk breaks, but making it to the mile markers became more and more difficult.  It didn’t help that we turned on to a parkway around mile 18, and for the first time, I did not have the sound waves of a thousand screaming voices propelling me forward.

Pretty close to that unmerciful 20 mile mark, I officially hit the wall.  I was still moving forward, but my fatigue was increasing exponentially, as my miles grew slower and slower.

By mile 21.5, the 4 hour pace group Flew past me.  Flew.  I ran with them for about 30 seconds, and then could not take it anymore.  I trudged on, carrying the weight of my poor execution and even the thought that I had been over-zealous in registering for this race in the first place.

Somewhere under an overpass near mile 23, my right knee went.  Pain that I hadn’t felt since my first month of running well over a year before was back in full force.  But I kept moving forward.

Now in the final stretch on Riverside Dr, the crowds were back in full force.  Everyone was there.  A Gorilla, Spiderman, girls in Moulin Rouge-style outfits, Elvis, high school aged hippies, a guy with a green afro and a giant high-five hand, firemen, people with pig noses... I wished I was in better spirits to enjoy it.  I moved through slowly, trying my best to smile, but even those muscles were fatigued.

By this point, I had committed to a new strategy: walk the slight inclines and flats, shuffle on the downhills.  Although I averaged 2 more minutes per mile on the last 6 miles than the first 20, I still finished.

When I saw that 25 mile mark, I kept walking.  But that 25.2 mile mark, that one was inspiring.  I resolved to run the last mile.  I pushed every muscle in me, gave everything I had, and eeked out a 10 minute mile.

For months, I had dreamed about the moment when I crossed that “Finish Swine”.  I’d seen myself shedding a tear, so elated by my accomplishment.

When it actually happened, I started bawling uncontrollably.  This deluge was no act of storm fronts, but was a direct result of the joy that came from the dam race being over.  For an hour or so, I just wanted to not have to run anymore.  When my wish was finally granted, my mind no longer knew what to think about and my heart no longer knew what emotion to feel.  The result of this confusion was tears, a lot of them.

I cried my way through the recovery area, grabbing whatever food or drinks I could see between the sobs.  Friends had warned me that after the race, it may be a while before I could concede to possibly running another Marathon, but I didn’t have that problem.  Even after the anguish of that last 10k, I knew I had to run another.

Admittedly, I may have run my first Marathon too soon, but I definitely don’t regret it.  That first experience beat me up both physically and emotionally.  It would be a month before I recovered from the knee pain that began at mile 23, and another month before I regained confidence in my abilities as a runner.  But whatever I felt about myself then, I certainly gained an appropriate level of respect for the Marathon, and all of its participants.

I feel like this review became more about my first Marathon experience than about the Flying Pig Marathon, but I do want to emphasize that despite the wretchedness of my final miles, and even after two more Marathons, three Halfs, and a 10-Miler, this is still my favorite race.  So here are the reasons why I believe it to be one of the best of what’s around:

-Solid expo, good SWAG (tech-shirt, poster, backpack, finisher’s medal)

-Beautiful City with some magnificent views (crossing the Ohio River, running past Great American Ballpark, Eden Park, Riverside Dr.)

-Great support (well-manned water stations at least every mile, good variety and plenty of food and drinks in the recovery area)

-Phenomenal crowd support (packed sidewalks on almost every mile of the course)

Unlike some other races, the Flying Pig Marathon is a major event in its city.  While it doesn’t draw the elite runners that flatter and more historic race might, it is certainly a day that Cincinnati looks forward to, and the town does an excellent job of making the runners feel special.