Running the Flying Pig Half Marathon

On May 5th, I ran my 4th half marathon, and crossed the finish line with a PR (Personal Record). This was a BIG accomplishment for me as training for any race takes a lot of time, and time is not something that I had a lot of this past Spring!

I have always been active, and I’ve always enjoyed sports. I was on the cross country team in 9th grade and would have continued if the other school I went to for high school had cross country! I think that one season of cross country really made me fall in love with running. I played midfield in soccer throughout high school (so, a LOT of running), but in college I didn’t do much sports activity at all. After we got married and moved to a neighborhood, we decided to do a half marathon and then we decided to do a full marathon. I HATED the full marathon, but I have found that the 13.1 miles of a half marathon are perfect for me. It’s hard enough that I really have to train and push myself, but it’s attainable.

Throughout the years since having kids, I have found running to be a nice stress relief/outlet. I really enjoy going for a run and always feel better on running days. We got a treadmill in 2020, and that really helped me be able to run consistently, since Ohio winters and four small children aren’t exactly conducive to running!

ANYWAYS- last summer I started running with some other running ladies, and that totally changed the trajectory of my running! They are a talented bunch, and I was by far the slowest of them all. It really spurred me on to try to to keep up with all of them! Although I can’t run with them very often, I really enjoy joining them for runs when I can!

The half marathon weekend began by me taking all the kids down to the race expo in Cincinnati to pick up my running bib. We went on Friday afternoon, and I was soooo nervous about trying to find parking and driving IN the city. It was exactly as bad as I thought it would be, but I did a great job and found myself a parking spot in a parking garage and navigated all of us into the correct building! That was almost as much of an accomplishment as running a half marathon!

I took a picture of where I parked so I could find my van when I came out of the Convention Center haha.

The convention center was HUGE and you had to walk across the entire thing to get your shirt at the very end. The kids loved walking around and getting some free samples and it was a blast to see all of the running gear and supplies! My kids had their eyes on that trampoline the whole time we were walking around. Which, honestly….brilliant marketing to bring a whole trampoline to the expo. Because you know what a parent is going to have to do while their kids jump around? Listen to the sales pitch, that’s what! I did not buy this mega expensive trampoline, but it sure was fun for the kids to jump on! The kids also loved the escalator in the convention center, and I let them go up and down a couple of times.

I was very nervous about my run on Sunday. During my training I had some good runs and then I had some terrible runs. But the thing I was most nervous about was trying to find parking in the city at 5am. You would think it would be quiet at 5am, but nope…because 60,000 runners were also looking for parking.

The kids and Theo spent the night at my parents house so that Theo could go to work in the morning and my parents could take the kids to church. I got up at 4am and picked up a friend and she drove down with me, and thanks to her navigation and clear directions, we were able to find a parking garage to park in that was in reasonable walking distance of the start line. Because you know what you don’t want to do before running a half marathon? Run a couple miles to the start line lol.

Anyways, Leah and I parted ways because she was running the relay and I was running the half. There were SO MANY PEOPLE, I literally just had to follow the crowds and they kind of carried me to where I needed to be. I dropped off my bag at the baggage bus and then began to search for my starting corral. I was going to use the bathroom but allllll the porta pots had mega long lines and you know what is really gross? Race porta pots. Because you know what happens when you are nervous? Yeah, let’s just not go there. Race porta pots are the WORST smelling porta pots I’ve ever been in.

I finally found my corral- I think it was E, and lined up with a lot of other people. The full marathon, half marathon and relay (4-5 people relay running a full marathon) all started at 6:30am in the same place, so there were THOUSANDS of runners. 6:30am came and we heard the national anthem and the starting gun, but my coral literally didn’t even start moving until 6:40. Then we did the slow shuffle walk for the half mile or so before we even crossed the start line! I think I crossed the start line at 6:47am.

In this picture below, if you look really close you can see that there are people all the way up that street towards the tall building. The start line is just over that hill. And this was after we had already moved up from E to D and then to C.

A lot of people told me that the Flying Pig is 1. SO MUCH FUN and 2. SO HILLY. They were right on both accounts. For all 13.1 miles there were spectators, there was cheering, there were some gorgeous views. AND there was a LOT of hills.

I ran a really good pace for the first 5 miles or so, and then slowed down for mile 6, 7 and 8. I had a great playlist and really felt like I was making some good time. I finally stopped to use a porta pot around mile 6. It was SO annoying because I got in line and the person in front of me went into a porta pot that was out of TP. So she came out and stood in front of me and then asked me if she could go in the next available one to get some TP. I said sure and she went in and it took her like 50 seconds to get TP! Which if you are in the middle of a half marathon, that is a LONG time!! And I was stuck because I couldn’t get into my porta pot but I also couldn’t get back in line arg. Anyways, I went to the bathroom and then resumed running. I had paused my watch for the bathroom break, so it wasn’t that much of a big deal but it is still frustrating to have to stop for longer than neccessary and then get my body back up and running again.

The first 10 miles were uphill a lot, and then once you hit mile 11 it is literally all downhill! My pace totally reflected that haha.

My goal was a sub 2 hour half. I felt GREAT the whole race and really thought I might hit my goal. But at mile 11 I realized that I wasn’t going to hit it and I really had to fight off some tears and wanting to give up. It sounds stupid, but after pushing myself so hard and knowing I wasn’t going to hit it, I really felt discouraged. One thing that was SO encouraging was that Theo and a few running friends were tracking me on the Flying Pig app. Theo texted me every mile or so with a cheering-on text, and at one point when I felt like I was dying I got a “GIRL, YOU ARE KILLING IT!” text from a friend and it literally put a pep in my step.

ARG THIS KILLS ME, but I crossed the finish line at 2:01:40.

Since the race started so early in the morning, I was done by 9am haha. It felt SO hot and when I checked the weather to see that it was only 65 degrees I about died of shock! But check out the humidity level! People (me included) were just DRIPPING with sweat. When I was on mile 12 or so, they put out the yellow heat warning flags and by the time I had finished, they put out the red excessive heat warnings for the full marathon runners and others still finishing. I know that seems crazy for such a low temperature but it really felt like the air was THICK and it made running twice as hard.

After the race I hung around for a half hour or so, but I didn’t know anyone running the half and everyone I knew wouldn’t be getting to the finish for an hour or so. I needed to pick up the kids from my parents, so I headed back home!