Flying Pig Marathon 2025 Race Report

 Flying PIg Marathon 2025 Race Report

I set my alarm at 4:45 am on Sunday morning for the Flying Pig marathon. I had made espresso the night before so I wouldn't  have to make it that morning. I ate 2 slices of Kroger gluten free toast with sunflower seed butter and honey. I chose honey over jelly because it squeezed out of a bottle instead of having to spread it. I wore a pink InknBurn top (pink for the Flying Pig), my skirtsport skort, Bomba running socks and my Brooks Ghost 16 Max. All wardrobe items have been battle tested, meaning I have taken them out for long runs and didn’t cause issues.  I chose the Max for the extra padding knowing the distance was more than the 20 mile training runs. I have two pairs of shoes that I alternate during training. The other is the Brooks Ghost, which has less padding. 

When Angelo and I walked out of the front door, we saw that it had been decorated by our neighbor, Katie. It was super cute motivational posters involving cats, margaritas and bread. It was a lovely surprise. Angelo used the flash on his phone so we could read them. It was 5:45 am and still dark. His plan was to drop me off by the Roebling bridge or drive over the bridge if we could and to  get me as close as possible to the starting line. The race start was by Paycore Stadium where the Bengals play. The bridge was open. I was thankful I didn’t have to walk the extra distance.  I followed the sea of runners making their way to the start.

Angelo was going back to bed to track me via the Pig Works app. He was going to take Bubs to breakfast and then they were going to watch me finish.  

I made my way to Coral F, which was the second to last group to start. I usually run marathons with my friend Kaitlyn. We had talked about doing this race together but when I signed up I wasn't sure we could run together.  I picked a realistic time that I would finish if I ran by myself.

There was a sea of people at this race. According to the emails I was getting post race, there were about 42,000 participants. The full marathon and the half marathon runners were starting together. If took about half an hour for my coral to get to the official start line. The volunteers were spreading out each coral. They had on “grunt” shirts and were militant. I hung with the 4:45 pace group. It was a young guy and an older lady. Those first few miles were over a bridge on the Kentucky side. It wasn’t pretty and sort of industrial looking. The sun had risen but would not be on us. It had been raining non stop that week. Saturday and Sunday would be no different. For the Flying Pig that day, I wore a rain coat, the Patagonia Houdini, slightly less breathable than my other jacket but lighter and stuffable into my pack. The pack is an upgrade, the newer version of the Ultra Vesta by Ultimate Direction. I was attached to the old pack but it has hardened over time from me sweating on it and has holes. The current version is nice. The pockets are around the torso and a much wider pack, which is easier to access. I had the turquoise color which doesn't match my wardrobe but it's functional.

I started with the jacket on. It wasn't raining but it was cold. The first few miles into Kentucky felt okay. It was a trot and a good warm up.

We went over another bridge to get back into the Ohio side. We made our way towards the Cincinnati Ballet company and Art Museum. The pacers talked about two significant hills in the area. I was okay since I had company. I fell in stride with a woman named Claire. She was a head taller than me and blond. Kaitlyn couldn't make the race. She was home in Minnesota cleaning out her mom’s things before her dad moved. Kaitlyn's mom passed away in December 2024. I have had so many talks with her since both our moms got diagnosed with lung cancer around the same time during the pandemic. I remember us talking about this walking in Seneca park with her dog Finn and we weren't letting friends in our houses yet. This was before there was a vaccine. She ended up having to wash her hands with the spigot outside in the dark. I remember telling her that gene therapy was working for my mom. Hopefully gene therapy would work for her mom too. Fast forward to 2024, now she was doing what my cousin Bernie did when her mother and father passed. Bernie said it was hard and that when my time came to do these things, I would not do them alone.

Kaitlyn told me she was sorry she couldn't make the race. I told her they would take her with me on race day, which I did. I told Claire all of this and Claire said she was Kaitlyn’s stand in. Jeannette said it was God’s way of letting me know I could do the race. I lost Claire at some point. She might have gone to one of the Porto potties. I am not sure how we got separated. She told me she was a swimmer at the University of Kentucky. She said the program wasn’t for her body type, which was long and lean, made for long distances. I guess the University of Kentucky was creating very strong sprinter types. Anyhow she thought it was funny she was telling me she was a swimmer since she didn’t usually tell her co-workers. It reminded me of something my neighbor Lynne said, which was when you ran, the blood went into your brain and you ended up with mouth diarrhea with whomever you ended up running with, including strangers. 

After the race  I stalked the UK swimming website for Claire. She mentioned she almost made the Beijing Olympics in 2008. ChatGPT found a Claire Archibald that was born in South Africa. Claire had an accent that I thought was from New Zealand that I now know is South African. Of course I can't find her on the internet because she is married and probably doesn’t use her maiden name (and doesn't want stalkers like me finding her).

I stayed with the pace group for a while. There was a red headed guy that was talkative. He carried the sign with the finish time on it for the pace group. I offered to carry it for a while too. I gave it back to when I spotted Porto potties. When I came out, I didn't try to catch them. 

While I was running up one of the big hills around mile 8, before passing under a bridge I ate my first snack.  I used to eat race fuels made by Skratch or Gu. These days I opt for kid’s fruit snacks and generic Rice Krispies during long runs. While I was eating the fruit snack on the right side of my mouth, I felt something crunchy, which a fruit snack is not. I fished out the fruit snack and the crown that should have been cemented to a molar. I definitely felt some of that cement turn into debris, which I probably swallowed. I threw that crown into one of the deep pockets of my hydration pack. I remembered why I instinctively chewed on my left side. It took a long time for that crown to get right when my dentist in Louisville worked on it. The temporary hurt. It quit hurting when the permanent crown was cemented. I was back on that dental journey.

At some point I put my jacket back on since it started to drizzle. I had a hat  to keep the rain away from my face. It was light rain so I wasn’t running through puddles. There were lots of spectators on the course, track and cross country teams, including Highlands, live bands, single musicians, and line dancing. It was amazing that the rain and gloom didn’t keep anybody away.

I put my music off and on at this stage. On during the quiet spots and off when there were supporters. My favorite was around mile 15 in the Mariemont neighborhood where we had gone recently for our anniversary. We had also gone last year for my birthday. We walked around having seen a spectacular owl.  We followed him around as best we could. When we had gone for our anniversary I was hoping we would see another owl but we did not. Back in the neighborhood as a racer, there were definitely no owls. As we got closer to the hubbub there were signs that said “prayers and bacon ahead” and my favorite “Hell is real and it is mile 18”. There were people in “grunt”  tshirts giving out bits of bacon in little cups. This is another Kaitlyn reminder since the last time we ran the Flying Pig half marathon, we called ourselves Team Bacon lovers. This was because during Grandma’s marathon in Minnesota her dad made us breakfast, which included what looked like a pound of bacon cooked perfectly, all of it varying hues of red, pink and crispy.

I didn’t have any bacon in Mariemount. I definitely considered it for the salt but didn’t want it to mess with my insides. I ate what I had on me, which might have been a Honey Stinger waffle or Rice Krispie treat. I also ate a Thin Mint from a Girl Scout and had a shot of coke from another table. The caffeine, bubbles and sugar at that point were dynamite. I would have liked to stop and drink more but I kept going. The espresso I had that morning was from 3 hours ago. 

We ran around a baseball field into the last 10K. I had music on at this point to manage pain. Chat GpT has confirmed for me that “music is a proven pain and fatigue manager, which can reduce perceived exertion, boost mood and motivation, regulate rhythm and pace and lower stress hormones”.  At that point I needed all of those things. I put on the playlist that had gotten me through training. Earlier in my journey to get to this race, Metallica and Linkin Park were my favorites but on race day I opted for joyful songs because race day is joyful. It's definitely a journey but I was there and race ready. 

I didn’t go into the race with a joyful mindset. I was more like a rabid forest animal, maybe a middle aged raccoon. I ran to the Metallica black album immediately after the 2024 election. I felt despair and expected the world around me to erupt in flames. It felt like that majority of Americans choosing Trump as their president after his convictions as a sexual predator, January 6 and mismanagement of the pandemic had chosen violence, ignorance and moving back in to the fucking Stone Age. Women were to have less bodily autonomy and hating immigrants was now a matter of policy not just a preference. I referred to the outside world as the Trump hellscape. I ran as often as I could in all types of weather to work through my angst. 

This past winter I ran all over snowy roads. My right foot is smaller than my left, which meant my foot was swimming a little inside my shoes. I resorted to KT tape on my ankle, which helped a lot. I ran errands to the post office, made drop offs to Silvia’s house and picked up produce also from Silvia's house. I am not sure when I signed up for the Pig. I thought Kaitlyn and I would run it together. I know she signed up. Maybe I signed up right around the new year when I thought to myself, fuck all of this shit in 2024. I am going to run and be joyful.

We moved to Fort Thomas in December 2023 at the end of Julian’s second semester at Meyzeek. In the fall of 2023, Angelo was living in a corporate apartment in Newport and coming home during the weekends. Julian took the bus to school in the mornings. Angelo used to get him after work but when Angelo lived in Newport, I picked up Julian near downtown Louisville where Meyzeek was located. I took meetings in the car if needed. JCPS had so many bussing issues I didn’t want Bubs sitting in the bus for so long. I used to run in those months to keep me sane. While Angelo was in Newport, we were also showing the house. 

In those days, I knew Julian was struggling with the idea of moving. He had digestive troubles some mornings and had a hard time getting up and getting himself to the bus. Some days I would put him on the phone with Angelo who would tell him to get up and go to school. I thought staying until the end of Julian’s second semester in 6th grade, prolonging his time with friends would be better for

Him but it was a slow burn. I started running him 1 mile every day hoping he would get the same benefits out of running I was getting. I am not sure it helped.

One evening I booked a virtual counseling appointment for us and we talked about the move. It was excruciating to watch Bubs so uncomfortable. He told us months later that he found that helpful. 

I was really sick on Christmas 2023. It was a result of me running every day and ignoring whatever was brewing in my lungs. I had a telehealth visit with a nurse practitioner the day after Christmas. I had a sinus infection. I was given a z pack, a nasal steroid and got lots of rest. We were moved by movers at the end of December. We couldn't move sooner because the carpet on the second floor was being removed and the walls were being painted. Watching Julian’s reaction to it all made me want to move sooner. One of his teachers at Meyzeek told me that most of his teachers thought he had already “checked out”. 

Bubs was bummed that the house in Louisville no longer looked like our house as we showed it. The personalization was done. His room had been repainted from bright green to some neutral taupe where little boys' rooms go to die. When we showed the house during the day I took down pictures and  drawings and put them back up in the evening so he could feel like it was still home. It was all really exhausting.

The bussing situation in Louisville was a nightmare. It was probably under duress before Covid. There was no work for the drivers during Covid so there was probably some attraction there. Fast forward to fall 2023 and those same buses taking kids to elementary, middle and high school for all of Jefferson County. The first week of school was a disaster. Kids spent hours on the bus. Parents could not find their kindergarteners en route between school and home. They canceled school after the first week to “figure out” the bus situation. 

After that first week off the district rolled out an app to track the buses. I wanted to hold off on getting JP a phone but we got him one so I could watch him on the “find my phone” app getting to school. Angelo used to pick him up after school. When Angelo moved up here I started picking him everyday after school. 

That was our lives. No big trauma, just a collection of inconveniences that made me hate the things I could not control. 

Angelo’s new employer paid for our relocation. Two men went through our house and packed everything up. They did that during the week.  It worked out that Julian and I stayed at a hotel room Thursday night so he could go to school that last Friday before we moved. Actually, that Thursday was his 12th birthday. The movers sang happy birthday to him. We met up with Giovanna, Roberta and the boys at El Tarrasco in St. Matthews. Then Bubs and I went to the hotel. I drove him to the bus stop the next morning so he could do all of those last day things at the old school things. That Friday I got a foot massage at the Chinese massage place in St Matthews called, Cozy Relax. They don’t speak much English there. They speak to their phones to translate to customers. 

I listened to Johnny Cash a lot then. My friend Carol said it was dark and boozy, which was accurate. 

2024 in this house had its challenges. The hot water didn’t flow at full blast in the sink upstairs. There we leaks going on from the shower into the basement area. The floors could not be refinished in Bub’s room because of asbestos tiles so he slept in another room temporarily. 

In Bub’s new middle school he could walk since it’s very close. The school issued computers which were MacBooks unlike the chromebooks issued by JCPS. HMS was shiny and new. After school Bubs came home and laid down on his rug every day. He told us he was getting As and Bs so I didn’t worry too much. 

His first report card was shitty. The second report card wasn't much better. I had fears he would have to repeat 6th grade. He missed his friends, the Meyzeek buddies he went to elementary school with and ran cross country with. We fought a lot with him. Angelo would get into his dialogue, which became a monologue. 

We couldn’t wait for summer. At least we wouldn’t fight about school or moving. Julian rode his bike a lot around Fort Thomas. Sometimes he played kickball with a group of boys at a park nearby. One night Angelo found him playing his Switch in bed in the dark. He was upset and said he wouldn't have fun again, and he still cried about the move. At that point I took him to see a counselor at the pediatrician’s office.

When school started I studied (micromanaged)  with him.  I wasn’t sure if it was the move, puberty or ADHD. I decided to help him prioritize his work, studying with him and trying to help him with his executive functioning. I am sure he hated it. Actually I knew he hated it. His hackles would rise  and it took a while to get through to him that us sitting down like that was meant to help him and not invade his personal space. The first semester of 7th grade seemed to go okay. We got him enrolled in a swim team since he seemed to enjoy his swimming lessons. It all sort of came to a head at the end of Bub’s second semester after he flubbed a swim meet. Angelo seemed to realize what he had done in moving us here, his son not really able to maintain his grades, not able to swim. Angelo felt like he couldn’t help him and he said he had been selfish in moving us here. Angelo also felt he had reached his limit about how he could help Julian. He felt like he couldn’t help him at all. In my mind, I understood this and resolved to keep monitoring Bub’s stuff. 

As this was unfolding in 2024, I learned with my parents that my mom’s gene therapy was no longer shrinking the masses in her lungs. My mom’s oncologist wanted to put her on a clinical trial before putting her on the standard of care, which would be the only care left. After doing her blood work, liver and kidney values, we learned, she didn’t actually qualify for any of the clinical trials at Memorial Sloan Kettering  because she had been on a gene therapy before and one of her liver or kidney values was too low. Chemo and her gene therapy was the only option left. Initially she responded very well to chemotherapy. It looked like her masses were shrinking. 

Julian and my mom took up a lot of space in my mind. When I wasn't worried about one I was worried about the other. 

I was taking a finance class that I dropped in November. The same time Trump was elected back into office. I was living in a hellscape. I expected the world around me to explode the way my insides were imploding. 

Finance was kicking my ass. I dropped it when I thought it was early enough. It wasn’t. I would learn that I had not dropped in time. WKU had gobbled up my tuition. I actually wrote this all out in an abbreviated letter to an appeal committee to see if I could get my tuition back. I am still waiting. I told them, as I was taking the class again earlier this year, that I just wanted to pay for the class once. 

But anyway, back to the election, after Trump’s mismanagement of Covid, the events of January 6, which I do not forgive and all of his other indictments as a sex predator, the masses elected him back in. The former undocumented person that was me beheld a hateful raciest workd for what it was and I thought, fuck this shit and started running. In the fall it was 3-4 miles. I didn’t have a goal in mind. It was really just to have a rush of endorphins even cut my feelings off impending doom and feeling insane because too few of us voted for Kamala while the majority voted otherwise. I ran in great weather and bad weather listening to angry music.

It was like that old Y2K Nike commercial when the world was feared to implode a little when all computerized systems flipped over to the year 2000. I expected the same thing to happen with Trump in office. The inside of my mind certainly felt that way. 

I just kept running until all systems felt good and eventually my mind could catch up. 

I think maybe that happened during the race when I chose joy over anger and exhaustion over anxiety. Endurance running has always forced me to root out bad feelings. During those 4 hours and 45 minutes I kept choosing joyful songs, ate and drank what the spectators offered and waved to them when they were waving me on. I got to see the city of Cincinnati, which I had come to accept as my new city. I was getting texts from my friends, Jeannette, Kaitlyn and Katie, who were with me in real time tracking my progress, encouraging me, even though I wouldn't know until the end of the race.

Epilogue

It's the end of July 2025. Despite my bleak view of the outside world nothing actually blew up although it's extremely hot these days.  It is our second summer in Fort Thomas and Julian has made a nice group of friends that he looks forward to seeing over a game of Dungeon and Dragons weekly. Have the grades improved? Will we keep fighting with each other during the school year? I don't know. I don't know what this school year has in store for us but we are resilient, even as I am living through Bubs coming into his own. He is less an extension of me now as he once was when he was a little boy. Also my mom is still with us even though I don't know for how long. I am just a mom, not a fortune teller. It will be okay though, time will reveal all and also heal all. The world will not implode.