This Little Piggie…

Finished the Flying Pig Half Marathon in 3:27!  If you haven’t checked your results…and why has it taken you this long?  Go here!

The Pig was awesome this year.  I feel like I say that every year, but it’s true every year.

First off, how can any day be bad when your morning looks like this?

A little blurry, but you get the jist.

Mom and I made our way to corral H, the blog isn’t called thelastcorral for nothing! We found a secret way to get to our corral.  Okay maybe not really a secret, but it took us 10 years to figure it out!

Corral H had some beautiful scenery as well.

The Pig officials were playing songs that were either by Boston or had to do with Boston.  The one that was stuck in my head all day was The Standells, “Dirty Water.”

Before the race started there was a moment of silence followed by “Amazing Grace” played on the bagpipes.  It was pretty touching.

Then before we started we saw not one, but two rainbows!

At 6:30 we were off…well corral’s A-F were off, we waited about 20 minutes to be off.  Once we got started it was pretty smooth sailing.  The one thing I know I need to work on are hills.  We just don’t have that many in Virginia Beach, funny huh?  I could definitely feel the hills in my thighs and hips, but that’s really my only complaint.

There was definitely a larger police presence this year, and that was okay.  There was a police officer or State Trooper at every intersection and water stop.  They were also peppered throughout busy/popular sections of town.  I know my mom and I felt safe.

Here’s the numbers:

15.34 – number of miles completed that day, according to my mom’s iPod

1- missed handoff of water leading to one glass of water being spilled down my leg

6 - “Awwws” from other racers upon reading my mom and I’s t-shirts

3 (at least) – times someone said that, “It’s all downhill from here” when it really wasn’t.

15? – water stops.  The volunteers (Grunt’s) are always awesome.  There wouldn’t be a race without all the volunteers at water stops, at the Expo and at the finish line.

Uncountable – number of creative signs along the course.  My favorites, “WTH! Why the Hills?”, “I’m a stranger, but I’m proud of you!”, “I like Pig Butts and I cannot lie.”, “If this were easy, I’d be doing it.”

2- Number of states we walked through

33,582 – number of participants for the entire weekend of events.

10 – number of years mom and I have walked this race.  Yup, we’re pretty spectacular.

We ended the day, the best way possible

UDF milkshake!  Oh UDF I miss you in Virginia!

Another great Pig!  Thanks to the race organizers, volunteers, spectators, and police.  We couldn’t have done it without you!

 

PR time!

Hey all!

Just a quick note about the Flying Pig.  My mom and I did awesome today.  It was a perfect day, starting out with a temp of 57 and warming up to upper 60′s by the end of the race.  Sunny with blue skies and just gentle breezes now and then.  Since they were predicting warmer weather for this race there were water stops at every mile.

The big news is that mom and I walked our best Pig yet!  We finished in 3:22!!  How awesome is that!?

Some how we’ll have to top ourselves for our 10th year anniversary next year!

Thanks to all the volunteers, police, and Flying Pig coordinators.  It was truly a great race!

Now, it’s off to watch the rest of the Reds game, drink some water, and maybe take a nap!

Check out WLWT if you want to watch all of the inspiring finisher stories.  One finisher even got proposed to!

How to be a spectator in a half marathon

Or a volunteer for that matter…

Do

• Have a positive attitude
• Scream words of encouragement
• Say my name, that sounds weird, but seriously if you see my name on my shirt it really helps if you use it.  Not just, “You in the pink, awesome job!”  Do you realize how many people are wearing pink?
• Offer fruit slices
• Start, “If you’re happy and you know it…”  You will be amazed at how many people will reply.  By this point we will do pretty much anything someone says
• Have a clever sign.  My favorite one from the race said, “Worst Parade Ever!”  Good times.

Don’t

Say these things:

• Keep going!  Really cuz I was going to stop until you said something!
• You are almost there! Not cool, especially if I am only on the early stages of the race
•  It’s all downhill from here Because it’s not, it’s really not.  There are sure to be more hills for me to go up.  Plus if you’re telling me it’s all downhill that’s usually bad
• Don’t stop!  This goes directly with Keep Going, but just a different variation.

Don’t

• Cross in front of me to get to the other side of the street while I’m walking right at you.  I think this is pretty self-explanatory.
• Piss off the Police Officers.  Again, pretty self-explanatory.  All this does is get them all upset and the occurrence of a car hitting me rises.
• Get all upset when I don’t want your water and/or Gatorade.  I just may not be thirsty.  Don’t hate!

Thank you!

Did I forget any?  Any you want to add?

And now…photos that didn’t fit into the other posts

Flying Pig Recap 1

Flying Pig Recap 2

Fountain Square

The last corral!

 

Flying Pig recap Part 2

So where’d we leave off?  Oh yeah, carbo loading the night before…

Mom and I went to bed around 10:30 only to be awoken around 11 to the sounds of fireworks.  Guess the Reds won!

Onto breakfast

The three B's: banana, butter (peanut), and bagel

I have this same combo before every race.  It it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

After breakfast we headed down to Paul Brown Stadium where the start was.  This year they did something different and broke us up into corrals.  Guess what corral we were in… Corral E!  I call it fate.

Corral E, for Emily

Corral E, the place to be

Corral E, for excellent

I could go on, but feel as though I shouldn’t

The weatherman was calling for rain and I was praying he was wrong.  Well, he wasn’t.  It rained on and off for most of the race.  Boo, but as I said those ponchos were the best $2.95 ever spent.

Miles 1 – 3

During this portion of the race we walk past Great American, go over the bridge to Kentucky, walk through Kentucky and back into Ohio.  It was here where we heard a really awful Soundgarden cover band.  Sorry high schoolers, I appreciate that you got up super early to perform for us, but it was just not all that great.

Heading back into Ohio

View of Cincy from Kentucky

Miles 4 – 6

This portion of the race takes you through downtown Cincy.  It was also were it pretty much stopped raining. Yay!  Ponchos off!

It also takes you right by the Butternut Bread factory.  Um, evil much.  It was also around mile 4 that I saw a celebrity, yes a celebrity.  I saw one of the Policewomen of Cincinnati!  She was patrolling one of the intersections.

She was just as made up in person as she is on T.V.  Mom wanted to turn around and go back to say something, but I said no!  Sorry, slave driver I know.  Mile four also brought me to my first GU.  I didn’t really feel like I needed it, but I didn’t want to get so far to where I really needed it.  Mile six brings us to the hills, oh the hills!  Remember this post?  I purposefully did a lot of hills in Middletown during Easter to prepare myself for the hills in Eden Park.  Ugh, it’s never enough.

Miles 7 – 8 or the hills of death

Up and up we go.  Just when you thought you went up enough, there is more up to go.  There’s not  a whole lot I can say about this portion except that whoever designed the race course is a masochist.  Who puts hills, big hills, right in the middle of a half marathon?

Up

and up

and up...

the last "up" of the hill

Seriously, it’s a lot of up.  Mom was a trooper and put on a brave face.

See, brave face

This was right after I told her she missed her “break” to rest.  Oops.

Miles 9 – 11

These miles are “downhill” in more ways than one.  At around mile nine the race course splits off and the marathoners go to the right and more into different suburbs of Cincy and the half marathoners go back into downtown.  It’s also downhill because, well, you are going down the hills instead of up.  Right around mile 10 it started to rain again.  Boo!  Ponchos back on!  This section goes through a not so great part of Cincy, but it usually has the best water stop people.  One of my favorites was the Walnut Hills football team.  They were so motivating.  They had great things to say like, “You are awesome!” , “You’re doing a great job!”  Stuff like that.  It might sound corny, but by this point you need to hear those types of things.  Somewhere around this time, my feet started to hurt.  No blisters or anything like that, but they were just done walking.

Going downhill

Mile 11- 13.1

At the top of this hill we got stopped by another mother daughter team.  The switch was they also had grandma involved.  I thought that was awesome!  At mile 11 another favorite water stop is formed.  It was the Avondale Running Club.  They had a DJ who was shouting words of encouragement.  He was saying, “See I told you you could do it.  I told you!”  ”You are amazing, you’re doing it!”  It was great.  Love them!  At this point in the race we are so close to being finished that I just kind of wanted to run to the finish.  I could not run to the finish but that’s what my brain was telling me to do.   Sadly, this is a pretty dead area of the race.  By the time mom and I get to this area all the musical acts have left and there isn’t anyone really cheering you on.  It’s rough, but mom and I pulled through!

We made it!  The Finish Swine!  Mom and I finished officially in 3:26.  Not too shabby.  I am super proud of us and think we did a great job!  This was our eighth Flying Pig.  Mom and I have walked in every Half Marathon the Flying Pig has had.  Go us!

Flying Pig recap part 1

We made it!  Nobody died, got hurt, or dropped out of the race.  However, this guy got Tased.

Mom and I finished in 3:36:51.  Pretty damn good, I think!

So let’s recap…

Yesterday I got into Ohio around 10.  Mom and I got to the Expo and made the laps to get to the important stuff…free backpacks, t-shirts, and posters.

I thought the Expo this year was easier to get around.  I don’t know if it was the time that we were there or of there were fewer vendors.  I don’t know, but it was a lot less stressful.

After the Expo we walked over to Fountain Square and had lunch at Via Vite.  Via Vite had a great lunch menu.  I got an open-faced Caprese sandwich with field greens and mom got potato leek soup with truffle oil and Margherita pizza.  Delicious!

Let the carbo loading begin!

After lunch we went to our hotel to check in.  We stayed at the Residence in at The Phelps.  It was a really cool hotel located in the Lytle Park area of Cincinnati.  From our room we could see US Bank Arena and part of Great American.  The hotel was brand new and all the staff were accommodating and helpful.

Our room was amazing!

It was a King bed suite with a little kitchen and living area.  Pretty awesome.  The flat screen TV (which is in the middle in the first picture) was humongous.  It took up most of the dresser it was on!

Once we had checked in it was about time to go to church, another part of the Flying Pig half marathon routine.  The priest told us that he was praying that it didn’t rain today…I think more prayer was needed.

I looked on Open Table.com to find out where we could go to dinner.  This particular night in Cincy was über busy.  There was a baseball game, Flying Pig participants, a ballet, and prom.  Yikes.  We decided on Nicholson’s.  We’ve eaten at Nicholson’s many times previously and have always enjoyed the food.  This particular night, I got the “special” which was seared tuna over pappardelle noodles.  Again, delicious!

Carbo loading redux!

After sufficiently stuffing, I mean carbo loading and talking about many important things including Harry Potter and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, it was back to the hotel to prepare for today and get some rest.

Ready to go!

We woke up bright and early this morning around 5 and scooted down to Paul Brown stadium for the race.  It was a soggy race and the most important buy from yesterday was definitely the $2.95 spent on a Flying Pig poncho.  I’ll keep the recap going tomorrow.  Right now, I think the couch is calling my name…and maybe more water…or wine!

This little piggie…

Went to bed!

There was lots of carb loading, packet picking up,and falling back on half marathon routines.  Namely setting everything out the night before… 

spi belt (for hold my camera and gu packs), pants, wicking shirt, gu packs, shoes, socks, wicking hat, poncho (which we won’t need!), and Flying Pig t-shirt with bib number.

It was a long day and it’s time for bed.  I’ll be sure to post a full recap tomorrow.  Right after I sleep for a couple hours, get stuck in an awkward position and have my thighs, calves, and all other muscles in my body sieze up.  Night!

I’ll have to write that down…

Happy weekend to you!  I know the weekend is almost over, but still.

My weekend was spent training for the Pig, watching movies, and procrastinating on doing my taxes.

Friday Leanne, Phil and I went to go see Limitless.

It’s about Bradley Cooper’s character taking a pill that basically helps him get everything he ever wanted.  It increases your intelligence, helps you think ten steps ahead of everyone, and basically just makes you a more attractive person all around.  The downside…it’s super expensive, the guy who is Bradley Cooper’s supplier gets murdered, and if you stop taking it…you die.  I don’t want to give everything away, although I kind of did(oops), it was a good movie.

Saturday was kind of rainy gloomy day, but I still walked!  I did 4.1 miles walking laps around my neighborhood.  I’m sure the landscape guys that were out thought I was nuts since I passed them four times.  While I was walking a car pulled up beside me and rolled down the window (I hate this).  The conversation kind of went like this…

Woman in car: Excuse me, but how do we get out of here?

Me: You’ll have to turn around and go back the other way.

W.I.C. – really?

Me: yes

W.I.C. – Really, there’s no other way?

Me: Yes

W.I.C – I can’t get out that way?

Me – (really?!) No

W.I.C – okay (and drives away)

Seriously why?

Sunday!  I ran/walked 7.73 miles today!  That’s right I ran and walked.  Woohoo!  I went back to First Landing Park and did the Cape Henry Trail.  There are still lots of these…

but what are ya gonna do?  Same thing I did last time…walk right through ‘em.

It was a gorgeous day today and things were going well until around mile 2, I think and my iPod died.  I kept pushing the button to change the song, nothing happened.  I switched the emergency switch on the bottom of the iPod, nothing happened.  I pushed menu to turn off the iPod, you guessed it, nothing happened!  Argh!  I didn’t really care if I had music or not, but I wanted to keep track of my mileage and of my pace.  I conceded to the fact that I was just not going to have it, stuffed it in my pullover and kept going.  I had a really good walk, remember I even ran!  I was all ready to take a picture of my iPod to show that it was broken and stuck to show you all, but nooooo….

So yeah, it decided somewhere while I was walking, to start working again.  Curses!  Notice anything wrong…?  Yeah I did 7.73 miles with a 0/0 min/mile.  Hmm.  Also (you can’t see it) it says that today was the 20th of January.  Nope, not really.  Something is wrong with either my iPod or my Nike shuffle, but either way, it’s really annoying.

Now, I’m home.  I just made some cookie dough that I will bake later.  It is from How Sweet Eats, one of my favorite blogs for recipes.  I am going to make her Double Fudge Oreo Crunch Cookies.  I mean, right?!  If the cookies are half as good as the batter, I think I’ll be making them again.

Little Kid News

During church yesterday, there was a little girl in the pew in front of us.  She was sitting with her grandma and grandpa and was too cute.  She “whispered” to her grandma, “Are we going to go see the Easter Bunny at the mall?”  Her grandma said something back to her that must have been yes.  To which the little girl exclaimed, “We are going to see the Easter Bunny!  I’ll have to write that down.”  To which she did.  She wrote a big zig zag line across her tablet of paper.  Too Frikin’ Cute!