Naturally, as the weekend approached, the weather forecast was top of mind. And, of course, it was looking like a cool rain for all of the races. (At least it wasn't predicted to be nearly as bad as it was for what has become known as the Floating Pig Marathon from 2023.)
I arrived late afternoon on Thursday, and was greeted at the airport with a fun display.
Wait... what is that sculpture that's out of my way, beyond the base of the escalators?
After finally navigating my way to my Uber pick-up (which was a bit confusing given the lack of helpful signage), I got to my hotel about 15 minutes later. I know that I'm not expecting the Ritz when I book at the Quality Inn, but I still expect the door to the room to open after I use the keycard and the lock shows green. Pushed the handle down, and simultaneously pushed the door inward (as one does), and it didn't budge. WTF? Try again. Nope, no luck.
Downstairs I went to get a new room and the front desk tells me that I should be lifting up on the handle when pushing the door. OK... Back up I go, and the first time I try, it doesn't work. The next time I try, I lift the handle just a smidge more than I had the prior time, and it worked. This door was definitely going to give me a hard time across the weekend. C'est la vie.
Unpack and then I finally set out for dinner. Where had I planned to go, that I was actually looking forward to?
That's right... Directly across the street from the hotel (above is the view from my room), the culinary masterpiece known as White Castle. The last time I had some sliders from them was October 2023, when I was in Chicago for their marathon. There's some great and nostalgic, even though empirically the burgers are certainly not that good.
But, I couldn't resist getting a sack of 10.
Friday morning rolled around, and after the hotel breakfast (who can resist those free self-made waffles?) and a little time relaxing in the room, I headed out on the long walk to the convention center where the expo was being held. Given some construction at their regular venue, this year it was being held just over the river, in Kentucky.
This billboard was largely obscured from my hotel room (where it was unclear if it was a pig or not), so, naturally, I had to get a better angle to verify it.
And, somehow, along the walk, I noticed this jab etched into the curb. No idea if this was a genuine sentiment or an inside joke of some sort:
Looking at the fields between the bridge and the stadium, it's clear that there is a practice football field. However, I'm not sure exactly how useful it is, given the rather glaring mistake.
Finally, I arrived at the convention center and was very amused at all of the pig theming.
Including all of the previous years' posters for the marathon:
Given the new venue, the packet pick-up area (and official race merchandise store) was in one small-ish ballroom on the first floor, and the expo with the vendors (apparently a vastly reduced set of vendors with much fewer freebies) was upstairs.
As I made my way around the downstairs, getting my most of my bibs (the one for the mile wasn't included in my packet -- I had to get that immediately before the race that evening), t-shirts, and discussing the course with one of the pacers, I couldn't help but laugh at all of the pig sculptures. Definitely hog heaven for these.
Just as I didn't get the bib for the mile race, I also didn't get my t-shirt for that race here, either - that would come later. I did, however, get my other four t-shirts (for the other three races and the 4-way challenge t-shirt). I must say... these are probably the cheapest race shirts, with rather a lackluster design, I have ever gotten.
After collecting my premium bag and as I was walking out to get the race poster, I paused at the race merch check-out and started to get out my credit card, remarking that there's no way I could pass up getting the magnet for just $1. As it was clear I wasn't buying anything else, the person who would have checked me out told me I could have it gratis. Sweet! Thanks. It's a nice magnet, and already on the door to the gas tank of my car.
Next up... time to see what the vendors had at the expo upstairs. This race has a decent reputation for its expo, so I was hoping there would be decent freebies, etc. Generally I'm jaded on expos, since it's rare I bother buying any of the merch, and since COVID, the number of vendors everywhere seems to have diminished.
Where the Marathon Majors have the list of their participants on a wall -- and Abbott has 6-star finishers on its own wall -- Flying Pig does things a bit differently.
There weren't many vendors at all with freebies. Shokz had a great bag that would have been much more useful if it were filled at all. The other items I got were a squish-ball (stress reliever), a small bag of P&G supplies from Kroger, and yet another bobblehead from State Farm. I was mildly disappoint at the bobblehead, because I could've sworn that I saw a pig bobble on the poster, but apparently they don't have such -- it was likely the cat bobble I was seeing. So, I got the next best thing for Cincinnati since I couldn't get a pig:
The only thing it was missing was a Graeter's logo.
Outside from where the vendors were was a video on loop of the marathon course. While it was nice seeing some of what we were in store for (both the hills and the exceedingly large number of turns on the course), it wasn't as helpful as it could have been because there was no indicator of any sort showing which mile we were in at any point in time. Oh well.
After a brief respite to pick up a quick lunch, it was time to do my volunteer shift I had signed up for. And this garnered me yet another shirt which I needed to don for the shift -- at least this one was a fun design.
They put me on the table that was handing out the packets for those participating in the 3-way and 4-way challenges. It was all pretty straightforward, but with the amount of information we needed to impart, the vast majority of people got a little cross-eyed trying to retain it all. It boiled down to "walk around the shoe horn, get everything on this checklist checked off as you pick them up in order, go upstairs to the vendors" and there was a bit more to impart to the people getting the extra cheese with the mile race that night. But the three-hour shift finished in a flash.
A couple of things I had asked a couple of the obvious honchos (given their badges), because I was concerned there might be a problem: 1) Can I bring my bags with me on the course (since there is no bag check and my hotel isn't exactly close), and 2) Can I have my umbrella with me (given the expected storms)? The first person never returned with an answer, and the second person seemed hesitant but indicated I could do both. But given that I was released from my shift 30 minutes earlier than expected, I decided to not take a chance with the large bag with my bibs and t-shirts (all of which were vital for the weekend) - so I made my way back to the hotel to drop them off before setting back out to dinner.
Along the way, though, I got a glimpse of Smale Park, where many of the weekend's post-race festivities would be occurring. Including one notable inflatable.
Having shed my materials from the expo and pinned my bibs to my shirts for Saturday and Sunday's races, I headed out to dinner not far from the stadium (where I would need to pick up my bib and t-shirt for the night's race). This place was a pretty good find -- definitely a popular venue. Not exactly my taste in music, but that's ok for as limited a time as I was there. The food was tasty. And, lord knows, I needed to have food in my system since lunch was just before noon, and I wasn't going to be getting the freebie cheese coney (which I expected to only taste) until about 8pm.
The timing for all of this worked quite well. Having finished dinner earlier than I even expected to start it, I made the small trek over to the big pick-up for the race, which had only just opened (about 5-10 minutes late) and had a decently long line. There were no appreciable signs indicating what number range should go to which line, but as we approached, we saw small, hand-written signs being held by volunteers with arrows pointing to which portion of the tables to go to. But they were done in such a way that everyone was a bit confused as to who should really go where, so where one line really should have been split into about six or so, we stayed as one line until right before we got to the tables themselves. Very poor logistics. But the line moved quickly enough, since all they were doing was giving us our bib, a bag and the t-shirt.
After getting my stuff, I moved to the side, took off my grunt shirt to pin the bib on it before putting it back on. (I never wear the race shirt until after the race itself - so this stayed in the bag that night.) Then it was a matter of finding the start line. The first sign was not overly helpful, and was certainly not accurate.
I met up with a couple who had run this before and pointed me in the correct direction. It was exceedingly early for the race, but there was little to do other than head towards the start. Luckily that area has several overpasses, and I had my umbrella with me, because shortly afterwards, a downpour started. And there was plenty of lightning in the storm, too. I fully expected that they would cancel the race because of the lightning (even though they have history of not doing so -- like with the aforementioned Floating Pig of 2023). They sent a text message about 5:45 indicating that the race would not start at the scheduled 7pm, and that we would get another update at 6:30pm. Mercifully, the storm wound up moving off well enough that we were able to kick off at 7:30pm.
This outfit was, by far, the least running-oriented outfit I have ever worn for a race. Not only was I wearing a cotton t-shirt and holding a bag full of stuff (which would also get the umbrella, once the rain cleared out), but I was wearing a pair of blue jeans. This year, the Blue Jean Mile was officially inaugurated to bring awareness to mental illness -- and those of us wearing blue jeans were given the lead position, in front of the elite runners who were truly competing to win the race.
My goal was clear, given all of the people (especially the elites) behind me. Run for long enough past the start line and shift as quickly as possible over to the right to be out of everyone else's way, since I only planned on walking - not running at all. I had no expectations to be competitive (even if I were wearing proper gear) and I had no particular reason to expend the amount of effort to do my best time -- I wanted to conserve that for the marathon. Quickly enough I shifted over and wound up chatting for a few minutes with a father and daughter. And after a few minutes and 1/4 mile, the elites were rounding the corner and barreling towards those of us in blue jeans. We all shifted further to the right to make way, and I wound up meeting up with another lady that I chatted with for the remainder of the mile.
The race finally concluded, it was time to get the much vaunted Skyline Chili Cheese Coney. (For the uninitiated, this is a hot dog ostensibly covered in beef chili with a mountain of shredded cheddar cheese on top.) After exiting the finish line area, we got on line -- one that no one was entirely sure what was at the other end. Turned out, it was the one for beer -- not something I was going to partake of. Oh well. Then it was off to another line, which was much easier to tell that the cheese coney was at the other end.
As we got closer, I was looking at the construction process. Simple enough with the boiled hot dog (ugh) in the bun, but what was supposed to be beef chili simply looked like thin, brown liquid -- there was zero substance to it, any beef that had been in the container when the line first started up was gone by my part of the line. And then a heap of cheddar was place on top. Finally, we made it up to the front.
My first bite was a little shallow, so I only got some cheese and bun. So, one more bit to actually get some hot dog and what was passing that night for chili. Ugh! This was absolutely HORRENDOUS! Why would anyone actually say they liked this concoction? And how did it get such a great reputation? It was awful! The only thing that was good (and which I did eat) was the shredded cheddar. The rest I threw out at the nearest garbage pail. What a disappointing waste of time. Hopefully the 5-way chili (which had nothing to do with a hot dog) that I was planning on getting in a few days' time would actually be good.
Well, off I went back to my hotel to prep myself for the morning and hit the sack.
Many of the pig sculptures you saw weren't created for the races.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Pig_Gig