CROSSING THE FINISH SWINE

Should I be embarrassed to say that the main reason I registered for the Flying Pig's 10K race is because of the logo?  Cincinnati is hosting this year's All Star Game and as soon as I saw the adorable little piggy in the baseball cap I knew I had to have a medal of that.

The all-powerful Shrinky Dink charm.

I did not go into Saturday's 6.2 mile race with any great expectations.  In the back of my mind had always been the goal of finishing just under an hour and 30 minutes.  That would require a pace of a little better than four m.p.h. the whole way.  I can walk that fast, but not necessarily for six miles.  And Cincinnati has some hills.  Quite a few hills.  This was not like walking loops around a high school track.  As of Friday evening my personal best time had been one hour, 33 minutes or roughly a 15:06 per mile pace.  To finish in goal time, by the skin of my teeth, I need to average no more than 14:30 per mile.  Ugh...  Yeah, I couldn't do that.  I'd never done that.  Still, Friday night I kept thinking about it.  I even made a tiny Shrinky Dink tag for my shoelace.

I honored my Earthathon team on my racing bib.

My cheering section for the 10K consisted of my sister (the Inmates' beloved Uncle Chester) and my husband.  For some reason my children turned down the chance to get up at six a.m. on a Saturday so we could get downtown and in position for the eight a.m. race.  In fact, my sister regularly stays up until three or four in the morning, so she wasn't running on all eight cylinders, either.  (Even on her best day she's lucky to be running on six.) 

The race's corrals were lined up on Joe Nuxhall Way next to Great American Ballpark.  I was in corral F, reserved for those of us who thought it would take us longer than 1:30:00 to finish the race.  Yeah, we were literally the end of the line.  But we were festive!  There were piggy hats and piggy tails and sparkly tutus, my favorite on a burly 30-something man.  What we lacked in speed we made up for in attitude.  Fearing footage of me plodding along the course would turn up on YouTube, I made myself as inconspicuous as possible in capri pants and the Flying Pig t-shirt.  I have this phobia about going viral on the Internet...  At one point my sister suddenly glared up at a window above the Reds Hall of Fame and Museum before realizing the man looking down on her was actually a poster of Pete Rose sliding into third base.  (Later at lunch she said she felt like she was having a "flaccid assback".  She'd meant to say "acid flashback."  Yeah, she needed some sleep.)

I handed my jacket off to the Vulcan and my purse to Uncle Chester.  They both wanted off the course before the race officially started and they got trampled by a woman wearing a pig nose and sequined pink headband.  As the 4500 participants slowly moved as one toward the starting line, I plugged in my earphones and got my Green Day-heavy playlist ready.  While the handy Flying Pig app allows family and friends to track folks in the real races (i.e., full and half marathons), my cheering section was stuck with the lower tech version of me texting my husband at each mile marker.  As we went over the starting line, I clicked the chronograph feature on my watch and set out to the tune "500 Miles" by The Proclaimers.  So I wasn't really going to walk 500 miles, but at that moment it kinda felt that way.  (Anyone familiar with Cincinnati and interested can see the course map here.)

I walked along for about a quarter of a mile, my legs gradually warming up and getting looser.  Then I did the strangest thing.  I started to jog.  I had sworn I was not going to do my basset hound trot in public, but there is power in the combination of adrenaline and a slight competitiveness.  I began to pass people.  And every time I passed some boney-ass looking cute and perky in her Lycra jogging shorts, I felt a shot of energy go through me and I went just a little faster.  I know, I know.  It's petty and bitchy and juvenile.  Damn, it was fun. 

I crossed that bridge at some point...I think...

We crossed the bridge into Newport, Kentucky.  I glanced at my watch at the first mile marker as I fumbled to pull my phone out of its case and text The Vulcan.  It read 13 minutes and change.  Wow, that was well under the pace I needed.  I continued to walk, tossing in a jog about a third of the time.  At the second marker I was still well under pace.  I felt the energy shoot up again.  Could I do it?  Could I actually get in under 1:30:00?  I tried to do mental arithmetic and figure how much my pace could slow and still make the goal.  I gave up as I slurped water at the 2.5 mile station, spilling more on my shirt than I got in my mouth.  My notorious lack of a sense of direction left me wondering why nothing in Cincinnati was looking familiar.  We had crossed the bridge back into Ohio, yet my surroundings still looked like northern Kentucky.  It wasn't until I got to the three mile mark and we started to cross the big bridge that I realized that other bridge had been over the Licking River and we were still in Kentucky.  Yeah, this is why I never leave home without my phone and MapQuest app. 


As we crossed we were saluted with honks and waves from a guy in a cement mixer and the driver of the train going the opposite direction.  Once over the bridge into Ohio I knew I was past the halfway mark.  I glanced at my watch and the time was under 41 minutes.  Holy crap!  I was still on pace.  A little more Green Day, a little more jogging, a little more adrenaline when I lumbered past the skinny bitch in the pink jogging skirt.  Okay, she may have been a perfectly nice lady, but she was thin and had nice legs and probably would have made fun of me in high school, so I used my bitterness to my advantage. 

By mile four we were back near the stadium and the spectators had increased significantly.  So did my anxiety.  I slowed down to a walk again and tried to figure out if I could reach my goal without any canine cavorting.  Then I thought, "To hell with it."  I caught my breath, then went back to my ungainly gallop.  At mile five I texted my husband for the last time.  All that fiddling with the phone and its case and trying to type was slowing me down even more and I needed all the seconds I could get.  I shoved the phone case in my pocket and checked my watch.  It read an hour and six minutes.  A few quick calculations and I realized I could walk the last 1.2 miles at a very moderate 3.2 m.p.h. and still come in under 1:30:00.  I couldn't believe it.  I could make it.

As "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred blared in my ears I started to get worried.  What if I suddenly hit the wall?  What if some muscle decided to pop and I could only limp the rest of the way?  I had visions of me crawling to the finish line as all the skinny bitches ran past me and my goal slipped away.  I started to jog again.  By that point I probably looked like I was wearing ankle weights, my feet fighting gravity with each step.  I chugged up the tiny incline on Pete Rose Way that now felt as steep as Mt. Everest.  The six mile marker was in sight.  I could make it.  I think I can, I think I can...  OK, only two-tenths of a mile.  I inhaled deeply and slowed down to a walk.

Up ahead I could see the "Finish Swine".  I was gonna do it!  I looked to my left and could see my cheering section.  I waved my arms at them and then saw their looks of recognition as they picked me out of the crowd.  I gave them two thumbs-up as I walked past and there are few times in my life when I've been quite that happy.  I intended to just walk across the line, but in my peripheral vision I caught one last bouncing Barbie coming up on the inside.  With a final jolt of adrenaline, I scuttled away from her and across the line.

I tried to catch my breath as a teenage boy put the medal around my neck and another guy handed me a Mylar blanket.  I'm sure I looked like an idiot, smiling to myself as I wandered into the recovery area practically jumping up and down.  I slurped a cup of Gatorade and grabbed a bottle of water.  My cheerleaders were to meet me outside this participants-only area.  I didn't see them, so I took the opportunity to email my mommy.  My official time, I found out later, was 1:21:41.  I honest to God didn't think it was possible.  I didn't think I could move that well if I had a zombie on my ass and a donut truck in front of me.

So, do I consider myself a great athlete now?  Not hardly.  The real athletes were crossing the finish line before I hit the first water station.  It never was about me being fast or good compared to anyone else.  It was me compared to a past me, By-Default-Girl.  I remember trying to do Jane Fonda's workout tape when I was in high school, her second one that had an aerobic section about three minutes long.  I couldn't do it.  I had no stamina whatsoever.  That certainly didn't improve as I got older.  My joy isn't because I did something no one else could do.  It's because I did something I didn't think I could do.  And there's magic in that, I tell you.  Magic.

FLYING PIGS, SHRINKY DINKS, AND THE EARTHATHON

Remember that kid in grade school who was always picked last for teams in gym class?  That wasn't me.  I was the other kid.  You know, there are two kids left and one is picked last for a team and the other goes to the second team by default?  And then the team groans because they're stuck with that loser?  Yeah, that was me, By-Default-Girl.  I was a lousy athlete, I freely admit it.  I sucked at catching and throwing and kicking.  I had no arm strength and no aim and was completely uncoordinated.  I was also the fat kid, a double whammy.  I still feel intense resentment over that damn rope they tried to make us climb.  Combine lack of strength and coordination with an over-sized body and you can imagine that little bit of humiliation.

I mention all this because I'm doing the 10K at Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon this weekend.  No, I'm not running it.  I'm simply walking, but hopefully at a fast enough pace that I finish just ahead of the last place finishers, probably a group from the local elder care center slowed down by their canes.  My husband asks why I don't jog part of it.  I do jog in short bursts on the treadmill, little one-lap intervals between various walking paces.  The problem is I steadfastly refuse to run in public.  This meme came through as a Tweet from a member of my virtual running group and sums it up perfectly:

The Vulcan assures me I do not look like that.  I'm convinced I do.  I once saw slow motion video of a basset hound running, jowls flapping and flab undulating and I just know that's what I'd look like if I broke into a trot.  And since there may very well be news cameras in the vicinity, I'm not taking any chances.  Just finishing will be enough.  Well, let's say finishing and not being dead last.

My mommy was very proud.

I did the Flying Pig's 5K last year and I still marvel at it.  Not because I had some earth-shattering pace, but just because I did it.  Me.  By-Default-Girl.  In an organized athletic event.  If you had told that rotund kid in phys ed that some day she'd walk 3.1 miles and get a medal for it she would have thought you were nuttier than the ice cream Drumstick she had every day at lunch.  And if you'd said the next year she was going to walk 6.2 miles?  Forget about it.

 To motivate me to walk 25 miles or so on the treadmill every week, I joined the Earthathon.  It's a virtual relay race in which ten teams are running the circumference of the earth.  As a group we are going to put in the mileage equivalent to circling the earth ten times, roughly 250,000.  It's only slightly competitive.  When the first team finishes running the circumference, those members then will help another team reach that milestone and so on until there's one big team finishing the last lap.  When I signed up I said to put me on whichever team needed me.  I could have been on a team like Legs of Passion or Stars on the Run.  My team?  United Snails.  At first I was slightly bummed.  Not exactly a name to inspire.  Then I got to know my teammates through Twitter and they turned out to be so enthusiastic and supportive and fun that I realized I was on the PERFECT team for me.  And, let's face it, the name totally fits.  I embraced my inner snail.  I found a piece of clip art (here) and made it my own personal logo.  I had my sister put it on a shirt for me.  Last week I got out the Shrinky Dinks and made myself a necklace and a charm for one of the 5,017 Rainbow Loom bracelets my daughter made me and a tiny snail for my gym shoe.  Call it snail mania, but for my birthday I got a little silver snail pendant and I bought myself a stuffed snail to put on the shelf over my treadmill.  And I may have a Littlest Pet Shop snail on my desk.  Maybe...

So, at age 45 am I an athlete?  Not even close.  I still can't throw a ball (or catch one).  I'm totally uncoordinated and fall down regularly.  In the summertime I do little in the pool but tread water and the best I can manage on a bike is to stay upright.  Having said all that I can also say that, at age 45, I'm in the best shape of my life.  That's not saying much.  I've always been overweight and out of shape and compared to a real runner, I'm a pathetic mess.  But compared to the me of the past, By-Default-Girl, I'm at the top of my game.  I can't help but feel slightly proud of that, even if my children do tell me I'm past my expiration date.