Cincinnati Half Marathon
Finishers: 401
June 27, 2014
I have been known to plan some extravagant adventures so when this opportunity came up, I decide to coax Gregg into tagging along. A few months back, I had found a half in Cincinnati, Ohio taking place on Saturday with a triathlon occurring the next day on Sunday. As Gregg and I had recently taken up triathlons, I decided we should make a trip out of it and drive up Friday and then race Saturday and Sunday. At first, my plan was only to do the half but as time got closer I got jealous and signed up for the sprint triathlon on Sunday as well while Gregg would be doing the Olympic distance. So Friday, we loaded up Gregg's Tahoe in the morning before work and I took MARTA down from my office to his office so we could get on the road. The fun things about Atlanta, is that even if you leave at 3PM on a Friday, you are still guaranteed to get stuck in traffic -- which is exactly what ended up happening. So what was supposed to be a 6-7 hour drive soon turned into a 9-10 hour drive to the Midwest. We stopped and grabbed Cracker Barrel on the way, but we didn't end up getting to the hotel until well near midnight and I had a race starting bright and early the next morning. Tired from the road trip, I quickly fell asleep.
June 28, 2014
Running on little sleep and high anxiety, I got up early to try and eat and wander around the hotel room. This is the first race Gregg has ever tagged along with me so he didn't quite understand what my deal was but after living together for 6 months, he always wasn't surprised by my odd behavior. We drove downtown so that I could pick up my packet and then sat around near the river walk and watched all of the driftwood go by in the river where we would be swimming the next morning for the triathlon - not very comforting. I had my 2nd to last Gatorade energy chew from my pack and just chilled out waiting for the race to start. Gregg brought his bike so he could ride around the course and meet me at different spots.
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| Prerace - 2nd to Last Chew from Katrina and Gatorade |
The race wasn't very large, maybe 400 people, and it wasn't very well organized either. We got delayed at the start because the police hadn't been notified of the start time for the race ...rookie move. The race finally started and this was my first rather warm race of the year which always catches me off guard. The race first headed west along the river towards the Reds and Bengals stadiums before turning north to run into the city. By Mile 2 (yes, I know...this is early) I could already feel that this was going to be a slower race and I was fine with that since I wasn't running on much sleep. Running through the city, I saw Gregg with his bike and coffee near Mile 3.5 or 4 and let him know this just wasn't going to be my race but not to worry. The race went back east of the city and ran straight out and back on Riverside drive for the remaining 8 miles of the race. Talk about boring. The only nice part about it was on the way back, I could sort of remember where I was and spot landmarks to figure out how much further I had to go. Since the race was small, there wasn't a ton of spectators. We did run past a diner that had a meet up of classic cars out front but they didn't seem to realize I was running and would have appreciated a little hootin' and hollerin'.
On the way back, near Mile 9 it was getting rather hot and I knew I would finish but I was just bored and over it. I hate that feeling but realize every dog has it's day. I just did my best to keep shuffling my feet. This was also the race I realized how long my hair was and how gross my ponytail gets when mixed with sweat when not braided. Just look at my finish pictures...pure birds nest.
We finally got down towards Mile 11.5 and the last little stretch was in along the riverside park where I would be running the run portion of the triathlon the next day so I did my best to try and make mental notes of any landmarks and hills and such. After winding back and forth, I finally got closer to the finish line and did my best to just get across that line. The medals were super dinky but all that matters was I had finished the race and needed to regroup and get ready for Race Day #2!
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| Official Race Pic - 28 states down, 22 more to go! (Please see how gross my hair is) |
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| Gregg - My lone Fan Club member |
Gregg met me at the finish line and then we went and grabbed lunch at a grilled cheese restaurant before going over the bridge to Kentucky to see 22 Jump Street. Best part of the day was that I got carded for a Rated R movie. Might I remind you, you have to be 17 to see a Rated R movie and I was 26 at the time. Forever Young. After the movie, my legs were not in the mood to explore too much so we ended up going back to the hotel and ordering Italian take out so we could get ready for our race the next day.
June 29, 2014
After stressing out the day before about the wood drifting down the river, we got an email first thing in the morning alerting us that the swim had been cancelled. While we were semi elated since that was both of our worst discipline, we were also a bit bummed since we had been training and had been looking forward to the fast swim times that come with a down current river swim. Oh well. The bad news was, they had replaced the swim with another run - ugh the last thing I wanted to be doing after my half.
Regardless, we head down to the same place I had my half the night before and got our gear set up in transition. My race started first with the Sprint Group and Gregg started a few minutes later. After a 3/4 of a mile run, a crazy hilly 15 mile bike (like people were legit getting off their bikes to walk up the hills) and a 3.1 mile run, I was done with my nutso weekend. Gregg's race was double the length of my race since he did the Olympic distance so I was done when he was coming in on the bike and I was able to cheer him on through his T2 transition and on his double lap of the run.
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| Setting up transition |
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| Post race Man down....go find bananas |
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| Standing on the podium during awards |
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| Quite a successful day for the Dream Team |
28 states down, 22 more to go!
#DREAMBIG
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