Half Marathon Recap

As I mentioned in my last post with the photo recap on my Flying Pig half marathon, it was a totally awesome experience. I trained for 4 straight months with the Running Spot training group for the half marathon. Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Saturdays, I would lace up my shoes and follow the running routes that were planned out by our coaches. All of the gals in the picture below have become some great friends of mine and I'm really thankful my path in life introduced me to them through this experience. From left to right below is Julie, Amy, Coach Carolyn, Beth and myself gathered together right before we lined up for the start of the race:We all stayed together for the first mile or so and it was quite a rush to be among the thousands of runners all lined up in downtown Cincinnati. In the sea of all those people, I got separated from my group of girls, but ended up hooking up with another training group member named Adam. He and I ran together for miles 2-6 and that was great. Having someone new to talk with along the race was a really great way to get those first few miles under my belt without freaking out too much about those miles that were still to come. At mile 6.5 the course headed into a beautiful park in Cincy called Eden Park and that was were the relay switch occurred. So, I follow the path to switch out with JJ so he could start his portion of the 4-person relay run and then I continued on the half marathon course. Being able to share about 1/2 mile running with him was a really cool part of the day. Having him support me in so many ways and seeing him along this journey really helped me push on through the middle miles along the route.

After JJ and I split off on different routes, I did have a bit of mental stuff start to happen. From about mile 7 on, I ran by myself along the route, which was not something I planned on doing. From my first training run, I had my running buddies right there beside me. But on this day, we all got separated and so there I was for 6.2 more miles alone with my thoughts. By Mile 10, I had pushed through some of the rough physical moments with my body, but there were some mental thoughts that started to creep in like "oh lord, I still have 3.2 mile to go", but like I had done on several training runs I dug deep and put my thoughts to good use. Remembering that I could in fact finish this and that I had made it to mile 10 already and the rest of the course was mostly down hill, so just keep putting one foot in front of the other to get to the finish line. These pictures of me below are around mile 11 & 12, so I'm almost about to hit the final straight stretch of the course towards the finish line.
One of the Running Spot coaches spotted me with about .2 miles to go and I did my best to hold together the emotions I was feeling. I gave him a huge "high 5" and smiled from ear to ear - I had done it! With Coach Micheal's encouragement, he told me to pick out someone in front of me and beat that person across the finish line - so that's what I did - set my eyes on a gal in a gray t-shirt and pounded my legs so hard that I blew past her as I crossed the finish line.

The numbers broke down like this:

13.1 miles took me 3 hours and 6 minutes at a pace of 14:13 per mile

The feeling of pride & accomplishment when I crossed the finish line...

ABSOLUTELY...100%...PRICELESS

Flying Pig through Pictures

I had a totally awesome experience with my first (and maybe only) half marathon this past Sunday when I was one of about 20,000 people participating in Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon. Here's a quick re-cap through some photos I took along the 13.1 mile course.

Me and JJ at Mile 7

My awesome friends who came out to cheer me on at Mile 11Finish Line with my running buddy Julie and Coach Carolyn
After party at the Running Spot tent with our 4 person Relay Team - Team Swine Flew!

Once life settles down a little I plan on posting about how everything went and some more indepth details about the day. Like I said, it was really great - eventhough it rained the first 5 miles or so, I really embraced the morning and took in all the excitement and emotions that came along with completing this goal I'd set out to finish. I can not thank everyone enough for all the support these last few months and especially the days leading up to the big run. I received tons of shout outs on Facebook and also got many text messages from loved ones cheering me on and all of those mean so much to me. Looking forward to recaping things and getting another blog post up soon with the details and hopefully some of the office race day photos!

It's time for pigs to fly!

After months and months of training runs and prep work, tomorrow morning is the Cincinnati Flying Pig Half Marathon. Tonight we went out for an awesome pre-race dinner with my running buddies to Buca di Beppo and loaded up on some yummy carbs like pasta and italian bread. Here's a quick pick of us before we all went home to get our gear ready for the morning. I'm feeling pretty good about things - I've gotten tons of shout outs and good luck wishes through Facebook and text messages, so it's so helpful to have lots of people cheering for me as I embark on this adventure. A few of my peeps are supposed to be out spectating along the course, so that will be fun to look for them along the run. Got all my clothes ready for the early wake up call, so now it's time for bed for some good solid sleep.Thanks again to all my blog readers for your support over these last few months during my training run posts. I'll be thinking of all those who are behind me while I'm out on the course in the morning!

Running Solo

Last weekend, I made a weekend trip out to Barboursville, WV to visit friends who recently welcomed a new baby girl into their family. We had an awesome visit and I loved meeting their new addition - who for the record is super sweet and cute (just like her big sister!). Now, with being out of town, I knew I needed to stay on track with my half marathon training and we were scheduled to run 10 miles that weekend. Barboursville is very close to Huntington, WV so I went online to the USA Track and Field (USATF) website and searched for pre-mapped runs in that area. I found a "Marshall Alumni 5k", so I built my extra miles off this run and came up with a 10 mile route I would tackle solo with a newly loaded playlist on my iPod.

I drove downtown, parked my car and head out on my run on a nice morning. I snapped a few pics along the way to document my run and overall it was a great day. Starting out on the campus of Marshall University was very nice. There were several other runners around the area which was nice to see along the way.
Once through Marshall's campus, I head out one of the main roads in Huntington and made my way to Ritter Park which is part of the Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District. I am familiar with this park because it is where my friend holds the annual Lexi Black walk for SLOS (check out the link for more info) so I knew there was a 1 mile walking path around the park and there are also tons of beautiful houses and side streets to explore in that particular area too. Checking out these houses and enjoying the view of the park made the time pass quickly along the run.
After a few times around the park, I headed out back to the main road that would take me back to Marshall's campus. I did run into some "shady streets" as I made my way back to the other side of town and some of the roads I had marked on my routed ended up being alley ways, so I choose not to run those and ended up running about 8.5 miles total instead of the full 10. All in all, it was a great morning for a run, especially in a new place. Using the USATF website to map out a run is a great way to explore new areas if you are traveling and want to get in a walk or run. Just be flexible if things don't exactly match up and study your route on the map and turn by turn directions several times before heading out to pound the pavement in a new town. After the run, I headed back to my friend's house, made some coffee and spent the day enjoying the company of two lovey little girls and also loved spending some good quality time with my best friend since 4th grade - hard to believe we've been friends for over 20 years - where does the time go?!!

It's official...

As seen in my email in-box today...

Dear Lenna,

Congratulations! You are now registered for the 2011 Cincinnati Flying Pig Half Marathon...

I've made it official by paying for my registration, so it's no turning back now. This weekend was a drop down week with shorter runs for Tuesday and Saturday. Next weekend, we're back up to 10 miles, which I'll be running on my own and not with the group since I'll be out of town visiting a friend and her new baby girl (Yay!). It will be quite challenging to motivate myself to get out there alone and keep going for 10 miles, so I'll be looking for some new tunes to load up on my iPod to jam out to along that upcoming long run.

That's about it for now - thanks for all the support as I embark on completing my goal of participating in a half marathon!

Cincinnati's Bridges

9.3 - that was the mileage on this morning's Half Marathon training run that covered Northern Kentucky and downtown Cincinnati. It was a beautiful morning and a great day to get out before the sun came up to take in some of the lovely sights in the Queen City. The thing about running in Cincinnati is that you'll no doubt find yourself pounding up and down some hills and what some people don't realize is that almost any bridge is actually a big hill. So when you set out to run 9.3 miles and you look at the route laid out by the running coach and you see 5 bridges on the turn by turn directions, there's a bit of an "ugh" feeling that sets in before you even start your first mile.Alas, I pushed ahead and got moving across the first bridge - The Purple People Bridge - this is a pedestrian only bridge, so it's a nice smooth concrete surface to run along. The bridge goes between Newport, KY and the east side of Cincinnati's downtown area, near the some popular park areas called Sawyer Point and Yeatman's Cove. On most of our runs, this is usually the first bridge we cross, so it's always challenging to start on a hill, but overall I don't find this bridge too tough to handle. Up next, the Taylor-Southgate Bridge - this is the bridge that I find gives me the most trouble. It's 850 meters, which is similar to the others, but for some reason it kicks my butt every time I cross it. And today, we had to cross it twice (gasp) - on the way out and on the way back - but I made it, thankfully. One awesome moment from today's run while on the bridge was that the sun was coming up right beyond the bridge, so it was a bit easier to focus on the beauty of that image rather than the pain my legs were feeling while running the bridge.

Bridge number 3 was the Licking River Bridge (click link for photo). This one runs over the Licking River in Northern Ky and there's a long gradual hill leading up the this bridge, so it's never fun to cross this one and the pedestrian lane is pretty skinny along this bridge which is well depicted in the photo link.
The fourth bridge of today's run was the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge (the far left bridge in the photo). This one is pretty challenging, however I really like this bridge because of the views it gives you of downtown Cincinnati. It runs between Covington and downtown Cincy and it's right next to the home of the Bengals, Paul Brown Stadium, so when it's football season, you might be able to catch the players out on the practice field.

So, there you have it - a quick tour of some of the bridges spanning the Ohio River that I traveled on by foot this morning. While very challenging, there's a part of me that enjoys the up and downs of the bridges. Usually the down part is my favorite but hey no big surprise there because who doesn't love a downhill!

I'm "flying"...

In response to the recent question I asked myself last week - click here for more details - I've decided to participate in the Flying Pig half marathon on May 1st. Just need to actually sign up and pay for the half marathon now, but I'm full speed ahead with my training and now working on making sure I get all my training runs and cross training workouts in during the week. I'm also going to start experimenting with energy products like gu gels and sport beans on my long runs.

So, the countdown is on: 52 days until my first half marathon

Up next: Thursday's shorter run (3-4 miles) and Saturday's long run (8.2 miles)

Today's question to those runners out there: what has been your experience with energy products? Do you like a particular kind or find that a gel works better than an energy bar? Let me know your thoughts and experiences!