Cincinnati Flying Pig Half Marathon

Ohhhh, where do I even start?

I woke up at 3am Sunday May 6, 2012. I ate a banana and hopped in the shower. For not falling asleep until 11pm last night with my head spinning with thoughts, I thought for sure I would be tired. I can thank the adrenaline for that I think though. I surprisingly felt pretty well. Left my house around 4:15am to go pick my cousin up. We drove downtown and only got lost once looking for the carpool parking lot. Took the shuttle from the parking lot to the start of the race. I had to drop my bag off on a bus then we ran into a few people we knew and had fun people watching, with all their cool outfits. I think the best one I saw was a guy dressed up like Forest Gump when he did all his running in the movie, long hair and long beard. The energy while standing in the "Pig Pen" Corrals was amazing. I was so pumped. Little did I know how I would feel in just a short time.

When we reached the Starting Swine my cousin wanted to run, I knew this was a bad idea but went ahead. We ran for just a few minutes and then I had to walk. I didn't want to push it to hard right out of the gate, knowing it would kill me later in the race. By Mile 3 I was in so much pain with the top part of the ball of my foot. I could barely feel 4 of my toes at this point. I think with my feet hitting the pavement hard at the beginning with running, I did something to it. Even when I have done run/walk intervals I have never had this happen, so I am not completely sure why it did. We did run down about 5 of the hills, which helped with our pace times. I think I stopped running hills around mile 4. Right around Mile 4 we actually passed by where we were parked. You have no idea how bad I wanted to just get in my car and leave. I think around Mile 5 or 6 was when I first felt like I wanted to give up. I definitely had not trained for this at all. The farthest I had trained was 6.5 miles. I was warned by Beckey @ More to Love Running to make sure I did the full 13.1 or more to be ready.

Did I listen?

NO! Of course not!

Anyway, once I got to Mile 9 a trainer (Princess Theresa - from here on out PT) my cousin had while in high school came up behind us, she was walking with people she had trained for the walk. We introduced ourselves and when my cousin told her it was my first half, she put her arm around me and hugged me. Well folks, I LOST IT! So many people had been passing me and I just really wanted to give up at this point. It brought back a lot of memories from my childhood where I always came in close to last. I had even mentioned to my cousin earlier in "As long I don't come in last I will be happy." Well as people kept passing me the joke I stated earlier I felt was becoming a reality. I wanted to quit before it could happen. That is what I have always done, quit so I can't "fail" at the task at hand. I would rather quit and fail than finish and be last. How sad is that? PT asked me why I started this journey and I cried even harder and said it was for "My kids." So we were just coming up on Mile 10 - she did the typical trainer thing and said Mile 10-11 is for Bella, Mile 11-12 is for Freddie, Mile 12-13 is for Fred, and the last .10 of a mile is for you. While I walked the last few miles I thought of my kids and husband during each of their mile. I knew they would be so proud of me. I stopped a couple times from Mile 9 3/4- 12 to just rest my feet for a couple seconds.

You know, it's not very easy to carry 220 lbs for 4+ hours! My official finishing time was 4:32:32. The last 2 1/4 miles took us an hour, I was so tired at that point, I don't know how I kept moving. We were at the 11 mile marker when I saw we were 15 minutes away from what I had originally put my goal as 3:45:00 - but knew before the race that this would be hard to achieve since I did not do the proper training I should have done. I am proud to say I did not finish last, there were only about 20 people behind me though...which is disappointing to me when we were doing so well at the beginning and staying pretty steady with people.

You can check out the photos (which are horrible of me btw!) here. Last name Heise, Bib # 13317; Race: Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon 2012. I have a few photos we took before the race on my phone but have not uploaded them yet. Sorry if this is all mumbo jumbo, I just typed what I had going through my head. I hope it makes sense. I will post again soon, I have a 5k coming up May 19th.