Cincinnati Flying Pig 5/2015

boonepharm

Barefooters
Jul 13, 2014
11
41
13
Cleveland
Wow. I'm really hoping this is my worst race ever. I've been training really hard (50-60) miles per week and reading up on "the wall" so I wouldn't hit it this time like I did in the last few miles of the Princess Half in Feb. I'd read about the pig and how fun it was, and that the hills were stepped and quite possible even for a beginner. I'm not a beginner, but it's nice and flat here. I drove down Saturday afternoon from Cleveland to Cinci and stayed with my brother and sister-in-law. I had a great time playing with my nephew. He has the best train set EVER!

I had a good night sleep, but I woke up feeling kinda blah. Not my usual race morning excited jitters. Frankly I felt like pretending my alarm didn't go off and skipping it. But no, I had planned and trained and driven 4 hours to get here. I was not going to let it go.

Parking stinks in Cincinnati, but at 5am in the morning it's torture. They close a lot of roads for the race which makes it even more difficult. I did finally get parked and walk my way down. It's a good thing that there is a trail of people all headed in the same direction or I would have had no idea where to go. And heads up, they do not have enough porta-potties. The lines were awful. If you need to use one, be prepared for quite the wait. Or just wait until the corrals start to get released and as you get near the front there will only be 2-3 people waiting. But remember to bring some napkins or something. They were completely out of toiled paper (blech).

So my corral was headed on out in a nice big herd with a blast of pyrotechnics that was pretty neat. I was running barefoot. I wore my vibrams in the car because I hate the feel of the pedals and I had intended to leave them in the car. I forgot I was wearing them until I was a few blocks away from the garage and was not about to turn around so I was carrying them. Irritating, but at least I wasn't running with a pair of regular sneakers.

Everything went fine until the first real hill, which was the bridge crossing from Ohio into Kentucky. There is a metal expansion plate at both ends which at first glance looks like it's covered in those round traction nubs you see commonly on sidewalks at crosswalks. In fact they were spikes. And even after I learned my lesson after the first set, it was too wide to jump over the second set.

The bridge was also where the grooved pavement started. Cincinnati is very fond of grooved pavement for some reason. It was everywhere on the course. I would guess that it covered 70% of the course. Grooved pavement, if you're not familiar with it, is pavement like sidewalks that they take saws and cut lines into it. It's supposed to cut down on accidents due to wet pavement by giving your tires more grip. And judging by the amount of glass on the road they have quite a few accidents.

I managed to do pretty well up until crossing the bridge from Kentucky back into Ohio. Between my feeling blah which probably affected my running form and the horrifying road conditions I was done running. My old goal to PR was left by the side of the road. I just wanted to finish. Lots of grooved pavement. Lots of glass. I did wind up pacing a nice lady speed walking like me. We had fun pointing out cute signs (All this for a free banana?!? I thought it said 1.31 miles! and a guy holding up a large pink letter F and yelling at us to get the F up the hill). I lost her when she stopped at the water station with balloon arches and a football team (including mascot) to take some photos.

I finally put my Vibrams on with the last mile to go when I couldn't stand it anymore. My feet were a mess from the grooves although I'm pretty sure I managed to avoid all the glass. I even saw one other barefoot out there. Although he seemed to be in much better shape then me.

I did finish. I got my medal and went into the recovery area where they had a wide selection of goodies. Bananas, apples, fruit cups, power bars, cookies, potato chips, and even hot soup. No matter what your post run craving is, they had it. I took some goodies but for probably the first time ever I did not have the hangries. I figured it was probably because I spent most of it walking and not running. Turns out I had food poisoning from dinner the night before which explains how blah I felt and how I just gave up and walked for most of the course. I got sick after I got back to the house about an hour later and it was an interesting 4 hour drive home. That swag bag saw things it was never intended for.

The odd thing is that as I'm sitting here typing with my aching shredded feet that I know I want a rematch. Probably not next year, but sometime. I will probably wear Vibrams though. Unless you've got iron feet it's not a good course to attempt barefoot. At least carry some shoes or sandals. In spite of everything I could see how much fun the race probably would have been if I hadn't been sick and ruined my feet in the process. If you ever want to run a race in Ohio, this is a fun one to do. It's got great views on the hills, the city really turns out in support, and the water stations are competing for votes to see which one was the most fun (they get money for charity so they really put in an effort).
 
Regardless, congrats for not giving up! Excellent report. Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks for the report, sorry you didn't feel well. If Cap City wasn't the same weekend I might want to try that one but Cap City is usually a blast and not as far to drive... plus I have private parking and access to bathroom and warm up area downtown in Columbus. ;) Hope your feeling better and bounce right back. 50-60 miles per week is mighty impressive!
 
It sucks when you have the best intencions for a good race and the road conditions are not what one hoped(being there myself).
But you now know that this race is not suitable for barefooting it so next year you"ll be ready with footwear.
Congrats for staying with it.