The Flying Pig is Sold Out
And that's great news for our town's best sporting event
Kelly and Ruby
My daughter-in-law wanted to take part in The Flying Pig, our Republic’s very own marathon. Ruby is a dedicated runner, having completed the Pig once already, as well as the New York Marathon. She runs three to eight miles a day, six days a week. She can turn a 13-mile half-marathon in a very respectable two hours and change.
When Ruby applied to run The Pig, they wait-listed her. That was fantastic.
I don’t know a lot about running marathons. In fact, I don’t know anything about running marathons, other than I’d rather remove my ears with a pair of pliers than jog 26 miles.
I thought I knew that certain marathons require a resume, some record of achievement, to be eligible. New York, Chicago, Boston. I didn’t know the Flying Pig had a wait list.
Our marathon has become so popular, it fills up. How great is that?
(Something else that’s beyond me: Who decides a marathon is full? It’s Sold Out? It’s not held in an arena or a stadium or the local multiplex showing Star Wars 99. It’s outdoors, it’s open. It’s everywhere. How does Everywhere sell out?)
This is Pig 25 (XXV) so maybe there are lots of extra entrants.
I covered the 2nd Pig, in 2000. A guy from the Czech Republic, Rudolf Jun, flew in from somewhere, checked into a downtown hotel, slept a few hours, got up and won the race. He made a nice payday for two hours work. Mid-four figures. Russian Tatyana Pozdnyakova claimed $10,000 in 2002 after breaking the women's course record.
Then Pig organizers stopped paying people to show up, grab a check and take off. The race soared after that. "We've tried to keep the emphasis on the everyday person and whoever wanted to cross it off their bucket list," Pig goddess Iris Simpson Bush said a few years ago.
Great move.
It adopted the area’s personality. Welcoming and unpretentious. It found its niche and its stride. Now, it’s sold out. Along with the Western & Southern Open, the Flying Pig is our town’s most endearing and enduring sports event. We’ve embraced the race to such an extent, it’s become part of the local fabric.
It’s also a fund-raising superstar. Through 2017, the Pig has helped raise more than $15 million for charity. in 2021, a Xavier University study estimated the Pig contributes $14 mil to the local economy.
A few hours after being wait-listed, Ruby got her spot in the Flying Pig. Her time in her first New York Marathon was 4:24.46. She’d like to beat that at the Pig. She’ll be off at 6:30 or so on Sunday May 7, along with 30,000 other people, all running for nothing but joy and satisfaction.
It’s an ongoing success story the likes of which we don’t see here often.
Now, then. . .
Aaron Rodgers just spent four days in a cave.
Not just any cave. A 300 square-foot cave deep in an Oregon forest with a bed, a bathroom, a mat on the floor and no light whatsoever. Once a day, the owner of the place “delivers a day's worth of meals through a two-way wooden door. It's the only time guests get a sense of time of day or that 24 hours have passed,’’ according to ESPN.com.
It’s called a “darkness retreat.’’ Rodgers said he checked himself into this voluntary isolation to "have a better sense of where I'm at in my life."
Well.
The knee-jerk here is pretty easy. It goes like this:
Self-absorbed almost-billionaire athlete holes up in NowhereLand for a few days to navel-gaze and find his inner Something. Nobody understands him. He doesn’t even understand himself. In darkness, he can hang with his best friend without interruption, hopefully to emerge with a better self-understanding of himself. Self-indulgence, thy name is me.
That could be a shallow way to look at it.
Personally, I think it’s kinda cool.
Aaron Rodgers cave in Oregon
And frightening. Four days in the dark? I don’t know how I’d do with that. You?
Life is too fast for the brakes needed for this sort of adventure. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I do wonder what it’d be like. I’d venture that most of us, for whatever reason, don’t want to go there. We’re afraid of what me might find. We’d be uncomfortable looking. Or maybe we just think it’s a bunch of nonsense.
Live your life, yeah? It is what it is. Take what’s thrown at you. Roll with it.
It’s intriguing, though. It’s sort of like a fast for the mind.
It also sounds like something Joey Votto would do.
"There's no hierarchy in my view of spirituality or meditation or mindfulness,’’ Rodgers explained. “We're all trying to do our best on the path that we're on."
I’d be interested in what Rodgers learned about Rodgers in the four days he spent alone with him. And I say that without an ounce of snark.
GETTING THEIR ACT TOGETHER? As March nears, Wes Miller’s UC team is developing an identity. Landers Nolley is Mr. Go To, David DeJulius is the calm within the storm. The Bigs are learning their roles, what they should and shouldn't do. Not a polished product. Not even close. But markedly better than even a month ago.
Before Christmas, UC was barely watchable. Soft defense, little cohesion, a bunch of guys circling the perimeter and jacking up 3s. That has changed for the better. That is good coaching.
That’s what you should expect from Miller in his 2nd year here. The individuals are starting to look like a team. The next step is a couple wins in the AAC tournament and a credible showing in the NIT.
WHEN GETTING A HAIRCUT RUINED MY LIFE. . . I got one today, same one I’ve had for 30 years at least. The lady that does it knows which bowl to use. Hair hasn’t been a priority for me for a long time. But I remember when it was.
In the mid-70s, long hair was in. My dad the ex-Marine, didn’t care about that. Of all the knockdown-dragouts we staged in my teen years, nothing compared with the Haircut War.
“You need a haircut’’ was the worst thing he could say to me. Worse than “When I was your age.’’ Worse than “You can’t use the car.’’ Way worse than “As long as you’re living under my roof. . .’’
My hair wasn’t just short. Under Jim D’s supervision — yes, he did on occasion accompany me to the barber shop, even when I was in high school — my hair was non-existent. I had the Parris Island cut. Parris Island being a Marine boot camp. Think Chris Sabo.
For weeks after every haircut, I’d walk around school with a hat on. When I had to take the hat off, I’d try to cover my head with my hands. I got laughed at and teased. At an age when Fitting In was everything, I was Johnny Square Peg.
Decades later, in a rare moment of retrospection, my dad sort-of apologized for the draconian haircuts. The apology was almost as bad as the buzzes themselves. “Don’t even try,’’ the 40-year-old said to the 65-year-old.
I did a lot of dumb stuff raising my kids. Dumb stuff is what parents do. Aaron Rodgers spent four nights in a cave. Parents spend 18 years there. There is no manual. One thing I never did was make my son get haircuts. He had to look presentable was all. You know, mix in a hairbrush every so often.
Never made him look like Sabes, though. No need to put him through that.
Was there one thing your pops stood and died about, when he raised you?
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Speaking of. . .
Hey Doc, you’d be surprised at how hard it is to put on a safe half marathon or full marathon for a crowded field. I’m a back of the pack runner and did the Pig twice - once in a relay once for the full half (both times bringing a slew of out of towners to see Cincinnati and run the race). It’s a tough course, as these things go, due to Cincinnati’s hills, humidity, and propensity for heat. Deciding how many people are a limit is a combination of ensuring that runners - who pay for the privilege of having water and fluids, emergency services and portapotties - can safely complete the course while not overtaxing local hospitals and emergency services if things go bad - and can complete the course in a certain amount of time to reopen streets - if things go to plan.
The determination of how long a city is willing to keep its streets closed - and how long a race company can reliably and safely staff a race run largely on volunteer labor, then execute a cleanup to re open said streets - is negotiated with local police and emergency services. And given that the pig runs through some pretty iconic and central locations, that’s a lotta space to cover.
Most amateur runners know the good races and sign up early to get in because they understand that the good ones fill up fast.
I’d say if Cincy is full it’s a great sign that the race is being managed well. Having run my share of those that aren’t, the cost is measured in the number of runners who didn’t get the services and support they needed because of unprepared race directors. Take it as a great sign that Cincinnati cares enough to put its runners health first, over potential profit. And tell your daughter-in-law to sign up for another one of the Pig events to experience the weekend. It’s worth participating even if it’s not the place she will run her half this year!
This was a very entertaining article that I can relate to : haircut and running. We had four boys and my dad cut our hair with a pair of clippers that needed oil and sharpening, it got neither. I was the oldest so mine was last and when my turn of torture came the clippers was so hot I had welts all over my head. Since the clippers were dull he dug deeper making it feel like he was trying to remove a tumor!
I used to run four miles with Bob Carroll regularly. He would call me at work or I would pick him up and off we were. We weren’t fast, but consistent. We trained enough to talk one another into entering a race at Mt. Storm. When the morning came Gayle dropped Bob and I off at the end of the street so we could jog in to the starting line. Gayle drove away and when we got to where the race was to begin we were the only two there. The race was the week before so we just jogged back to St. Bernard laughing at one another. I think Bob was upset because he didn’t have money to stop at Frisch’s on Spring Grove!