Race Recap: Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon 2014

Stars can and do align for races!  

I have been trying to do everything right for this race.  I followed a solid training plan, stayed injury free, ate right, hydrated properly and even got a good night of sleep before race day. 

So here's a quick breakdown of the day
Pre-race prep: all done the day before, number on my favorite Oiselle tank, gels in my spibelt, etc.

Alarm set for 3 pm: Wake up at 3:11 am good thing since I had the alarm on pm. That would have just sucked to oversleep your race.

On the road at 4:15am:  to met up with my chicas as we were carpooling down to Cincinnati from Dayton

Traveling:  oops forgot directions for parking, call hubby and have him send a picture of the directions since the website was being difficult.

Parking: right next to Paul Brown stadium

Bag check:  first school bus we walk by is the right bus for my bib number. 

Waiting time:  Inside the stadium, woman's bathroom without a line?  What?! 

Walk to the start line:  hardly 100 m away, no problems

The race:

1: trying to find my happy place and pace of 8:30
2: Yikes 7:57 pace, slow down chica.
3-5: keeping close to my pace, Best days of My life comes on as I run down mile 5 with tons of people, it was surreal.
6-8: Hills, knew about those, slowed my pace, looked for my friend from HS who is about half way up the "big one".  Found her, jolt of energy. 
8-9:  Always forget about this section of the course after the beautiful vista of the Ohio River. 
10-13: zoned out, the half had split and I found myself on my own a bit. My mile splits were off enough that I always missed them by the time I saw the mile clock on the course.  Running by feel I guess.
13.1: 1:50 feeling good.
13-15: hung out with the 3:40 pace group (mostly men). This was my BQ time so tried to stay there. Until we turned a corner and found a little but steep hill.  My quads were not having it.  Slowed down, then said F it and walked the last 15 feet or so.
16: was a turnaround, so I could see runners ahead of me.  This was the longest run I did in training so every after this was untested.
17-20: zoned out, there was a portion on the bike path which had HOPE written out, honestly don't know what I was thinking here. 
21-25:  These hurt, I was hot, the sun was out, no one really around me too much, I was timing my gel intake because I knew I was needing the energy.  I could see the Great American building further down the river but it looked so far away yet, that's were the finish line was.  Mile 21 the 3:45 pace group passed me.  There goes my training pace...
26:  who put that hill there, it's not much but I wanted to cry when i saw the rise in the road, then my music shuffled and I got the Olympic theme song going, the streets are lined with people and I just gave it what I could.  Anyone else use the Olympic theme in their race mix?  It never fails to give me a lift when I need it.

Finish: 3:48:19.  PR by 28 minutes.  I'm super happy with my time and my place top 8% of all woman in the race. 

Post race:  No Gatorade what was up with that?  I didn't drink it on the course because my gels have electrolytes in them so I only drank water but I was so sick of water! I ended drinking the syrup out of the free fruit cups they gave out.  There was plenty of junk food after but I didn't have the stomach for it and I was amazed to see how many people were just piling up the food to take with them.  Finally got out of the finisher's area and found my boys and hubby. 

my cheering crew, a bit tired after being in the sun and getting up early!

Overall:  it was a great race for me.  I'm proud of
my time considering the hills on this course.  The volunteers (Grunts) were amazing and all the crowd support was fabulous.  I will do this race again but I'm not sure when...

P.S. Love, love, love the finishing medals this year!

Stats: 

Cincinnati Flying Pig 3 Way Challenge Race Recap: Sunday's 1/2 marathon

 

 After Saturday's races, I basically chilled out, iced,wore compression socks, and even tried an Epsom salt bath to help recover my legs.  There was also generous helpings of Advil.  My ankle felt pretty decent considering.  I thought I'd feel way worse. 

Before the race!

Running the Flying Pig on Sunday makes for a pretty early morning.  The race starts at 6:30 but to get there with time to spare meant a 3:30 wake up for me, and a pick up of my running partner by 4:30.  Bagel and coffee in the car for me. 

Fast forward to the race. 

My race plan was to finish.  I was going to run 5 mins/walk 1 min.  I decided to run the first mile or so without walk breaks since it was so packed with people.  I didn't want to be THAT runner that stops in front of others.  I made it to the first bridge which probably wasn't even a mile, my legs were tired.  Uh oh.  This was going to be a long race!  So, I took my walk break- that was so hard to walk with everyone running by me!!!! I'm so NOT used to doing races that way.  Anyways, for the first 5 miles my legs were feeling tired and sluggish and I used my walk breaks because I needed them.  I took my energy gels every 30 mins- thank goodness I had enough left over from my last 26.2. 
By mile 6, I was not feeling tired anymore and my ankle was feeling fine.  I just kept slugging through the miles, 5 minutes at a time.  I have to say it helped thinking I only have to run for 5 minutes then I get a break.  Also, since I was just trying to finish- I never looked at my Garmin. I

Yep, nothing like a race photo while you're walking!

was going on my interval timer on my iPhone.  At mile 6-7 I spent my time looking out for some friends from high school who was going to be cheering on a certain corner.  I found them! That gave me a boost to climb the hill. 

The rest  of the race was a blur.  I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other and only for 5 minutes at  time.  Plus I had to remember e-gels for energy since I remember bonking at the Air Force marathon. 
Mile 11 is all down hill and I got a text from my running partner that she had finished.  I didn't look at my phone since it was strapped to my arm but who else would text me at that time of day? I knew she must of finished and here I was at mile 11 still.  Grrr. :-)  I was feeling pretty good though.
 At mile 12, I looked at my overall time finally and it was 1:54- hmmm, I'm 1.1 miles from the finish and I know I can run 8 min miles and I feel pretty good- hell- I'm going for it!   I like, at all.    Plus, I felt good after. 

finished in 2:04.  I'll take it.  That is only 13 mins slower that my normal time for a half and I didn't really train,
Ankle:  Sore, but not as swollen as I expected- I wore my heavy duty compression socks in the race and generally, ice and Advil and I was good.  My PTs were impressed when I came in on Mon with my ankle looking "normal". 

Can you tell where my walk breaks are in my timing chart?  Plus, love the elevation of the Pig- not for wimps!

 After I met up with my running partner and we found the 3 way challenge table to pick up my extra swag for finishing all the races. 

Front, nice Asics tech long sleeve shirt

Back

All the shirts for the races, 5k &10k are a nice soft cotton, 13.1 tech shirt

Cincinnati Flying Pig 3 Way Challenge Race Recap: Saturday's races

I had decided to run the 3 way back in October and always had planned on running the 10k as best as I could and then do the 5k with the family.  So that's what I did.

My training had been spotty considering I was/still am coming back from my ankle injury which is BTW is taking way longer than expected.

Week 1 and 2 look good, then injury, then you can see my mileage per week is pathetic considering I was going to be doing 9.3 on Saturday and 13.1 on Sunday

Anyways, I knew I could run 6 miles since I had been spinning as well so I knew my cardio would be there but I wasn't sure how I would do with back to back races then a half the next day.

10k Race

The 10k race would be the only race that I knew I could really try at considering it was a distance I could do and no one would be running it with me...so I decided to put on my music and just do what I could.
I felt pretty good during the whole thing, except mile 4-5 which was against the wind.  I like the 10k because there aren't a ton of people like the half and the 5k.  The "hills" are really the bridges with the exception of one and it's not bad.  My ankle felt decent- just would hurt a bit on the hills.  Finished in 51:31 and got 12th in my AG! WOOT! 

I had about an 1.5 hrs to warm-down/warm-up hang out with the family before the 5k.  This was going to be Buster's first 5k and my DH's first 5k in a few years.

tree climbing before the 5k while I stretched

 5k

This was going to be about finishing not about time.  Cub and I were going to run together since Buster and dh were a bit slower than us.  The 5k is so big, it was a bit too crazy.  We were dodging people/walkers the entire 3.1 miles.  It was fun though to go slow and talk Cub through it.  We walked only once which isn't bad at all considering Cub just has been training by playing soccer all spring.

Overall, my ankle felt decent- I was worried that it would be really sore after the 10k considering usually after my runs is when it is the sorest.   I think the compression socks help but also mentally just focusing on the races and not worrying about my ankle helped.  

2 races down, 1 big one to go!

Compression and carb loading for the next race!