white noise

Since we’ll miss this year’s Redlegs 5k, we decided to give the River Run 5k a go. It’s a nice course through Newport with a trek into Cinci on one bridge and then a return back into Kentucky on another. After making it through the Pig’s 10k and not dealing with any pain this year, I had hopes of running my best 5k in several years. But then there was the heat. It turned out to be a record setting day of heat pushing into the mid 90’s (in May!), and at race time in the morning it was already up to 80 with a blazing sun. It also turned out turned out that the course was a lot hillier than I expected. The temperature and terrain worked together to completely drain you in short order. But I pushed through and somehow managed a decent time. Although I’ve been clocking much better practice runs I finally beat a 10 minute pace in a race, and stripped 22 seconds off my best 5k of the past three years. I really look forward to my next run in kinder conditions – I should finally be able to smash that 30 min mark.

The Flying Pig Marathon weekend rolled around once again, but things really got kicked up a notch this time. Last year I had hoped to run the 10k (my first), but knee pain set me back and I had to switch to (and struggle with) the 5k. Going into this year I resumed that goal and took more care in my training – ramping up my running more gradually from December onwards. I even managed to talk Mark and Justin into training to run their first 10k with me, too.

The 10k was tough. Not twice as hard as the 5ks I’m used to, but certainly harder. I had forgotten about the inclines that go along with crossing the bridges over the Ohio – not steep, but long and steady. It was also a notch warmer and more humid than the Pig’s usual. But hey, at least the rain held off! I finished just above my goal of an hour, and just over a 10 minute mile pace. I was happy with this (and especially with not finishing the race in pain), but it was a bit frustrating. But then I looked back at my 5k times over the past two years and realized this was a close second to my best pace, and at twice the distance. No complaints!

Of course all this paled in comparison to D’s goal to run her first full marathon – and with the hills of Cinci, a tough one at that. After our race us boys relaxed, enjoyed a few beers, and made a few signs to support D and her running mates the following morning.

Chasing around the marathon as a spectator proved to be a lot harder than planned. Getting across town with all the streets closures was tough, then we got confused and hung out on the half marathon route a while. When we finally caught up with them around mile 13 D’s knee was in full blown revolt and we sped off to get pills. We caught them again again a couple miles later, and it was clear they were going the distance. Getting to a spectator spot at around mile 20 was impossible, so we took up position near the finish. We had fun cheering on strangers for about an hour. At around 5 hours 30 the ladies came rolling in with a final spring in their step. Imagining that they had just run slightly over 4 of our 10Ks back to back to back, was mind boggling and awesome.