Flying Pig Marathon - RunMarathon

The run went great. I had few expectations becusae I hadn't done much training since Little Rock. My goal was just run a nice comfortable pace - no real time in mind. I started off slow and got faster as I woke up. Mile 5-9 were almost straight uphill and I felt really good in this section. By about 15, I was starting to get worried, but I thought I would just see how long I could hold on. At mile 20, I was still feeling alright. By this point, I was just hopin gfor a PR becuase I was still below 3:30 pace. I told myself to just to keep running. I was doing well, the 3:30 group caught me at the 23 mile mark. By 24, they were 100meters ahead of me, but I needed to run 8:30 pace hte last 2 for a 3:30. I slowed a bit thru 25, but hit that mark needing to run the last 1.2 in just under 10min. I blew up then, I never walked but I ran lmost an 11min mile

I wouldn't do anything different. It was a PR by over 5 min. I went with only Gatorade adn tried to drink a cup at each stop. I did pass one up a couple of times when I was a little nauseated. It didn't seem to hurt me til the end. I only took 1 gel the whole time at mile 19. Maybe if I would have held off until mile 20 I wouldn't have hit the wall so hard. I never walked more than 10 yards at any time, and this was only to drink wihtout aspirating. Mentally, this was my strongest race by far.
And I keep thinking that it was a long course. If it really was 1/2 mile too long, I would have been under 3:30. Oh well.

5/8/08 - The Pig now says the race was just over 1/4 mile too long. They added a nice time adjuster on the website to tell you what your time would have been for the correct distance based on your pace. My adjusted time was 3:31:05. Now I am just pissed because I was 65 sec from my ultimate goal. Maybe next time.

walked about a mile looking for Nancy and Natalie


nothing


This was a great race. Expo was very smooth and orderly, lots of vendors and easy to get through quickly. The race was delayed for about 15 minutes because a buiolding on the course had caught fire during the night and the Fire Dept was still working it. The race announcer did a great job of letting everybody know what was going on and why things were late and when they would get started. The course was very good. Enough hills to be challenging but the downhills were nice, too. Aid stations at every mile with the gatorade and water sidely separated and easy to get to. Gel and fruit at a couple of stations. The post race spread was nice and spread out. Nice tech t shirt, nice duffle bag premium. Overall, this was one of the top or 2 races I've done. I would highly recommend it to anyone. The staff and volunteers were great. Spectators were plentiful and supportive.