The Flying Pig 10k was on April 30, 2016 held in downtown Cincinnati, Newport Kentucky, and Covington Kentucky.

The Route

The race route is shown below.  The race starts in front of Great American Ballpark (where the Reds play), proceeds down a hill and then uphill across the Taylor Southgate Bridge into Newport Kentucky.  Once across, the race proceeds downhill to the Ohio River via “Riverboat Row”.  The race continues (flat) under the Purple People Bridge and the Taylor Southgate Bridge and then back up a slight incline to 4th Street in Newport.  The route proceeds uphill and west into Covington where it flattens out before going uphill and across the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge.  Once across, the race proceeds back onto Second Street in downtown Cincinnati (downhill and uphill) where the race continues east across The Banks and then sinks into the lower east area of downtown.  After snaking through this area with a slight uphill heading north and then turning south at a slight downhill, the race makes the final turn towards the west onto Pete Rose Way with a slight up-down-up to the finish line.

Preparation

After coming back from The Injury on December 11, I began running at ~3 miles per run, 3 days per week (although the Christmas Holiday Season was a little more spotty.  I moved up to 4 days per week (again, ~3 miles per day) on the week of January 11.  I made it up to 5 days per week (my target) on the week of February 1 (one of those days was a 2 mile day, the rest ~3).  I slowly ramped up my long run and by the week of March 19, I was hitting 6 mile long runs on Fridays.  My long run remained there as I worked on other runs – added 5 strides after my easy runs (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and incorporated speedwork on Wednesday (and while not intended, my Monday runs were essentially tempo runs).

Taper week was a “normal” run on Monday, intervals (total mileage of 3.5, about one 0.25 mi interval less) on Tuesday, an easier run on Wednesday, a shorter 2 mile run on Thursday, the Little Kings Mile Race on Friday evening, and then the 10k on Saturday.

Race Day

The weather was dreary.  It rained some on my drive in, although it stopped when I got to my work parking lot (I work about a mile from the start area) only to begin again while I waited in a tent for it to get closer to the start time.  It did clear up for the start time, but it remained cloudy throughout the race.

Race day breakfasts for me always consist of some toast and peanut butter and some coffee.  I also had a bottle of water prior to the start.

The race was mostly uneventful… fortunately!  My splits were somewhere around:

1. 8:30 (estimated)
2. 8:09
3. 8:26
4. 8:27
5. 8:16
6. 8:05

These were from Endomondo, which started late and ended later, so they could be a little off.

Throughout the race, I didn’t stop at any water stops, although I made sure I drank a bottle of water and a few cups of Gatorade post-race.