Living on the Air in Cincinnati - Flying Pig Marathon results

Baby, if you've ever wondered.  Wondered what ever became of me.  I'm living on the Air in Cincinnati.  Cincinnati WKRP...

Continuing my tour of Marathon with funny names, I chose Flying Pig in Cincinnati as my big race this spring.  It's a pretty hilly course, on par with the Baltimore Running Festival.  It was a little late in the season that I would have like, but since i've already done Shamrock and have yet to run fast enough to do Boston, it seemed the most logical.  I also considered Glass City.  But, you know, Toledo...

Silly Garmin thinks the course went up some magic hill in mile 5.  Otherwise it looks pretty spot on.  Notice the small, steep hills throughout the second half.  Nasty little buggers.

Compared to Baltimore: 

My sister decided to come along to watch me run, which was great.  She brings big stuffed Elmo along to cheer and it's easy to spot her among the crowds.  I was him high 5s early on in the race.  She and her friend Cindy got into town the day before I did, and picked me up from the airport Friday night.  It was a weird, long trip from BWI up to Philly to connect and then over.  I boarded the plane at 6:30 and due to the nature of the flights I was flying over Baltimore 3 hours later.  Both flights sat on the runway for a significant amounts of time.  I don't know if that had anything to do with how I felt but when I finally arrived Friday, but my legs felt terrible. 

I woke up and felt much better Saturday, and went out early for a shake out run around 20 minutes.   It was very humid, which had been a concern all week.  So I spent the rest of day concerned about the weather, needlessly.  If it was anywhere as humid Sunday it didn't seem to affect me.  It was very cloudy and felt cool for the early start (6:30).  I tried to take it easy on Saturday, but we had to see some of the city, so we took the trolley, went to the botanical gardens, and hit the expo.  We tried to grab dinner early and get to sleep early, but I think it was something like normal time.  I didn't sleep much, when I woke at 3:45 that was it and I was sitting quietly in the dark waiting for race time. 

Finally it was 5:30 and I was out the door catching the shuttle over the river.  Got dropped right at the Bengals stadium and did a short 5 minutes to warm up.  Found the A corral and the pace groups (3:10 and 3:05 were pretty much together).  Something I noticed about the midwest is people line up properly.  At Grandmas last year and again yesterday folks were really well ordered at the front.  Wish it was more like that around here sometimes.  I did another short jog and before long it was the anthem (O!) and the start.

The Race

The plan was to start with 3:10 pace group and wait a really long time to break away and get a sub 3:10 qualifying time.  Spoiler alert:  this did not happen.  I kept 3:10 near for about 2 miles, but over the bridge into Covington I got ahead.  They were rather close to 3:05 this whole time so I decided to just keep 3:05 in sight and run in space.  I like to run in space.  I think I was running a bit extra through this part and ended up .2 further than 26.2.  Not a huge deal, of course, it's to be expected with full marathons. 

Pace for first 5 miles - 7:07, 6:56, 7:05, 7:05, 7:13

It felt like I was walking.  There were several bridges early, and to get to downtown it was a climb.  I was relaxed and keeping 3:05 in sight.  It was a group probably close to 30 people.  I didn't want any part of that group.  I was passing people, and it was crowded with the half folks mixed in.  I had a preview of the hilly section from 6 onward on Saturday so I knew it needed respect.  I subconsciously decided to be fairly aggressive up the hill section, as I like run up hills at a good pace and then 'rest' a little on the down parts.  I started to reel in 3:05 through these miles. 

6 - 10   6:59, 7:15, 7:06, 6:59, 6:53 (note, these are Garmin splits, I was at least one tenth ahead of the mile markers on the course at this point). 

The hills were sorta fun, in a weird way.  I was passing by people, feeling pretty good.  Thanking folks for cheering.  All that stuff.  The half folks turned off somewhere in here and things got pretty spread out.  The hills flatted off and went down a bit.  Not to say there wasn't more climbing.  I used a little surge to get closer to 3:05 through the down parts and this was as close as I got.  Half split was 1:33:08.  I was thinking it would have been better to be closer to 1:35, but in the end it was a well-run first half and indicated a really good finish if everything went ok from there.

11 - 15  6:57, 6:57, 6:51, 6:49, 6:56

Digging deeper into those splits, all but mile 13 had more elevation loss than gain.  The 6:49 14th was 0 feet of gain, and 130 feet of loss, if you trust the garmin elevation charts.  I guess I was picking it up a bit in addition to letting myself go on the down parts.  Still feeling rather good with less than half to go.  I had taken Gu at 3 and 10 and decided to take a 3rd around 15 in case I couldn't stomach one later. 

16 -20  7:05, 6:56, 7:00, 6:53, 7:19

The end of the good feelings.  Somewhere around 16 I started to feel off.  The course went through an out-and-back section where you could see folks running in the other directions.  There were sharp turns and I lost the 3:05 group completely there.  At one point my thoughts were to pick up the pace at 17, since it was only 9 miles remaining.  But I knew it was most important to hang on even at that point.  I kept the effort even.  There were a few short, steep hills in this section that were nasty.  None were really breaking me, and I was picking off lots of folks dropping from the 3:05 group just ahead.  Up to 20 I was only drinking water when I felt like I needed it.  But starting at 20 I took gatorade.  I stopped for a few steps at 20 to make sure I didn't just spill it all over myself.  But I started up again and the rest of the way was that familiar battle against myself to keep from walking again.

21 - 25 7:24, 7:13, 7:23, 7:29, 7:36

A fade.  But really nothing i'm that upset about.  I watched the watch like a hawk and as long as it was still reading under 7:30 consistently I was not going to sweat it.  And I felt like the difference between 3:10 and something better was simply up to walking versus running.  Thinking in terms of 5ks instead of miles (thanks Joel!) was much easier mentally.  The folks who dropped from 3:05 were keeping a consistent pace at this point and we mostly all shuffled along together.  No one was walking, which I think helped keep me running.  I was temped to turn around and look for the 3:10 group to see how close they were getting, but I resisted. 

Cincinnati didn't really come into sight until very late.  I think I preferred this versus at Grandma's where one could see Duluth forever and it never seemed to get closer.  Somewhere after 23 I could see the buildings, and knew I was close, but not that close.  Then after 25, you come around a bend and you're there.  Really helps pull one towards the finish at that point.

26, .4 - 7:25, 3:05

Here's where the extra garmin distance catches up.  Finished it out just as it started to rain steadily.  I didn't mind that at all.  The finisher's medal was the heaviest one i've ever lifted.  I had to walk hunched over because of the weight.  I headed over to the med tent, but mostly cause I need to sit down.  I wasn't really feeling as bad as I had in the past.  I found the beer shortly after and it continued to rain. 

Garmin numbers -  3:08:00.9 (3:07:54.0 moving time).  26.42 distance translates to 7:07 pace for actual distance traveled.

Official results - 3:07:59, pace 7:11/mile.  103rd place out of 4135.  95th male, 15th male 35-39. 

6.8 Mile: 49:38  (pace: 7:16 , rank: 153 )

Half (13.1 Mile): 1:33:09  (pace: 7:07 , rank: 126 )

19.7 Mile: 2:19:35  (pace: 7:06 , rank: 110 )

Last Mile: 7:35  (rank: 220 )

Since i'm 35 it is 2 mintues under my 3:10 BQ time.  If I actually get in to the race still remains to be seen, but I have a good feeling about it.

fin

The Plan

I miss the 90's...


The big race is Sunday in Cincinnati.  The plan is to go out pretty conservatively with the 3:10 folks.  Depending on how I feel, I want to leave the pace group at the half or closer to 20.  The weather looks lousy and there's a big hill from 5-9 or so.  But I don't care.  See you all on the other side.

PJ

I don't think I saw a single tree all morning

I know the highlight of the Cherry Blossom Ten Miler is supposed to the actual blossoms, but I don't think I've ever noticed them while running.  Ditto for the monuments.  I guess I'll have to wait until the 700 emails about marathonfoto shots so I can check the race photos and see all that stuff thoughtfully framed in the background .  Of course last year's best shot was of me checking my watch, as if to say 'am I done yet?'

The best part of Cherry Blossom for me is the history and the fast folks up front setting records and running mind-boggling quick paces for a significant distance.  Allan Kiprono ran the second fastest 10 miler on American soil (and 'the fastest 10 miler ever on a record-worthy course' as they announced at the start) last year and Janet Cherobon-Bawcom set the US women's solo record this year. 

The week leading up to the race was pretty typical.  I ran fairly long on the previous Sunday, Tuesday was a nice track workout of 400s and 800s.  Then I took off two consecutive days Friday and Saturday (first consecutive days off in 2013).  I almost wonder if I should have not done that.  But I felt as good at the start as I have for any race this year.  And as a result the first mile was relaxed and still at an acceptable pace.  Then I seemed to LOSE MY FREAKING MIND or so I thought.

Next two miles were 6 flat and 5:57.  A year ago my best 5k (post 20) was 19:06.  Cherry Blossom marks 5k and 10k and I was (minus a few seconds for gun time) right about there.  It seemed to be around the same spot where I knew I needed to settle last year, however last year was because I was trying to make up for a lousy start from the second corral.  The next two miles were 6:05 and 6:09, and the garmin was starting to beep before I reached the markers (this is expected, I was not running the optimum tangents for the sake of running space and avoiding water stops, and so forth).  The garmin splits add up to 30:33, plus an extra 20 seconds means 30:53.  Like last year, faster than Celtic Solstice with another 5 to run.  But I was getting heavy legs and already started to think about what my time would be with varying degrees of fade.

Through 10k, my split was 38:43 probably the fastest I've covered that distance.  I was knocked back with the Hains Point wind (probably 10-15 seconds for those two miles) but manged to hang until the turn where the pace dropped back to 6:20 with no wind, or the wind at my back.  I felt like I was crawling, but really the pace was quite fine.  If I had held the first mile pace a few miles further, it would have been those 6:20 just in a different pace.  I felt like it was a massive positive split, but in actuality it was 1:25.  I can live with that for a race over an hour.  Second half garmin splits were 6:17, 6:27, 6:32 (wind miles), 6:23, and 6:22.  Plus the extra .1 was 38 seconds.  I split that between the two halfs, for 30:53 and 32:20. 

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What does the mean for the marathon in a 4 weeks?  Well, i'm certainly confident about my ability to BQ with a 3:10 (since I'm turning 35 on Friday this is my qualifying time, hooray for getting old!).  I'm throwing the actual CB time out as it will not compare to the course in Cincinnati. But the other races this year, particularly the club challenge 1:05 and Caesar Rodney 1:27, project closer to 3:05.  So do I go out with the 3:05 pace group?  I'm leaning towards yes. 

That Was Unexpected...

Went back home to run Francie's Family 5k over the weekend.  I did this race last year (and then did another race later in the day) because it's back in my hometown and it honors a former teammate from high school who passed tragically.  I think I was eighth in something like 20:50 in 2012, finishing behind a 12 year-old girl.  This year I finished behind no one.  Apparently there was a high school meet that conflicted this year, and the kids that finished at the front last year were not there (I checked and my time would have been 4th last year). 

The course is not particularly flat, with a hill around mile one and a mini Hereford 'dip' right at mile two.  I have less-than-fond memories of doing hill workouts on that spot back in my salad days.  As a result, I think the 18:35 time is in-line with my shamrock time, combined with the fact I ran a brisk paced 8 on Friday night through hillier parts of Baltimore which capped a 65 mile week. 

The race itself was not that interesting.  A few folks went out quick and I was sitting back in 3rd or 4th until the first hill.  I held the 5:50 pace past mile one and that was too much for them.  My pace dropped above 6 minute pace by the end but overall it was enough to finish in front.  My first win since 1996, maybe longer?  On to the next one.

Dela-who? Dela-what? Delaware.

Finally did away with my soft half marathon PR up in Wilmington.  With a 1:34 that really was more like a 1:32 (Octoberlauffest half in Pennypack Park in Philadelphia), it was time to keep lucky 2013 rolling up north again.  I consider Wilmington like a cute little Baltimore, with it's waterfront and similar fall line topography.  And i'm quite familiar with the town since I spent a summer post graduation doing field work up there.  Not much of the course was going to be a surprise.  Although that didn't make the hills on the back half any easier. 

The half is an odd distance to me (probably other folks, too?).  I like to say I don't respect it, which is maybe not the best way to put it, but that's never stopped me before.  It requires patience and a strategy which are not parts of my running repertoire. I have done several now, going out at what feels like a comfortable pace and dying way early, somewhere around mile 6.  This time I was determined to not really start racing until around there, possibly even posting a negative split on a course where it would be an impressive feat.

Caesar Rodney is a historic race that draws a quick crowd.  Top 100 looked to be around 1:28 studying the past results.  It's not a mega race with 10,000 plus, and it's not piggybacked on a big marathon.  In short, it's a real race.  Weather is probably an issue from year-to-year, but it was pj weather this year.  The car thermometer said 36 degrees when I arrived, and pretty much 36 degrees when I departed several hours later.  No complaints there, but the wind I could have done without. 

After a brief warm-up, I lined up at the start, where they read proclamations (it was a half-mile marathon!) and sang the anthem (O!).  And we were off.  People went out quick, and I was content to let them go, trying to stick with the plan.  Not in the plan was my failure to start the watch, which threw off all my splits.  But I shouldn't have been that concerned with splits anyway.  I even looked down at least twice in the first half mile, but I was just checking pace and didn't notice all the zeros.  When I finally realized it was maybe 2:30 in the race.  There was a ton of clocks on course, so I had a pretty good idea of my progress regardless.

At the beginning they introduced the course record holder (from something like '83) and for a while I was running behind him.  I didn't feel great, but the course was flat and I was hoping I would loosen up after several miles.  There was also a guy surging and dying every 100 feet or so, which was supremely annoying.  I surged to get past him, only to have him come surging back a minute later.  I surged again and then that was the last I had to deal with him.  At some point my shoelace worked its way loose and I had to stop somewhere around 4 to tie it.  An inauspicious start for sure.

By the time we reached mile 5 either the legs loosened or the folks in front of me were already dying.  I started passing people 3 and 4 at a time.  According to the (imperfect) garmin splits I kept a rather steady pace, so I think I actually picked it up a bit.  The hills were gradual at first, and then after 7 they were rather steep.  I passed the area where my company has an office (along the Brandywine) and I was still passing people, but it was down to one by one.  Sometimes folks surged back and I let them go.  I don't think anyone stayed ahead of me except maybe one person that passed up the hill to the finish.

The hills turned to flat and I had rested a bit on the last of the large ups.  Garmin shows pace had dipped to 6:50 or so, acceptable if I was then able to pick it up.  So I left the folks around me behind and tried to get back on 6:30 pace.  There were a lot of turns on the course, probably not my favorite thing.  An out and back from mile 10 to 11 was probably the worst part.  But it was nice to see the field in front of me so completely.  With the benefit of the hills that I had just climbed, I managed a garmin recorded mile at 6:21.  The clock at mile 12 had a shade over 1:20 and I though I might have a chance at sub 1:27.  But the final hill killed that and I was passing under the finish line clock at 1:27:35.  With a couple of seconds from gun time, 1:27:31 was the official time.  Some 6 minutes and change faster than October.  But pretty much inline with the races i've had so far in 2013.  If anything, even a little off from Club Challange.

You were mostly kind to me Wilmington and I enjoyed a post race soft pretzel. Maybe someday i'll stop calling you a smaller, cuter version of Baltimore. But probably not.

The next races on the schedule are the fast Cherry Blossom 10 miler, and the even faster Main Street Mile.  Times from those will not equate to anything since they are flat and fast or net downhill and even faster.  So I have my 10 mile and half marathon times, which point towards being able to BQ at Flying Pig with a 3:10 or faster.  Both Club Challenge and Caesar Rodney are hilly courses, so I don't feel like i'm making a huge assumption for May 5 using those times.  And i'll have a group running my actual goal pace for the first time.  And probably the last time. 

The Challenge of Clubs

I never ran Club Challenge when I was 13.  I did want to participate as a Steeplechaser, but I think a combination of the distance and the time of year meant I never was able to run.  My first experience was last year running for Team TWSS, aka Falls Road Racing.  While my 1:12  finish was probably about what I should have expected to run, I have it down as an off race, along with MCVET 10K, a couple of those random 5Ks, and, of course, Grandma's.  I had visions of drastic improvement as I worked through 2012, upping my miles and hitting the track as many weeks that was humanly possible.

As 2012 turned to lucky 2013 I saw the signs that Club Challenge was going to be a bit of a breakthrough.  Track workouts were fast and furious. I did the club challenge course workout with the team and was almost hanging with our fastest ladies (last year I was bringing up the rear).  I decided to mini-taper and take it easy with house stuff the day before so I was not sore and primed for my best performance. 

For the race last year I went out a tad hard, settled in by 3, and died on the hill at 6.  Time was 1:12, with a place over 200.  For perspective I ran 1:09 at Cherry Blossom about six weeks later, which is a flatter course, combined with slightly better shape. The field was a little smaller this year (but still really stacked at the front--winner ran 51 on those hills).  Mostly missing was some folks from my team that were hurt, or in NOLA (running PRs and finishing in the top 20 of the half with people named Flannigan, Goucher, and Defar). My 1:05 put me in 90th place.  I checked and that time would have placed 110 last year.

First miles I tried to not go out to fast (this is me in every race ever) and the downhill helped so I was 6:17, 6:17, and 6:22.  I found myself running with teammates who I knew were going to finish faster than me so that helped keep the pace under control.  Feeling good, when one surged a bit I went along and wound up a bit ahead for about a mile.  She passed me back and kept going, but I could see her and through at least mile 6 which was a good sign.

Next miles were the hilliest part back in the neighborhood, and the pace slowed slightly for that reason.  But I was still going quick and feeling good:  6:24, 6:22, 6:36.  My time at the halfway was  officially 31:43, which was faster than the 5 miler I did back in December a few weeks after my marathon.  That hill on six was almost as bad as I remembered, but I pushed the whole way up and then rested a bit on the downhill and got out of the neighborhood portion in one piece.

The course does still climb from there, and consequently the pace dipped further--6:33, 6:48, 6:40.  6:48 meant I lost the chance at sub 65 in that mile 8.  I was doing the math in my head in case I could only manage 7 minute miles and if that put my under 66 (which was my goal at the start).

But the lure of the finish was strong and I came back a bit and ran 6:30 for the final mile (plus those extra 5 seconds for imperfect tangents, which is expected).  A guy kicked and tried to pass me right at the finish but I held on by a few tenths (they didn't do chip time, just gun time).  I was not anywhere near scoring for Falls Road, but in the coed scoring they keep everybody in and I displaced 3 ladies from the second place team versus just 2 for us.  So I contributed a point for us.  It doesn't sound like much, but we only won by 2.  Weirdly we lost both men's and women's individual team titles, but the displacers did our job just good enough to pull it out overall.

For the race I was awarded the prestigious Purple Drink Award for the team.  I am humbled to be honored in the company of such special athletes.  I would like the thank my agent, the academy, my TNT friends, and anyone who actually read all that post...

Market Street Memories

Found this while going through some old stuff.  Only ran about 50 seconds faster in 2012 then when I was 7.  I held the record for the oddly small age group until the mid 90's when it was broken. 

1985 Market Street Mile.  First place 6-7 Age Group, 6:24 (record).