Hi. This is Editor Kiwi. One day Kasha wants to run Flying Pig
marathon in Cincinnati. Today's entry is about the Flying Pig Half, by
our friend Cadet; who ran his first half marathon!!!! It covers his training and the race, and is a refreshing view of racing. Kasha races so much that details like packet pick up and car drop offs are often glazed over. Cadet presents these details with fresh eyes. Very worth the long read. Good job, Cadet! -LOVE KIWI
Hey everyone, I’m Cadet, and I’ve been invited to do a guest entry on the experience of a first time Half Marathon runner.
I’ve
been running for around eight years now, but I’ve only run one
organized race, the “Run Like Hell” 5k in Cincinnati, Ohio. I’ve always
just run to, well, run. However, inspired by Kasha and her Month of Many
Mini Marathons and my friend Eve’s 5K-A-Day project (
http://5k-a-day.tumblr.com/), I decided it was finally time to try some real races.
Early
in January I picked up on Eve’s 5K a day challenge and attempted run at
least a 5K every day. I ran on a treadmill in my apartment complex’s
gym, because it’s cold in Ohio.By February I had increased my daily
mileage enough that I decided to try a half. I woke up around 4am on a
cold Saturday, and set off to the gym with a water bottle that was half Gatorade and half water and a package of chomps.
Two
hours and ten minutes later, I had completed a half marathon distance
on a treadmill. I felt a little guilty, that doing it on a treadmill was
easier a real race. At that point I resolved to do a “real” Half
Marathon. Accordingly, I picked up my training.
Mid
March I completed a second half marathon distance on the treadmill and
was steadily increasing my daily miles. I felt ready, so I took the
plunge and registered for the Flying Pig Half-Marathon in Cincinnati,
OH, along with Eve. They asked for an expected finish time, which I
would later find out was how runners were sorted into their corrals.
Knowing Kasha’s PR was around
2:15, I went ahead and said
2:30 to be safe.
I
kept training and before I knew it, it was race weekend. Eve and I
headed to packet pick up. Packet pick up was at the P&G Health and
Wellness Fair at the convention center. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been
to Disney World, but at Disney World almost every ride and attraction
ends in a gift shop. Packet Pick Up reminded me of that.You got your Bib
and a small goodie bag at the entrance to the Fair, but in order to get
your Bib chip activated and get your free T-Shirt, poster, bag, and
other assorted freebies you had to go all the way through the many
aisles of the Fair to get to the “Check Out” at the end.
There
were a lot of cool free samples and items for sale, but after a long
day, we were both tired and ready to get our packets and get out and
head back to my parents to crash.
We woke around 4 on
Sunday morning. It was mid fifties and overcast, with a chance of rain
later in the morning. Good running weather. My parents had offered to
drive Eve and I down and drop off us as close as they could get to the
starting area and then they would find somewhere to park and walk to one
of the Spectator areas. So, we hopped out of the car near the starting
line and made our way down to the corrals. As I said, the corrals were
arranged by starting time, and apparently my guestimated time of
2:30
put me in one of the very last corrals. We milled around and stretched
out as the corral slowly filled up with people. Eventually I made my
way towards the back around the
2:30
pace runner. Volunteers from a local running store, and race sponsor,
were running the race with large sticks displaying their pace time. A
very cool service, and apparently they were also the leaders of group
runs/training that you could do through the store. Figuring that was the
time I wrote down, I might as well hang out by these people.
I
saw a guy in a Batman costume walking along the corrals talking to
people and wishing them good luck. I took this as good sign.
I
checked my race gear. I was running as light as I could, and made sure
to run only in the same style gear I had run my half on the treadmill
in, and only brought along the same brand of chomps I had used in my
training half. I had thought about a gear belt thing to hold my phone,
in case I had difficulty meeting up with my parents at the end of the
race, and chomps, but having not used one in training, I elected to just
put the chomps, removed from the packaging and placed in a convenient
zip-lock bag, in my pocket and to just stow my phone in the zippable
back pocket of the basketball shorts.
This would prove to be a mistake.
A
little more waiting, and the race officially started. It took almost
fifteen minutes for our corral to make it to the front, and as we slowly
made our way through the successive corrals, I got my first real
surprise.
I was expecting a fair amount of excess trash
to be generated by the race. People tossing gu or chomp wrappers. The
obvious mess by the water/Gatorade stations. I was not expecting all
the clothing that was tossed aside.All along the fences of the corrals
were T-shirts, sweat shirts, hats, pants, and even some wind breakers.
I don’t think these people expected to get these clothes back, my
parents even told they saw a girl who just took off her T-shirt while
running and just drop it on the ground behind her and keep going. I
suppose many people plan on this, go to a place like Goodwill or another
thrift shop and buy cheap clothes that they can then just ditch without
thinking about it, but I wasn’t expecting it.
As I
made my way to the starting line, I couldn’t help but wonder if someone
told the homeless population or Goodwill about this so they could just
stroll along the corrals and collect the items. I’m sure they had.
After the fact, I have even heard of races were the leaving behind an
item of clothing at the starting corral was an intended part of the
charity aspect of the race. (
Ed Kiwi confirms. Discarded "warm up clothes" are gathered and given to various charity groups by race clean up crews.)
Feet
from the starting line, Cincinnati Police were escorting a nice man out
of the road with a pair of shiny new handcuffs.I gave Eve a fist bump
and told her I’d see her at the end. And then I was off.
After a stop at the first Porta Potty station.
Then
I was really off. The first bit of the Pig is a short jaunt through
downtown Cincy then over the bridge into Newport, Kentucky for a fair
portion of the race. I saw my parents at the base of the bridge with
“Run, Cadet, Run” and “Fly Goose” signs. I waved but they didn’t see me,
and I headed over the bridge.
Signs and crowd participation are something the Pig is known for.
The only time there wasn’t at least a small group of people cheering us
on were when we were crossing over the bridges over the Ohio River.
Everywhere else there was always a crowd, always someone cheering or
waving a sign, always a kid wanting a high five or a fist bump. It was a
big boost to have people constantly cheering you on, even if after a
while you began to see the same signs over and over again.
Large
portions of the race are kind of a blur for me. I decided to listen to
a podcast rather than music for this race, in hopes of distracting me,
and I picked the Red Vs Blue podcast, specifically episodes heavily
featuring Joel the voice of my favorite character, Caboose. A comedy
podcast was a pretty good choice, as the humor and stream of funny
stories did do a good job of distracting me from the run. More than
once I did burst out laughing, which I’m sure got me some weird looks
from my fellow runners.
(Ed Kiwi says that no one gets to make fun of what you listen to while you work out!)
I
also got a crash course in running with other people, as I had always
run by myself before. It was a steep learning curve working around
others, and I found myself along the sides the road many times passing
large sections of people.
It was also a learning
experience at my first water station. I tried to drink from the cup
while running, and ended up spilling water all down the front of my
shirt. At that point I decided to slow to a brisk walk while drinking,
which served me well for the rest of the race.
Back
over the river and back into Cincinnati, and very shortly we were
working our way up one of the many massive hills by Krohn Conservatory.
Near the top of the hill, I noticed my basketball shorts were kind
of…sagging a bit. I pulled them up, tried to ignore it and pushed on.
At
this point I was kind of wondering when the Full Marathon runners would
split off, and a little part of my brain began to wonder if I had some
how missed the split. My thoughts began to waffle between pulling up my
shorts and wondering when the full people would split off.
Finally somewhere around mile 10, the full did split off, and we headed back downtown for the homestretch.
Around
this time, I forgot how long a half marathon goes.... My mind bounced
between 12 and 14, like the floors in a Hotel, and somehow managed to
skip over 13 for around a mile or so before I finally realized it. That
and the fact that the drawstring had failed in my basketball shorts had
me pushing for the end.
Around mile 11 we were well
into downtown and I saw Batman again, talking to a Police Officer. I
made my way to the edge of the road and high fived him. At this point
some part of my brain finally decided that one of the biggest reasons my
shorts were falling down was the weight of my phone. I had never run
with it back there, and I decided it must be the cause. So, for the last
two miles, I ran with my phone in my hand. That fixed it, and I wasn’t
pulling my shorts up as much that last bit.
As I passed
the new Horseshoe Casino, I saw my parents again and I waved. This time
they noticed me, just as I passed them. Right after that, the finish
line came into sight. I had thought about doing a big push and almost
sprinting it out, but the crowd was too thick, and I was a little tired.
I let the crowd carry me through the finish line. I slowed to a walk
and made my way over to one of the workers with a stack of medals. I
really wasn’t expecting them to give it to me right there at the end of
the race, right off the finish line. I was pleasantly surprised.
That
medal was heavy! I walked away from the nice medal lady and someone
else gave me a mylar blanket, but only a short distance from where I got
the blanket, there was a blanket recycling station. I thought I had to
give my blanket up, so I handed it to the guy standing by the bin. I
then realized that I could have kept it. I wandered into the recovery
area and got a fruit cup, some string cheese, and a cup of soup and made
my way out and to my parents.
My mom had signed up to
receive time alerts on her phone for me and Eve. She told me that she
had gotten an alert for my time as 2:01:58. Much better than I was
expecting. We waited around outside the recovery area for Eve to show
up, and just as she made her way out around
2:30, the rain started.
We
started to walk back towards the car, but the layout of the streets
roads closures, it made the walk back almost twice as long as it should
have. Eve and I stopped because her knee was bothering her, and my
parents got the car and met us on the side of the road.
We
drove back to my parents' house and took a shower, stretched out, and
went out to breakfast. After breakfast, we continued being stupid and
went back downtown for Main Library’s Comic Con. Sore and tired, we
still suited again, still wearing out medals, and hung out for a few
hours until my knees and ankles were too sore to keep going.
 |
| Eve as Black Cat and Cadet as Spider-man, with a young fan. R is for Runner, right? | | | | |
|
|
We hope you enjoyed this fresh view on racing! You can check out more from Cadet at his site and check out his friend Eve and her 5K-a-day project. We look forward to hearing about their future running adventures!
Next time, Kasha will recap her weekend of not racing.
LOVE KIWI
