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Flying Pig Marathon - RunMarathon


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Cinncinati, Ohio
United States
70F / 21C
Sunny
Total Time = 4h 24m 40s
Overall Rank = 2125/3977
Age Group = 30-34
Age Group Rank = 97/215
Pre-race routine:

Woke up at 1am- the people in the room next to us made a loud noise. I think they either pounded on our door or slammed their door to shake all the walls in the entire hotel. Either way it sounded like the swat team was trying to get in and it completely startled me and I was mad since I was sleeping so good. So I woke up to eat some oatmeal (had to top off the fuel tank! It seemed to do the trick for IM FL so I decided to try it for the marathon) and go back to bed. The oatmeal didn't work- I used teh cofee pot to hear the water, but I didn't wait long enough. The water wasn't warm enough and when I poured it into my cup of oatmeal it didn't really make the oatmeal soft- it was just all hard and clumpy. So I said screw it with the oatmeal. I already messed it up and I didn't feel like tying it again because I was half awake. So instead I opted for a protein drink that had a lot of cals in it. I think it was close to 300 cals- perfect! I chugged that and kinda went back to bed. I was hoping that skipping the oatmeal at 1am would not limit my ability to perform faster :)

I didn't sleep well- from that point on I just kept waking up and tossing and turning. This was the first in a long time that I didn't sleep well the night before the race. I probably slept about a total of 4-5 hours. I was worried this would limit my ability to perform faster, since I like to get at least 8 hours of sleep and not less than 7 :)

The alarm went off at 4:30am. As soon as I woke up (well I kinda woke up but not completely since I wasn't really able to fall asleep after the oatmeal incident.) I called rizzo and trixie- they wanted me to give them a wake up call. trixie answered and seemed to be more awake than me- I didn't exactly have the same energy level since I hadn't gotten a lot of sleep.

I showered and got dressed. I figured showering was pointles since I'd get all sweatty, stinky and covered in urine (story later on) but I thought I would just keep my regular routine. Applied some bodyglide. And took care of business. I was sooo happy that I took care of business first thing in the morning. I guess eating at 1am helps to get things moving sooner! I decided to wear my IM FL hat for the race since it was going to be sunny. And my plan was to intimidate the other runners at breakfast. If I'm not fast I at least want to look tough :) Not sure if my plan worked but I wore it anyway.

"Operation Oatmeal" was continued. I swear that my Quarker Heart Smart blueberry oatmeal is by fat the best pre race snack and I was determined to have some! Attempted to make oatmeal again and was successful- this time I waited long enough for the water to heat up. I took my cup of oatmeal and then Jon and I headed down to the lobby for continental breakfast, where trixie, rizzo, and tnickerson were meeting us. Trixie was running around with her pig ears and tail on- and of course everyone just stared. Apparently they were still waking up. I finished my oatmeal and ate a banana from the buffet. At this point I was really full so I just quit eating. I figured my fuel tank was topped off to its max. After eating we all went back to our rooms for one last bio break.

Got back to the room and did some last minute things. I decided I didn't like the way my hair stuck out from my running hat, and that I didn't want to run with a hat. So I re-wet my hair, blow dried it and put it in a Pebbles pony tail. No kidding- I really did this. This was probably my only "high maintenace" moment during the entire trip. This hairstyle worked since I could still wear my pig ears, have my hair show so I didn't look like a boy, and wear sunglasses for the sun- Perfect. This threw me off a little though since I was running close to time.

I applied bodyglide again- I haven't had any chaffing issues in training but wanted to make sure I wouldn't have any problems during the race. Grabbed a long sleeved shirt to wear to the start. Met rizzo and trixie in the lobby. Got a picture of us with all our pig ears. The first lady we asked didn't really want to take our picture. She was too pre occupied with taking a call on her cell phone. I was a little annoyed- it would have only taken a sec. to take our picture and she had plenty of time to answer the phone. Oh well- we found someone else.

Walked to the start- it was only a few blocks away. It was a little chilly but not too bad. On the way to the start, Jons omehow stepped on the back of my shoe and it came completely off! I was worried this incident would limit my ability to perform faster, but I put it back on without any issues :) We waded through the crowd trying to find the bag drop off. We had no idea where it was, and I asked a girl and she didn't know either. It was getting a little stressful trying to drop our bag in time. Finally found it after asking several people. They had a bunch of school busses with BIB #'s on signs on the windows. Jon walked up to the window for his BIB # and just handed it to the volunteers in the bus-pretty cool. Before he dropepd the bag I grabbed my Snicker's Marathon bar out of the bag and ditched my long sleeved shirt.

We saw buckeye66's wife right before the bag drop- that was cool. There were so many people I'm surprised we actually saw her before the race! It took us forever to get through the people to make our way to the corral.

As we were fighting through all the people I realized I needed to pee. Nice...we were surrounded by concrete and there weren't any shrubs or trees in sight. And then we saw a dumpter and some girls coming out from behind them. BINGO- we had found our bathroom. trixie went first, and then me and Renee. Some nice lady standing next to them gave us a pack of Kneelex to wipe with- how sweet was that? We didn't even have to drip dry!! So we ended up squatting at a dumpster with our butts almost brushing up agianst it (I made a conscious effort not to have contact with it) and a chain linked fence at our noses. I barely had room to squat and I was standing in trixie and some other girls' urine- it was gross but I had to go. As I was squatting I realized that there wasn't a puddle below me. Oh crap- I had peed all over the back of my running shorts!! My space was so limited that I coudln't properly squat and things weren't going where they needed to. Just as I say something to Renee about it, she realizes she has peed all over her shorts too. Classic. Better yet, as all of this was going on there's a guy who's standing in front of us, (a few feet away on the other side of the fence) watching us pee all over oursleves- GROSS!!! They were singing the National Anthem as we were using the bathroom so we were cutting it close to the race start. Collected oursleves and emerged from behind the dumspters like nothing ever happened. I was worried that having shorts covered in urine would affect my ability to perform faster, but I knew they'd dry pretty quick- gotta love dri-fit :)

After the dumpster incident we made our way to the corral. We had lost Jon and he was nowhere in site. Didn't get to wish him good luck or determine where to meet up after the race. (more to come with this later)We were pushing through people saying "Excuse Me" and apparently pissed people off. They were all just standing there waiting to move, whereas we were moving by pushing our way through the "waiting crowd." oops- sorry. We hopped into the start line somewhere between the 4:30 and 4:45 pacers- I think.

As I'm standing there I noticed my hands were sticky. And my pig ears were sticky. And then my shorts were sticky. What's going on??? Then I finally realized that one of my gels got punctured when I pinned my race # on my race belt (it actually didn't have anything to attach the BIB). So I took the gel and threw it down on the ground. Then trixie says she wants it, so I picked it back up and she ate it. My poor Nike tempo shorts- they were all sticky and gooey from the gel on the front of them, and soaked in urine on the back. I was just thinking it was going to be a bad race. I was worried that I lost a gel before the race- I brought 4 since i was planning on a 4:30 marathon and taking one every hour. But I had a bag of Cliff Bloks and a pack of energy beans as back up. So I figured if I had to, I could take those, although there aren't my first preference. I was worried that only having 3 gels would limit my ability to perform faster, but was confident with my back up plan :)
Event warmup:

Walked from the hotel to the start. And walked around searching for the bag drop and a place to use the bathroom outside.
Run
  • 4h 24m 40s
  • 26.2 miles
  • 10m 06s  min/mile
Comments:

Gun went off and we we started walking. It took us about 5 mins. to cross the start line. As I crossed the chip mat I started my Garmin. Looked down and realized I didn't have a signal, so I would only have time and HR. I forgot that when I turned it on when we walked from the hotel to the start that it had lost signal. So I had to reset it and wait for it to find a signal. My chip time was a few mins. behind already. It found a signal pretty quick so it wasn't a big deal.

Ran with wall to wall people. Did some weaving, but for the most part just tried to find a pace. The first few miles were REALLY SLOW- there were just too many people and we didn't have a corral start. I didn't care so much though because I knew it would eventually thin and I'd get into my groove. My biggest worry was starting out too fast and feeling like crap later on. So the crowd actually prevented me from starting too fast, which was good. It was chilly but once we got moving I warmed up pretty quick and was sweatting within the first few miles. As we were getting closer to the first bridge the eight was absolutely amazing. The sun was rising over the Ohio River and all I could see was a sea of runners running over the bridge. It was awesome. If there were any hills in the beginning I didn't notice- the excitement of the crowd and being surrounded by all the other runnners blinded me from the fact that I was running. Ran over another bridge- I don't remember much of the 2nd bridge at all, and then another one. The third one was really freaky- it was probably the longest bridge we ran over and the most unstable. There was a train alongside of us not far from our bridge. The vibrations from the train migrated over to our bridge and you could feel the bridge moving- like bouncing up and down. It was the strangest feeling ever. It took me awhile to figure out what the deal was. At first I thought it was me, and then someone (I dunno if it was trixie or a girl next to us) mentioned the bridge was moving. I thought I was going to trip because my stride was really thrown off. It kept bouncing and trixie said she was going to have to walk. But it pretty much stopped and we both kept running. I'm glad this bridge didn't limit my ability to perform faster :)

Around mile 3 after the "bouncing bridge" we caught up to the 4:30 pacer. At the expo I had picked up a 4:30 pace band and was going to try to stick near them. I was happy that we saw them- it meant I was on target for my 4:30 goal.

Around mile 5 or 6 we passed a HUGE crowd of spectators and a photographer. Just as we approached the photographer for a great action shot, a gust of wind blew and blew trixie's pig ears right off her head! Should be interesting to see how that pic. turns out because trixie was reaching for her head and I was looking behind her. We just kept running though and didn't stop to pick up the ears- we would have been trampled because it was still crowded at this point.

I don't remember any specifics at any of the miles. They all just seemed to blend together. There was so much crowd support and so many aid stations that the miles just clicked by really fast. And at this point it seemed like a long training run for me. It really hadn't hit me that I was running a marathon. Surprisingly I wasn't nervous at all. More excited and anxious to run more than anything.

We started to approcah "the climb". All through my training I pretty much stared at the Pig's elevation profile that I had hanging up at my work desk. From the looks of it, we would have a stair step climb from about miels 5-8 and then it should be net donwhill from there. I didn't really think it would be THAT BAD. So as we started "the climb" it hit me how long "the climb" was going to be. Everytime we felt it level out, it would start going uphill again. It was hard to get into a groove. I felt strong on "the climb" even though it caused my HR to spike up. Every time we'd turn a corner and it looked like we were done, we still had more climbing left. I kept telling trixie "this should be the last hill". I think I said that quite a few times and was wrong every time!

At this point I still maintaining a 10:20ish pace even with the hills. This was what my training runs were so I wasn't worried. I just wanted to survive "the climb". My plan was to take it easy on the hills and take advanatge of the flats and downhills. I knew that if I took it EZ in the beginning that I could make up time later. The plan was to run the first 10 miles at Z2, next 20 at Z3, and then give it all I had for the last 10K. So actually "the climb" was preventing me from running the first 10 miles too fast. aToward the end of the climb some spectators were passing out Jolly Ranchers. I usually don't like to eat candy like that when I run, but I grabbed one anyways. I thought it might help me keep my mind off all the climbing and give me a quick burst of energy. I only had in my mouth for a few mins. before I spit it out. I was worried it might upset my stomach and limit my ability to perform faster :)

Finally finished "the climb" and ended up at the top of a scenic overlook in Hyde Park. "The Climb" was totally worth it- the scenary was absoutely breath taking. We were on top of what seemed like a mt. overlooking the city with the Ohio River below. It really was pretty. And there was a barkershop choir of older men singing- very cute, and awesome that they were out there to support us.

After "the climb" I thought the hills were over- but they were not. There were a lot of short, steep hills that randomly appeared out of now where at this point. They seemed to be left off the elevation profile. Just when I thought it might be downhill we had another hill. As we would approach a hill, trixie would yell "Hill!" Not sure if the other runners liked that. But then she'd say, "Who put this hill here?" And then they'd think it was funny.

At some point- I think around mile 9 or 10?? Can't exactly remember, but we both had to pee. But all the porta potties were taken and we didn't want to wait. But then we ran past a nice grassy area with HUGE scrubs that were perfect for a pit stop. Ran behind that to pee. As much as I was annoyed that I had to stop I figured it was a good sign that I was hydrated so I shouldn't complain. As soon as I was leaving my spot was swarmed by a bunch a men! Glad I got there first!

I kinda hit a semi low point in the race. I think it was around mile 11, 12, or 13? Can't remember exactly when because the miles seemed to blend together. Anyways, trixie was eyesight ahead of me and I made sure to tell her I just wasn't feeling it. I think I was worrying more about the "what ifs"- like, what if I can't meet my goal because my knee gives me problems, or what if I end up crapping my shorts? No really, the GI issues were worrying me. My right knee (IT band) was feeling a little achy, and my stomach was churning. I felt like at any point I could have crapped my pants- no really. I was just praying my stomach would coooperate. At this point I was taking a GU every 50-60 mins. I did this in training and was fine, so I attribute my quesy stomach to the GE on the course. I thought I'd have problems with it (I tried it during IM training and I had problems with it) but didn't think it would be so early in the race. I didn't want to carry a sports bottle with me during the race and figured I'd be able to tough it out. That may not have been a good idea. Anyways, shortly after an aid station I took some Gatorade and got my energy back. This didn't help my stomach much, but helped my energy. I would usually fade around mile 15 or 16 in my training runs, but in the race that's when I was feeling great.

We saw some spectators sitting in front of a house with a table that had doughnuts and beer on it. Ick. It wasn't appealing to me at all since my stomach was quesy, but I thought it was awesome that that had that stuff out there. Hey- it doesn't matter what kind of support you receive on a marathon course, just as long it's support it helps! They were playing "Lose Yourself" by Eminem on their stereo. I had downloaded this song onto my iPOD during IM training and listened to it all the time for inspiration. It was "my song" for the IM. So when I heard it playing it really made me think, reflect, and realize that I really did want to hit my goal and it also helped me snap out of my little "low". We won't call it the wall because I had the energy, just was lacking mentally.

We finished most of the hills and the course flattened out through a neighborhood. It was so nice to run on flat ground. The crowd support here was phenonmal- I couldn't believe it. I was picking up speed and feeling great- until the long downhill. I swear it must have been a mile or so. Maybe not, but it sure seemed long. You would think after all those hills I'd be waiting for a downhill. But my right knee (IT band) was killing on the downhills. I was running slow down this hill- trying to take short strides with a high cadence. At the bottom I told trixie my knee was really hurting. She suggested I stop and stretch it, so I did. It actually helped even though I really didn't stretch it for that long. We were still near the 4:30 pace chick so I knew that even if I had to stop and stretch after the downhills that I would still hit 4:30.

Shortly afeter we hit another LONG downhill on a highway- we were nearing mile 18. This is where they were handing out Cliff Shots. I didn't stop for one because I don't like them. But it was kinda refreshing to see a big huge Cliff Bar arch on the side of the highway. For some reason I thought I had read the Cliff Shots would be at mile 19. I was all excited thinking I was already at mile 19. But then trixie had to burst my bubble by telling me it was only mile 18. I stopped at the aid station near the Cliff Shot station to stretch my knee- it was hurting pretty bad after this long downhill. I had some Tylenol 8 hour with me and planned to take it around mile 20. I figured if I waited that would give me something to look forward to and would make me want to run faster.

Finally approached mile 19, then 20. Still felt fine, except my stomach was a little "iffy" and my right knee. But besides that I felt great. I still had energy and didn't feel like I was hitting the wall. Took the Tylenol at mile 20- it took me awhile to get it out of the ziplock bag I had stashed in my key pocket. But I was happy to take it in hope it would help me knee.

I got to mile 22 and starting to feel the hardships of the marathon. My legs were feeling heavy and my knee was still kinda bothering me. I was ready to be done. I told trixie that it felt like it was getting tough. She was running ahead of me, and told me to imagine that she had a rope around my waist and was pulling me. I tried to imagine that but couldn't- I wanted the real rope, I didn't want to pretend! And then some guys running next to asked if they could grab onto the rope too. It was funny. Then she told me that the last few miles of a marathon aren't supposed to be easy. Then I starting thinking, "Ok- I'm an IM, I can do this, I'm not slowing down." She also told me that we were only 1 mile away from a 5K. That made me realize that we were so close to being done, so I continued to chase after her as she ran backwards. At some point in the race some lady thought she had run the entire race backwards- pretty funny.

Got to mile 23- this was the homestretch. I asked her what our ETA was, and it was around 4:27- 4:28ish. A goal of mine has always been to beat Oprah's marathon time. I don't know, I just wanted to. So trixie made sure to tell me that we were gonna beat Oprah's time, and I was sooo happy. I was yelling to the other runners next me, "I beat Oprah's time!" And they just look at me. So I had to explain by telling them that I didn't care for Oprah (sorry all you Oprah fans) and I was jealous of her marathon time and had to beat it. Then they thought it was funny.

I knew I had 4:30, but since we were so close to 4:25 I really wanted to hit that. So instead of walking the last few aid stations I decided that I'd just run through them. A few seconds could make me miss the 4:25 goal. We picked up the pace- were passing people like crazy. Some of them looked horrible and were really struggling. I would encourage them. Hearing myself say stuff like, "We got it, almost there, this is nothing now" was good reinforcement. My knee wasn't bothering me anymore- not sure if the Tylenol 8 Hour kicked it, endorphins, or the flats took care of it. Probably a combiniation of both. But I was feeling AWESOME!

I had taken all 3 of my gels- all I had left was cliff BLocks and sports beans. I had been snagging oranges along the way as they were offered so I could get some extra cals. I'm sure the oranges didn't help the stomach issues, but eating those were much easier than me having to choke down some sweet sugary Cliff Bloks or sports beans. I told trixie that I was due to eat again but didn't want to because my stomach was so iffy. I was worried that I'd bonk the last 4 miles. She reassured me that I seemed to have plenty of energy and probably wouldn't bonk. She also told me that taking something within the last few miles probably wouldn't help much. So I skipped my last feeding cycle. I was worried this would limit my ability to perform faster, but it did not :)

Luckily there was a nice man spectating maybe around mile 20 or 21ish with 2 bowls of goodies. He had 2 huge bowls- one wiht gummy bears and the other with Teddy Grahms. I took a handful of each. The teddy grahms tasted really good. Only thing is that they made my mouth dry and I had to wait for the next aid station. That guy was a saint for me though, because I probably needed a little snack and was not about going to try to stomach any gels or bloks or sports beans. So the teddy grahms were perfect!

The streets were lined with spectators. I ran toward the inside to high five the little kids standing there with their hands out. It helped pass the time and made the last few miles fun.

We hit the chip mat for the last mile. This was the Old Spice Endurance Challenege, or something like that. They gave out AG awards for the fastest last mile. I wasn't even wanting to compete for that, but figured we were so close ot the finish line to pick up the pace. Plus I wanted to keep trixie in sight. I was feeling good, but toward the end of the last mile I was ready to slow down. But the finish line wasn't in sight yet so I kept pushing it. Later I found out our last mile was 9:07, which made me really happy. Ran under an overpass or bridge? Not sure. I saw Jon on the side of the road holding a sign for me and trixie. Ran by with my arms in the air for a picture. Keep booking it. The crowd was even bigger and louder- it was awesome. Ran underneath another bridge or overpass (have no clue what it was) and thought the finish was there, but we had to keep running a little farther. And then I saw the clock and crossed the first mat. Kept pushing it- finally crossed the last chip mat. I was done, and was so happy. We weren't sure of our chip time but trixie said it was close to 4:25.

Had my chip removed, somehow missed the mylar blankets, and grabebd some food. Ate a bag of potato chips, some cookies, and grabebd the biggest bueberry bagel I've ever seen in my entire life. Got our pic. taken in front of the American Flag and insisted that we hold our bagels up in the picture- why I did this, I have no clue. Exited the finisher's area. This was the start of another marathon. See the warm down section for details.


What would you do differently?:

Not sure. Looking at my HR data, my AVG HR was in low Z3. It was 158, and 156 is the bottom of my Z3. I'd like to say that I could have pushed harder earlier, but then I could have risked the chance of boking and not finishing strong. I felt good, had fun and was really happy with my performance so I don't know if I would have changed anything. This is the first race I've had that I felt like I had the endurance and my body was trained to withstand the miles and my nutirtion/hydration plan worked.

I wish I would have done more strength training or cycling during my marathon training because the downhills just killed my knees. Had my legs been stronger my knees may not have hurt as bad during the downhills.

It had been about 2 years since I ran a stand alone marathon. My last marathon was Disney in 2005 and I ran it in 4:58 and felt horrible during and after the race. I was pleased to see how much my body has adopted to endurance events over the past 2 years. I trained well and had an excellent training plan and wouldn't change any of that.



Post race
Warm down:

After we had finished I realized that Jon and I never made any plans to meet up- oops. That never crossed my mind before the race. And I didn't realize how hard it would be find another- there were more people than I thought there would be. He had the bag with our hotel keys. I didn't have a cell phone but I knew he had his. Luckily after we waited around near the finish line we walked near the family reunion area and found a trailer with phones in it. I called him once and left him a message- told him to meet up bear the phone trailer. Waited and didn't see him so we went to the letter "Z" thinking he'd go there and meet us by my last name. Wasn't there. Walked back to the phoen trailer and called him again- left another message. Let him know that I really needed to get back to the hotel because my stomach was bothering me. I had to use the bathroom really bad- like REALLY BAD and didn't feel right going in a porta- jon. Got impatient and called him again and left another message. As I hung up the phone it rang- it was Jon. Whew! Told him where we were and he came over. Thank goodness we were on our way back to the hotel and found each other! Apparently he didn't hear his phone ring the first few times because of all the noise at the finish line. He was waiting for us to come out from the food line, but somehow with all the people and crowds we missed each other. After an hour we finally met up. Walked a few blocks back to the hotel but it seemed longer than a few blocks. Took care of some stomach issues and took an ice bath. Packed up all my stuff and was ready to go. Got a call from rizzo, she got lost walking back from the finish line and wanted to know what street the hotel was on. Got off the phone with her and trixie called. Said rizzo called her like 20-30 mins. before she called me asking trixie for directions to the hotel. Apparently rrizzo walked about lost for 20-30 mins. before calling me. Got Renee set straight and then checked out of the room. Waited in the lobby for Renee and said by to trixie. rrizzo came down and then we were off to pack up the car and head back to Nashville. As we drove out of the hotel my stomach was getting upset again. So I hopped out of the car at an intersection and ran into CVS to get some TUMS. Jon drove around the block and met me outside CVS and I hopped back in. The drive to Nashville was tough- I was really hungry but couldn't eat anything because my stomach was churning. I usually have issues with the trots after a marathon that really seem to linger for about 5 hours. Later that night my stomach FINALLY settled down.

What limited your ability to perform faster:

Getting injured during training- Also, about 2 months before the marathon I had a case of runner's knee and had to take 3 weeks off from running. I missed 3 long runs. I'd like to think that had I remained injury free that I could have run this race faster, but I'm not sure. I really surprised myself by feeling so good and not bonking I think I did everything right and wouldn't change anything, besides maybe push myself a little more and not hold back. Sometimes I think I'm too conservative in races.

Also, I wish I would have carried my own sports drink and not relied on Gatorade Endurance on the course. It totally killed my stomach from mile 9ish until later that night. Never again- my tummy was not happy with me for a long time!


Event comments:

This race was awesome! It's a challenging course- especially the first half. But you can make up the time on the 2nd half with the flats and downhills. The crowd support is awesome (can't remember a time when there weren't any spectators around) and the course is beautiful. You actually get more than you pay for in this race- great dr-fit Asics race shirt, free race poster and gym bag. It's well organized and everyone is extremely friendly. I think everyone should run the Pig! This is a top notch race and the city is a fun place to visit! It's a challenging course but if you train of hills you're golden!




Last updated: 2006-09-06 12:00 AM
Running
04:24:40 | 26.2 miles | 10m 06s  min/mile
Age Group: 0/215
Overall: 0/3977
Performance: Good
The pace for the first few miles might be a little off since I was having a hard time spottting the mile markers in the beginning. My pace and HR was pretty spotty in the first 1/2 because of all the hills. mile 1= ?, HR 106 (Z1) mile 2= 10:24, HR 148 (Z2) mile 3= 11:24, HR 152 (Z2) mile 4 & 5= 9:34, HR 155 (high Z2)- starting the climb mile 6= 10:12, HR 164 (Z3)- major climb mile 7= 10:11, HR 163 (high Z3) mile 8= 10:18, HR 160 (Z3) mile 9= 9:34, HR 159 (Z3) mile 10= 9:36, HR 159 (Z3) mile 11= 9:30, HR 153 (Z2) mile 12= 9:44, HR 157 (low Z3) mile 13= 9:50, HR 158 (Z3) mile 14= 9:47, HR 158 (Z3) mile 15= 9:33, HR 162 (high Z3) mile 16= 9:37, HR 164 (low Z4) mile 17= 10:28, HR 158 (Z3) mile 18= 9:33, HR 161 (Z3) mile 19= 10:12, HR 159 (Z3) mile 20= 9:57, HR 162 (Z3) mile 21= 9:56, HR 159 (Z3) mile 22= 9:42, HR 162 (high Z3) mile 23= 10:08, HR 160 (Z3) mile 24= 10:12, HR 161 (Z3) mile 25= 10:02, HR 162 (Z3) mile 26= 9:34, HR 165 (Z4) Finish= 9:07, HR 168 (Z4 but still below LT!) Last mile= 9:07, placed 58th out of 238 for my AG. I thought that was pretty darn good!
Course: Can we say this course was uphill for the first half? Just kidding. It started out relatively flat, with the exception os running over 3 bridges. Then a slow steady climb- it kept teasing me because as I would make a turn I thought it was over, but it wasn't. This was from about miles 5-8 ish. After the climb, we had a few steep rollers, then it seemed to flatten out some at 15-17 when we ran through a neighborhood. Then it was a long downhill for about 2 miles on a freeway, and then it seemed to flatten out with maybe some gradual inclines. Finished the last few miles running along the river, then under a bridge to the finish swine. It was a nice course.
Keeping cool Good Drinking Just right
Post race
Weight change: %
Overall: Good
Mental exertion [1-5] 5
Physical exertion [1-5] 5
Good race? Yes
Evaluation
Course challenge Just right
Organized? Yes
Events on-time? Yes
Lots of volunteers? Yes
Plenty of drinks? Yes
Post race activities:
Race evaluation [1-5] 5

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2007-05-25 9:12 AM

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The Original
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Raleigh/Durham
Subject: Flying Pig Marathon


2007-05-25 10:41 AM
in reply to: #816743

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Champion
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Subject: RE: Flying Pig Marathon

Excellant race!

Congrats on beating your last stand alone Mary time by a huge amount!

Great to run with a friend and have the whole mary exp. be better.

Love the frankness and details of your RR...never enough port a potties and us women it is more challenging to go with so many folks around.

Nice way to pick up the pace...that guy with the gummy bears and teddy grahams at the end was great..isn't nice to see how cool people can be.

 

2007-05-25 10:47 AM
in reply to: #816743

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Extreme Veteran
316
100100100
Nashville TN
Subject: RE: Flying Pig Marathon

I am so glad none of the little calamities (like walking up 20 flights of stairs the day before, peeing on yourself, drinking the 2 sips of beer two days before the race, etc etc impacted your ability to perform better.

You are a true disciplined athlete girl!! very proud to call you my friend too!!

2007-05-26 6:35 PM
in reply to: #816743

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Master
1397
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Granvile, Ohio
Subject: RE: Flying Pig Marathon
Awesome race and report Janelle!  Worth the wait (I'd totally given up on ever reading a report)

You ran your own race and were in control the entire distance.  What an amazing race for you!
2007-05-27 6:52 AM
in reply to: #816743

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Champion
7704
50002000500100100
Williamston, Michigan
Subject: RE: Flying Pig Marathon
Geez o pete Janelle that is practically a novel!!!  Glad youahd a great time and congrats of the awesome time Hope the knee is feeling recovered by now
2007-05-27 7:58 AM
in reply to: #816743

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Master
1831
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Keller Tx
Subject: RE: Flying Pig Marathon
Great race Janelle, and very complete race report.  I love how detailed it was!


2007-05-28 1:45 PM
in reply to: #816743

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Elite
2863
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Subject: RE: Flying Pig Marathon

YOU BEAT OPRAH!  (j/k)

Great race Janelle!  Congrats!!!

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