Flying Pig 2011

Short version: (Scroll down for the long version.)

We left Saturday morning at 7:30am (!) and had no problems getting there or finding parking. In fact, our parking garage was under our hotel, so we never had to move the car the entire weekend. It was cool outside at first but sunny. We got to see the Bartons for a while before the 5K started, because we were so early.  

Sarah and Craig were soon off, though, to run in Sarah's first 5K. Katie and I made our way to the other side of the Reds' stadium and watched the people coming across the Finish Swine from the pedestrian overpass.  Eventually, we spotted them!

So they had a successful run, immediately followed by another run (1 mile) to finish up the Kids' Marathon. We had been tracking Sarah's training, and she ran the final mile of her marathon that day.

After this, we got lunch at Potbelly's, checked into our hotel, took the girls swimming, and then met up with Gail, Judy, Kathy, and Patty.  From there, we walked to the Expo, got all of our stuff, and then walked to dinner.  We also met up with the Mathiases.

There was more pool time after dinner, but it was an early night.  (Minus the fireworks from the Reds' game.)

Up at 5am to incoming thunderstorms. I dropped Sarah off with Maria, and then Rich, Katie, and I walked to the Starting Line.  (Craig had left about 20 minutes before us. LOL!) We did end up seeing Gail and Judy at the start but quickly lost them once we crossed the line.

And then Katie and I walked 13.1 miles! It was raining but not as badly as last year. That's the short version.

Long version:

Somehow we managed to all be ready and get out of the house by 7:30am.  Therefore, we made it to Cincinnati with about 1.5 hours to spare.  We picked up the packets for Sarah and Craig with no problems, and then we waited.  In the cold.  But at least the sun was out and working on warming things up.  

The Bartons came to see us when they were done with their 10K, and it was nice to visit with them for a while before they had to leave and Craig and Sarah had to start their race.  The Bartons all did well in their race, though Melissa was disappointed to still be too sick to compete. (Next year, Melissa!)


The party atmosphere was pretty strong even for the 5K, and Craig and Sarah were soon lost to our sight within the large crowd.  Katie and  I made our way to the other side of the Reds' Stadium, taking time to take some pics.  

The first racers were already crossing the Finish Swine when we got to the pedestrian overpass! That was less than 20 minutes into the race!


It was fun to watch people crossing the finish.  There was the guy dressed up as a banana.  And the boy who was obviously trying not to hurl.  And the man who was left in the dust by a little girl racing past him.  And the guy who tried to kick it into high gear and tripped on the first set of blue mats. There was the impressive mom who was running while pushing a double stroller with her kids inside.

Banana Man!

And it was fun to watch Sarah and Craig cross the line! After connecting with them, we walked back to the original side of the stadium, so that they could prepare for the Kids' Marathon final mile.  









Sarah had logged her training miles, and then ran the "final" mile that morning.  I don't think Craig or Sarah enjoyed that race quite as much.  It was very crowded with lots of kids from schools and things like that.  But, in any case, Sarah ended up with 2 medals for the day.



By now, it was getting warmer, which was great! We walked to Fountain Square and ate lunch at Potbelly's. 


 
After that, we thought we'd try checking into our hotel even though it was early.  We were able to check in, and that was so nice! The hotel was quite ritzy, and we had a lovely view of downtown Cincinnati.  The girls went swimming for awhile before we met up with the rest of our group to walk to the Expo.


(Notice that there's a lot of walking going on? I think we probably walked about 4 or 5 miles that day.)

The coffeepot was fascinating!

And the coffee was great apparently!

The Expo was fun as usual, and we also met up with the Mathiases.   
After we had collected all of our things at the Expo, we walked to Cadillac Ranch.  That was an interesting experience! I can't say I'd go there again.  The bachelorette party girls who were going around with obscene items asking men to do shots on them were a part of that interesting experience, for sure.


In any case, we finally made our way back to the hotel and let the kids swim for awhile longer.  We did try to get to bed at a reasonable time, though.  The fireworks at the end of the Reds' game, however, did not help.

The light in the upper left corner room in
the building in the foreground was really creepy!

All too soon, it was 5am and time to get moving! The searchlights were gleaming in the distance, and Craig, who had been worried about finding the starting line, said, "Well, I'm a moron if I can't find it now!" I told him between the searchlights and the 30,000+ people walking to the start, he should be good to go.


Craig stayed as long as he could but then left about 5:40am.  Katie, Sarah, and I left at 6:04 to walk Sarah down to the Mathiases' room, where Maria was graciously going to watch Sarah for us.  We exchanged Sarah for Rich, and we were off!


And the rain was moving in! Just like last year--only better, really.  Last year, it was a crazy deluge with lots of lightning and thunder.  This year, it was light rain and only the occasional lightning bolt.


We were soon separated from Rich, and then we took a bit of a wrong turn trying to find our corral.  The map had shown the corrals going off the right (I thought), so we went that way and then were trapped behind the longest line of port-a-potties I've ever seen! There must have been 100 of them, literally, with no spaces between, so we simply had to keep walking to the end. Then we had to walk back along the line.  We did stop to use the bathroom, and I only tell that because last year we were in the bathrooms when the buzzer went off to start the race.  This year, I managed to make it out of the door as the countdown reached 1! LOL!


So then we sort of wandered to find the corral.  The information guy didn't know either, which was quite uninformative.  The people we asked were just as lost as we were, but we finally found the throng of people.  We slowly merged (not knowing if we were skipping ahead several corrals or not), and then we heard our names.  Gail and Judy were on the sidelines, so we veered off and hung with them for a bit.  Once we started back into the crowd, we lost them as we crossed the start.


(BTW, Katie and I crossed the start line at 6:46.  When we crossed the finish line, the count on the race clock said that 4 hours and 13 minutes had passed since the start of the race, at 6:30.  So, by my calculations, that means we walked for 3 hours and 57 minutes.  Right? If we started 16 minutes after the race officially started, then I should subtract 16 minutes from the race clock.  Tell me where I'm going wrong here, people, because they have our time as 3:59.)


And we were off! It was raining, like I said, but not too bad.  The first several miles are just fun.  I love crossing the Ohio River and seeing all of the neat buildings.  Giving a detailed report here would probably be boring to read about.  It's not boring to experience, though.  In any case, I'll just give some short impressions with photos:

Heading over the 1st bridge into Kentucky

Looking out over the Ohio River
(Still always makes me think of the poor slaves reaching this river and having to swim)

Flying Pig Man, mile 2

View of downtown from Kentucky

Flooded palm trees--something you don't see everyday in Ohio
The river was up quite a bit.

Train as we're heading back into Ohio, mile 3?

 I don't have any pictures of the smells around this area (which would be quite amazing if I did, really ;) ).  The Butternut Bread factory is close by, and the heavenly scent of baking bread was sweet torture here. :)

Pretty churches downtown, mile 4 or 5

Back of Katie's head--something I managed to take about 4 or 5 pics of because she was uncooperative

ELVIS!

Gorgeous view at the top of the hill, mile 7

Beautiful architecture, mile 8

Amazingly beautiful church

Harriet Beecher Stowe's house, mile 9ish

Abandoned church, mile 10

It made me sad. :(

 And then there are the people cheering you on. I still think the guys at the mile 6/11 loop were the best. It was the Avondale Running Club, and they were singing, rapping, and cheering us on. Loved it! It really does keep you going.


Well, it gets tough at the end, for sure. Everything hurts.  Everything!  But we powered through, walking as fast as possible to try to make up for some lost time at port-a-potty lines.  In any case, we decided to run the last 0.1 mile, and we did! LOL! So our finish line photos should look like we were serious contenders. :D


After snagging some awesome snacks in the recovery area, we stopped to take a few more pics before slowly (and I do mean SLOWLY) making our way back to the hotel.

Katie said we looked like superheroes with our mylar sheets. This is my superhero pose. It was shortly before the wind blew it completely over my face, and I was "trapped" for a few moments.

Superhero Katie, AKA Shiny Girl!

That about wraps it up! I took a lovely, hot shower at the hotel, and we slowly packed up and headed out. We met up with most of our group again at Steak 'n' Shake, which is now our post-race tradition. It's fun to eat whatever you want, and even more fun to share your experiences with everyone else and hear their experiences!

ETA: I forgot to mention Katie's run in with wildlife.  Remember the deer at the Air Force marathon that nearly ran into her? (I had to put my arm out to push Katie out of the way.)  Well, this year it was...a PIGEON! We were walking in the downtown area (mile 5 or 6), and two pigeons were crossing the road toward Katie. She thought they'd move out of her way, but the one just kept on coming towards her. Katie had to take evasive action to avoid the pigeon literally running into her.

I have decided that Katie cannot participate in any marathons in places with deadly animals.