Ze Pig

This was my fifth marathon, but my first Pig. I always had intentions of running it, and the spring of 2010 seemed like perfect timing. Well, due to a whole lotta changes in plans, it ended up being a hometown race and kind of a pain in the ass, schedule-wise. We moved into Erica's parent's basement on the 19th of March and closed on a house in College Hill on the 27th of April. That threw a huge wrench into the running regimen... especially since it was impossible to start a run from the door of the house like I had always done in Columbus. Every run required a drive and if I was going to run on the east side, it required an extra bag so I could shower at work. It all felt disjointed and more of a hassle than it had before... but I was committed.

On top of all this, my race weekend consisted of 1) taking a load over to the new house on Friday night, 2) waking up early Saturday morning to clean the bathroom we had been using, 3) loading up a truck and two cars with boxes of clothes, kitchen stuff and other assorted items from the basement of Erica's parent's house and hauling it over to College Hill, 4) tearing out the carpet and padding on the entire first floor and hauling it to the basement, 5) cleaning the new bathroom 6) jumping in the shower and flying downtown to make it to the expo in time 7) weaving through the expo and finally making it up to dinner at P.F. Changs with my sister who was running the first leg of the 4-man relay 8) picking up some items at Bed, Bath & Beyond, 9) grocery shopping because the fridge was bare and 10) finally laying my stuff out and getting a bag of dry clothes packed for the next day and hopping into bed around 10:30pm. But that's enough excuses... now onto the race report.

The alarm went off at 4:30 and since I had been up since 2:45, it wasn't difficult to crawl out of bed. I got everything together, had my PB&J and headed for Oakley to meet my sister at her place. We got downtown amidst lightning, thunder and rain. Honestly, how common are thunderstorms in the morning? The answer... not at all. We end up walking a ways to the start and got pretty wet in the process. It was just a weird, eerie scene at the start. We only had about 10 minutes to go by the time we got to the corrals, it was very dark and raining hard. It seemed somewhat chaotic, but I wished my sister luck and snuck into the chute.

Even before the race, I didn't feel into it... physically or mentally. I just wasn't there. The impending closing ate up all my attention, the talk of the bad weather all week had me a little bummed and my legs didn't have much bounce because of aforementioned reasons, but the gun went off and so did we.

The temps were around 67º at the start with some decent gusts out of the south, but with the crowds in the first miles, they were negligible. I never really got to take in the course in those first miles as I was trying to find my pace knowing that what I was running wasn't sustainable for the next three hours, but I kept at it. The course was hillier than I'd expected in the first part and that took didn't do anything to boost my spirits as the rain continued to fall. The original goal was 3:05, but I backed off that immediately and decided to stick around the 3:10 pace group because I had heard they were going to back off ~30sec/mi for "the climb" and I thought that would at least save me a bit for the later stages. Well, they didn't. They took 7:15's all the way up that damn hill and I got sucked in the whole way. I did see my brother at the first transition area as he was running the second leg and that gave me a boost for the latter part of the big hill. 49:35 through 6.8mi (7:15/mi).

Once reaching the top, some guy yelled that the worst was behind us. We had almost 17mi to go. I wanted to punch him. I wasn't feeling good at all through these miles which only pissed me off so I pushed the pace a bit. It pissed me off that the 3:10 pace group was right behind me as I knew that leader took these suckers on a suicide mission up the hill and I was pissed that I wasn't running my own race. 1:34:11 through the half (7:12/mi). Miles 6.8 - 13.1: 44:36 (7:06/mi).

The hills kept coming once the long downhill on Erie Avenue was through and they did a number on me. I still tried to maintain some semblance of a pace but it got more and more labored and I felt things slowly slipping away and as I entered Linwood, it was gone... I was ready to go home. 2:23:08 through Mile 19.7 (7:16/mi). Miles 13.1 - 19.7: 48:57 (7:18/mi).

The last section along the river consisted of me walking through the water stops and running in between them. Ended up working out well. I was on my lonesome for a large part of this stretch and had a lot of crowds cheering just for me. Kind of funny. Definitely kept me going. And being able to see the stops ahead on the long straightaways helped me push a little harder to get there.

Coming into town was cool. Great big crowd along Pete Rose Way. That stretch seemed to go on forever. Saw my brother and sister at Eggleston. Shrugged my shoulders and shuffled towards the finish line. I had thought that last mile was faster than what they posted on the results site, but when I compared it to the overall pace of the last section, it wasn't so bad. 3:17:07 (7:32/mi). Miles 19.7 - 26.2: 53:59 (8:16/mi).

What did I learn? To go with a proven plan. I'll probably use Pfitzinger's 18/70 plan. And when will that be? Next spring. I'm going to register for the Boston Marathon with my time from Columbus 2009 (so long as they don't pull a fast one on me and change/implement different standards for 2011) and do some shorter stuff over the summer and plan for a half in the fall... maybe even a couple.

All in all, it was a good experience. The course gets a 10 in my book. You really get to see some of the best this city has to offer. If I would've had a better day, I could've focused more on the surroundings instead of making sure I got back to town. The crowds and volunteers were outstanding. The best I've ever seen. The aid stations were long and full of fluids. The finish area had tons of food and I was able to make my way through it quickly. The swag bag was great. The whole thing was put together really well and I was glad to have run it. I'll be back again, but next time it'll be for fun. Hauling 200lbs up and down those hills doesn't translate into fast times. So the Pig may have won this battle, but the war is far from over.

And there was little time to dwell on it. I spent the rest of Sunday pulling tac board up. My knees felt like they'd been used for target practice by the NRA.