Fast forward six and a half months.

Family fun
My sister, Donna, came to DC to watch me run MCM, and afterward, she casually mentioned something about training for her first 5k. So for her birthday, I registered her for the Tri-State Running Company 5k, one of the races on the calendar during Flying Pig weekend. Little did I know that it wouldn’t end up being her first. Or that she would turn it into a family affair. The weekend prior, she and my niece ran a 5k in their neighborhood that benefited my niece’s elementary school. So technically, this was their SECOND race, but the first one they would run as a family (including my brother-in-law).

The Brown family, ready for action

Handmade sign for support

Saturday morning, we drove over to Great American Ballpark, the start of the 5k. I took my nephew, who was still pretty confused about what was going on, to a spot in the race where we could cheer for them at mile 2 and still have enough time to make it to the finish line. He and I both made signs to cheer the runners on. His was a four-year old’s depiction of monkeys swinging from tree to tree. Mine read, “You should have pooped at the beginning.” I like to think we helped motivate everyone up the one hill in the course.

All of the races during the weekend were either sold-out and/or record-breaking events, so the 5k was very, very crowded. We managed to spot them at both points and snapped a few pics while we cheered them on.

Still moving right before mile 2

Heading toward the finish

I couldn’t be prouder of them for doing this as a family.

Pre-race

I’d taken off work early  Friday and gone to the expo at the Duke Energy Convention Center. It was huge. Kudos, Flying Pig organizers. Vendors large and small from all over the country were there, promoting one race or product or another. The swag was ample, too. Proctor and Gamble, based in Cincy, doled out samples of all kinds of home goods – shampoo, deodorant, lady products. I managed not to sign up for another race, which is a good thing because my fall schedule is looking a bit overbooked.

One half of the ginormous expo

The other half. Look at all that stuff!

Saturday night, I met up with my training partners, Lindsay and Scott, and their families for a carbalicious dinner at Pompilios in Newport. This would be Lindsay’s sixth marathon, but Scott was still a virgin. We spent most of the night allaying his fears of a code brown and enjoying the company of the prom kids who had invaded the restaurant. I spotted a camo tux, which was awesome. We were still in Kentucky, after all, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Back at my sister’s, it was lights out at 9:30, and I proceeded to wake up on the hour, every hour, until 4:00 am rolled around and I hauled my somnolent body out of bed. Lindsay, Scott and I (along with Lindsay’s sister, Shannon, who ended up PRing the half) met up at Scott’s hotel in Covington to take the free shuttle to the start line.

Pre-dawn and pre-marathon. All smiles and unbruised feet.

The race
Like I said earlier, every race at this year’s Flying Pig weekend set records for participation, most likely due to the fact that organizers reopened registration after the events in Boston. That meant 33,000 people were starting either the half or full marathon (including relay teams) at the same time. We saw our friend, Dawn, right before the race. This was her 4th marathon this year, so she was starting a couple of corrals back.

After the sun broke over the horizon and a group sang a slightly off-tune national anthem, we crossed the starting line and took off. Sort of. It was Dodge City. We spent the first several miles bunched up behind runners (and walkers) choking the riverside streets of Porkopolis. The route took us across the Taylor-Southgate Bridge into Newport, where the congestion issues continued.

The route turned west and we crossed the Licking River in Covington. (I had a friend in college who told me the Licking River is so polluted it once caught on fire. And now I think about that every time I see it.) At any rate, the streets of Covington were narrow and clogged with supporters, so Lindsay and I took shifts carving paths and threading needles through three-wide walkers and people who had obviously lied about their expected finish times. Scott’s family greeted us  as we crossed the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge back into the Buckeye State. After running around a rather unremarkable industrial part of the city, we headed into downtown and the throngs of fans who were waiting there. It was hard to suppress the smile that had formed on my face because of how amped up I get when there are people cheering on the sides.

Up ahead rose Mt. Adams, an affluent neighbhorhood of Cincinnati just east of downtown. Climbing the two-mile hill wasn’t easy, but we’d been training on hills for months, so we just put one foot in front of the other while our fellow comrades were dropping like flies. A funny thing happened here. I have a Twitter friend who lives in Cincinnati I’ve never met in real life. For some reason, I thought I saw him on the side of the street holding a sign. (Note: later Twitter conversations confirmed that it was him.) Mt. Adams gave us a breathtaking view of the city, but we didn’t have time to lollygag. A cursory glance at Ohio River and the outstretched neighborhoods below would have to suffice until a return trip with more time. When we (finally) crested the top of hill and left Eden Park, we came to the point in the course where the half marathoners would split from us and head toward the finish. And after they turned back, the road opened up before us. We could finally stop worrying about the congestion and just run. Zone out and go through the motions. Our next few miles were carried out at around an 8:45 pace – fast for us. Maybe it was the overzealousness of having the freedom to move about as much as we wanted, but we started to book it.

Lindsay and Scott took a bathroom break around mile 9, but I kept on, knowing they would catch me on a pre-planned walk break at mile 12. It was this time alone that I realized I hadn’t done one of the things I almost always do on longer races. I hadn’t given a name to anyone running near me. Enter Shirtless Guy. Shirtless Guy had been running near us for awhile and appeared to be in much better shape than me, but he would have to be my silent pacing partner/rival for the time being. Shirtless Guy sucked at pacing. He would bound down the declines and decelerate to a slow jog on the inclines, which I noticed were becoming increasingly routine on the course. Near mile 11, we entered the Hyde Park neighborhood, which was my favorite part of the race. Someone was cooking bacon, (appropriate, no?). By this point, I had written off Shirtless Guy because his erratic pace was frustrating. And he had already left me in his dust. Whatevs, Shirtless Guy. It was also in Hyde Park that a woman carrying an American flag high above her outstretched arm zoomed past me. Whoa. I know we hadn’t run that far, but how did she have the energy to race past me that fast? And that’s when I first became aware of the relay runners, who would come to frustrate me with their fresh legs and fast tempos throughout the rest of the marathon.

As predicted, Lindsay and Scott caught me at mile 12 right after my walk break. We high-fived Lindsay’s boyfriend and his family as we passed their house, laughed at some college kids who seemed to be continuing a party from the night before and chatted about the rolling streets before us.

Before I knew it, we turned a corner and a woman greeted us with, “Welcome to Mariemont.” This is where my family was going to be. I was getting tired but still felt good enough to keep our sub-9:00 pace. I saw my family amidst the group, ran over to thank them for coming, and scurried off to rejoin my running buddies.

The tree-lined streets of Mariemont – one of the many awesome neighborhoods on the course.

Miles 16-19 were fine, although my tired legs felt heavier and heavier with every step. The three of us had agreed to pace together through mile 20, and it was quickly approaching. One thing had zapped my energy levels. The hills. They weren’t hills, though. They were just inclines and declines. Over and over and over. I’m sure I’m exaggerating, and other racers probably didn’t notice them, but these things DID. NOT. STOP. When we crested one, another one popped up right after it. At mile 20, Lindsay had started to pull away, and I could tell she was having a good run. I was hoping she would just go if she felt good enough, and she did. A half mile later, she was almost out of sight. And so it was just me and Scott. I told him to go on if he had legs because I was fading fast, but his endurance had waned, too. Alright, I thought, let’s just be miserable together.

For me, post-20-mile runs are mostly mental, but I’ll be honest with you – I was friggin’ exhausted. Just beat. At the Marine Corps Marathon, I walked on the mile, every mile, from 20-24. I didn’t want to do that again, so Scott and I would run as far as we could and then walk when we needed. It became a running theme (see what I did there?) for us to change goals mid-conversation.

“Let’s run again at that street sign.”

“This street sign?”

“No, the next one.”

“The next next one?”

Someone in the crowd yelled out that the rest of the course was all downhill after one last incline around 22, and in my running stupor, I believed him. When we got to the top, there was another slope upward waiting for us. If I had had the energy, I would have run back and kicked him in the face. Somewhere from 20-25, it started raining. Medics on bikes were asking people if they were okay, and the whole scene started to look like an episode of The Walking Dead. Scott and I commiserated liked grumpy old men, and my internal voice questioned why I was out there.

“You already ran a marathon. You don’t have anything else to prove. Why are you doing this? It’s cold and raining and you still have miles to go. You could be eating Qdoba and watching Family Guy right now.”

Also somewhere during this time, I heard a woman yell out, “Four more miles to the Promised Land!” I can’t remember if she said four or five or six or whatever because I can’t really recall too many details from this time. At any rate, I recognized the voice from somewhere. And then it hit me. It was Crazy Grandma from the half I ran just outside Cincinnati last August. “Hi, Crazy Grandma,” I said under my breath.

At mile 25, I knew I would finish, even if on bloody stumps. We were still on pace to finish in under 4:30 (my original goal), but the hopes of crossing the line in under 4:15 (my secret goal) were gone. There was to be no walking in the last mile, so we picked up our wet, heavy feet one more time. I told Scott to go on if he had legs, and that I was doing all I could with what energy I had left. He gained about 100 yards on me, and as we came up over the last incline, I could see the finish “swine” ahead. The crowds were 15-deep, and Scott’s family and friends cheered me on when I passed them. All of the agony of the last five miles was gone in a blink and was replaced with that feeling of elation and accomplishment I felt the last time I did this. I spotted my family on the second level of a parking garage overlooking the home stretch, and I teared up a bit. It was at this point, too, that I thought of Boston and the shameful cowards who would dare to take away this joy. I had my own moment of silence for them before crossing the finish line and checking off my second marathon.

Coming down the home stretch

It bugs that these pics always make it look like I’m barely moving.

Official chip time: 4:25:59. A new PR by 27 minutes!

Lindsay and Scott were waiting for me right after I got my medal (which is AMAZING). All three of us set PRs – Lindsay in 4:16 and change and Scott 51 seconds ahead of me. Our friend, Matt, blazed a 3:37 and was waiting for Dawn to finish. The rain was falling harder, and the temperatures had dropped significantly by the time I found my family. They took me back to my car, and my sister drove us to her house, where I devoured a buffalo chicken sandwich and showered.

Post-race. All smiles and sweat. And PRs.

A family of runners

Post-race
I can’t praise the organizers of Flying Pig more. From registration through the post-race celebration, everything was perfect. There were ample supply stops – water, Gatorade, gels, fruit, you name it – throughout the course. And to make the experience even better, each neighborhood turned out in full force to cheer us on with their own signs and treats. Rarely did we run longer than a mile before someone was offering up fresh orange slices, grapes or a hearty shout to keep moving. Well done, Cincinnati.

Would I run it again? Maybe. It was a challenging course. The actual hills weren’t bad, but the rolling course on the back 13 eventually wore me down.

The shirt was meh but the medal made up for it.

I’m usually not too concerned about medals, but look at this awesomeness!

So marathon #2 is in the books. I’m going to take the next few weeks to run a few small races, hit the gym and get prepped to begin training for Chicago. It’s time to go sub-4:00.

Until next time, keep running, friends.

Thanks to Scott’s wife, Becky, and my sister for some of the pics.

After a string of morning meetings yesterday, I finally settled into my office and found a feed of the marathon just as the first women were approaching the finish line. I watched Rita Jeptoo claim her second victory, and then kept the feed going as I worked until Lelisa Desisa outkicked his closest competitors to snag a win for Ethiopia. When Wesley Korir (a Louisville guy by way of Kenya) made the top 5 after winning the whole thing last year, I turned off the feed and got back to work. I kept a tracker up to see how Jeff over at The Run Factory was doing, and when he finished safe and sound, I completely detached and hunkered down on a project about prehistoric mammals. Until news of the explosions broke.

It didn’t make sense then, and it doesn’t make sense now. Don’t know that it ever will. Watching the reports stream in on traditional and social media, I kept oscillating between bouts of sorrow and anger. Sorrow for those whose families have been irrevocably affected. Sorrow for those who lost their lives, their limbs. Sorrow for those who had their sense of security taken from them. And once the sadness faded, anger set in. Anger for those who worked hard to gain entrance to the world’s greatest race only to have it marred and tarnished by a senseless, spineless act. Anger toward an evil I cannot see or feel or touch but whose presence makes itself known in the most violent ways imaginable. Or unimaginable.

When I really stop and think about it, it’s hard to consider someone committing such a perverted, brutal act against anyone – let alone innocent people euphoric in a moment of accomplishment and celebration. To date, I’ve finished exactly one marathon, and it was one of the most jubilant memories of my life. Something I have a hard time explaining to those who haven’t experienced it. And to juxtapose that elation against such depravity – well, I just can’t.

It’s probably not meant for me to understand, but it doesn’t keep me from wondering what the perpetrator’s objectives were. Yesterday on Twitter, I came across a quote that read something along the lines of, “If you wanted to break someone’s resolve, picking a group of a marathoners was a bad idea.” That phrase carries tremendous weight. Runners are a tenacious bunch. There is no giving up in a race. It just doesn’t happen. Case in point - Bill Iffrig, a 78-year-old veteran of 45 marathons, was knocked to the ground after the first blast swept his legs out from under him. He got up and finished the marathon.

Runners are also a tight group. For a long time, I was hesitant to call myself a runner because I wasn’t fast or experienced. But the first time I ran with a group, they welcomed me with open arms and I immediately gained membership to a supportive, happy club of friends who could care less about my abilities. That can be said for  every runner I’ve encountered since. We encourage one another. We motivate one another. We are thankful for one another.

I make it a point in every race to say thank you aloud to the men and women who are volunteering their time to make sure my run goes as smoothly as possible. The police and emergency workers who staff the bigger races are no exception. Far from it. In the midst of the madness yesterday, while a cacophony of runners was sprinting away from explosions, there were people running into the fray. Immediately. It takes a special kind of person to do that. To question nothing and throw yourself into the situation to help others without pause. THAT is the good in people.

THAT is what I’m choosing to take away from this.

Somewhat organically, I began closing out many of my entries on this blog with three words that have now taken on significant meaning. And so, I’ll close with them as both a request and a directive to my running brethren and sisters.

Keep running, friends.

It all started after the Scenic City Half Marathon in February. I ran really well, and I had tired legs to prove it. On my runs during the following week, I took it easy. That is, except for my long run the next weekend. I had 15 miles on the schedule, and decided to run a 10-mile, hill-laden stretch of Iroquois Park as part of this. That was a mistake. Going up the hills was no problem. Coming down them really put a ton of pressure on my knees, and I felt a twinge of pain I hadn’t ever experienced before. Twice. Every run since then has been an exercise in caution. The pain happens randomly. Not often, but enough for me to second guess every single step. And when you’re running in the high teens, that’s a lot of steps and a lot of worry.

On a 17-mile run last weekend, my legs had completely locked up by mile 14. I walked every quarter mile for the last three miles. I’m almost 100% certain my legs were tight because I was tensing up with every step. And after my short run on Thursday (just four miles), the aching pain stuck around after I was finished.

That was enough to convince me to take a break. I know, I know. Rest is a four-letter word for runners, but I’d rather take a break now than not be able to finish my marathon in May. I plan on taking off the rest of the week and modifying the remainder of my training schedule to hopefully get through this thing. And so, this is what I’m doing.

EXERCISES
I also know runner’s knee is generally caused by weak hip abductor muscles. I had been doing some of these exercises nightly, but I got lazy and stopped. I’m a believer that they were working, so I’m now doing them three times a day.

Bridge with leg lifts.
These start with a traditional bridge position. Then I hold myself up with one leg and raise my other leg up and down. I do this 40 times on each side.

Standing side leg extension.
I do these with a resistance band. 25 times on each side.

Lying leg extension.
I do these with a resistance band. 25 times on each side. Sometimes I modify this with a clamshell position.

SCHEDULE
There isn’t a ton of training left before my marathon, so needless to say I’m reluctant to skip any additional long runs. I am altering the schedule to help me ease back into the regimen.

3/16
18 miles – > skipped
3/23
13 miles – > 7 miles
3/30
20 miles – > 15 miles
4/6
13 miles – > 13 miles
4/13
20 miles – > 20 miles
4/20
12 miles – > 12 miles
4/27
8 miles – > 8 miles
5/5
26.2 miles – > 26.2 miles

OTHER
Foam roller – I’m also using a foam roller once in the morning and again at night.
Aleve – I’m not a big fan of taking medicine, but I have taken some Aleve to reduce the inflammation.
Ice - I’m icing my knees at least twice  a day for 20 minutes.

And that’s it. I tend to freak out, and the runner in me just wants to ignore it and keep pushing on. I know that’s not the right answer, though.

I’m open to advice here. Have you ever experienced runner’s knee? If so, what did you do to take care of it? Is a week off enough time to keep it under control, or should I take longer? What else could I be doing to speed up the healing process?

The Big Four Bridge is a former rail bridge completed in the late 1800s that spans the Ohio River just east of downtown. It’s been vacant for as long as I can remember, with no approaches on either the Kentucky or Indiana side. That all changed last month when it opened as a repurposed pedestrian walkway linking Louisville and Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Location of the Big Four Bridge in relation to downtown and Indiana

View from the curved ramp leading up to the bridge

It was a gorgeous morning, and the crowds were thick. One of the things I love most about Louisvillians is that we take full advantage of our parks systems and outdoor spaces.

The ramp and Waterfront Park

Downtown Louisville

Surprise proposal at the landing of the ramp. She said yes.

I’m a sucker for ironworks architecture.

The Hoosier side is still under construction and should be completed by this summer, but for now, you can meander across the river and back.

Construction of the ramp (and in the distance, a new park) on the Indiana side.

A barge passing beneath the Big Four Bridge

I can’t wait for the Indiana side to be completed this summer. It will give runners a safe alternative to the heavily trafficked Second Street Bridge (which is partially held together by welded street signs – no joke).

Until then, keep running, friends.