Today was the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon and it was great! A group of 9 members of the Buckeye Striders walking club entered the half.

Though on Saturday night we were worried about rain and cold, the temps were in the low 50s at the start this morning with light sprinkles. Luckily it never rained harder!

We went to the very end of the starting line and it took only 9 min to reach the start. What was surprising was the huge number of runners who passed us after the start. Where did they come from? How did they get behind us?

As is typical of a race with over 20,000 entrants, it can take awhile to get going. We tried to maintain a 15-min mile, but because we missed the first mile marker, I’m not sure how fast we were. We wove in and out of many people and tried not to get run over by runners. At the second mile marker, we were at 31:16, much slower than we anticipated. We hovered around 15-min miles for a couple of miles then slowed dramatically to 15:25 up the Eden Park hill. Our hill training definitely paid off! This hill and the entire course was much easier than we remembered from the last time we did this race.

At the top of the hill was Elvis, which made the climb totally worthwhile. He touched my hand!

The entire race had great temps. We encountered occasional sprinkles and no real wind. It was very nice racing weather. I kept taking my jacket off and putting it back on. We were very lucky the sun didn’t come out. If it had, the steam from the rain would have been unbearable!

At mile 12 we went our fastest at 13:44! I tried to get Deb to keep it up, but she was unable, so I attempted to zoom off ahead of her. Ha! I did the last full mile in 14:02 and she was just a few seconds behind me. So much for zooming ahead.

We went through the food line (plenty of food) and had our picture taken. The majority of our friends were waiting right there for us! It took a while to find the family reunion area, but none of the faster members of our group were waiting. Apparently, they couldn’t find the area, looked for us for a while then went back to the hotel. The rest of us walked around the after-party for a little while, got a massage (which took too long), and then headed back to the hotel.

It was a good day and a good race!

My official finish time was 3:13:59, which is as fast as I was 5-6 years ago. We averaged a 14:48 mile! I think I’m about ready to break the 3-hour half marathon barrier!

Time per Mile
We missed a couple of mile markers, but here are our times from my watch, which may be a little different from the official time:
Miles 1-2 31:16
Mile 3 15:05
Mile 4 15:05
Miles 5-6 29:01
Mile 7 15:25
Mile 8 15:08
Mile 9 14:31
Mile 10 14:44
Mile 11 14:32
Mile 12 13:44
Mile 13 14:02
Mile 0.1 1:31

Previous Half Marathon Finish Times
2003 Air Force Marathon 3:13:45
2004 Capital City Half Marathon 3:10:28

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