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Flying Pig Recap

If you look at the results for the Pig, I'm not there. Why? Well, let's just say that it didn't quite go as planned.

Actually, it was going real well until about miles 10 or 11, heading into Hyde Park. My first mile was 5:30, right on pace. I was 27:30 at 5 miles. Perfect. I backed off going up the hills from downtown to Madison, but by the half I was back on 5:36 pace (1:13:17). Even better, the hills didn't take too much out of me...I was in cruise control, slowly bringing the pace back down to where I wanted it to be. My legs weren't feeling taxed, I was plenty hydrated and fueled, and I was primed to start negative splitting to the finish. Much better than Chicago.

And to boot, I had second place wrapped up, with about a 10 minute lead over third. (First place wasn't gonna happen).

Then there was a little hamstring malfunction. Left hamstring, to be specific. It wasn't a cramp, and it wasn't a tear either. It was just a little tweak. Nothing too crazy, but definitely noticeable.

But that's the marathon: little things become big things when magnified by thousands and thousands of strides.

So at first it wasn't too bad, mostly just annoying. But as I went downhill and around corners I definitely felt it more aggravated. It was one of those things that got progressively a little worse all down Erie, down Bramble, and into Mariemont.

Going downhill and back uphill in Fairfax is when it got pretty worse pretty suddenly. That's about when I realized it was probably time to back off -- and maybe even back out. So I jogged for about a mile and thought, the smart thing to do here is probably to step off the course and get a ride back.

So on Columbia Parkway just past the Frisch's, that's what I did.

It's definitely disappointing not to finish, but I'm confident I made the right call stopping at mile 18. Eight more miles to the finish is a long way and a lot of strides to compound anything that's wrong. I figured it'd be better to stop rather than risk any long-term damage by pushing it.

I like to think I could've finished well if I really wanted to, but who know. That's all what-ifs. I didn't finish, and that's disappointing. But I also didn't do any long-term damage, and that's good. So I'm sticking by dropping out as the right call.

Maybe if it was a fall marathon I would've pushed through it. With nothing really to train for during the winter (potentially sitting out the Thanksgiving Day Race...oh well)? But again, that's a maybe. And it wasn't a fall marathon; it was a spring one. And there are a lot of races to be run over the summer and into the fall. I'm hoping that I was smart enough to preserve my fitness and health for those instead of risking it for this one race.

So we'll see. I've been resting and icing plenty, and if I made the right call then I have a 5k in two weeks. Hopefully I averted injury.

Well that's the marathon for you: even the smallest things can do you in.

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