It's not as big as I expected, but then is it ever?

The medal, that is.

Summary: nice mid-sized, well-organized race, reasonably scenic, urban course with good crowd support. Friendly and plentiful volunteers, aid stations where promised, hills also where promised, huge and ugly medal (that’s their thing). I am in horrible shape but the weather is good and I make it through. Oh yeah, and a shout out to my old training partner, Aleve, aka Vitamin A.

A Medal of Mythic Proportions (that’s their slogan this year)
For my 40th marathon and 35th state, I travelled to Little Rock, AR. I picked this one now because it was one of the few left within reasonably comfortable driving distance from Cincinnati (under 11 hours). I wasn’t too happy about the timing because it conflicted with an agility trial at my dog training club. Not for the first time, I really would have liked to have been in two places at once.

Training (or lack thereof)
Despite the long, cold winter, my training was going well until one morning in early February when I slipped on a patch of ice while walking the dogs. I had done 14 and 16 milers on the treadmill, and I even finished the 16 miles in less time than it took to do the 14. I was thinking I might even get an 18 or a 20 in. I haven’t gone further than 15 as a training run since probably 2002, so things were looking very good. I was definitely in shape to do a 4:30 comfortably, and maybe even go faster.

At first, the injury didn’t seem like such a big deal. I made note of it in my training log, but I continued training. The 18 miler wasn’t happening but I got some 5 and 6 milers in. What seemed to aggravate things the most was the sudden accelerations of agility class. It seemed to be a problem with the hip flexor that threw off my stride and created problems for my knee (the bad knee that I had surgery on in 2003) and my lower back. It was taking me longer and longer to warm up on my runs. After a few miles it got better, but I was starting to question what I was really doing out there and even considering a doctor visit. Really! Things were bad.

So I was thinking about cancelling the trip, and saving all the money on the hotel and the meals and the gasoline and the kennel reservation for the dogs. But I realized that if I stayed home I would be really depressed about it. Fortunately, Tommy realized that too. I managed an 8-miler the week before the race, and the hip really did feel better the longer I ran. So I decided we would make the trip, and I would start the race, and just drop out if I had to. It might not work for everyone, but for me that was better than staying home.

I had tried to get Tommy interested in doing the half-marathon, but he is not as much into running through injury as I am, and then it filled anyway so he didn’t have a choice about it.

Travel
We left Cincinnati on the Friday afternoon and stopped for the night in Jackson, TN. This is the home of Carl Perkins, and I am sure there are things to see in Jackson, but we did not have time for that. We stayed at a comfortable and very reasonable LaQuinta in a motel hell, and dined at a Logan’s Roadhouse.

While Tommy drove, I tried to familiarize myself with the upcoming race as best I could. I read a 2005 article from Marathon & Beyond, and also my friend Ken’s race report from 2008. I am not good at interpreting elevation maps, but Tommy helped me with that, and Ken’s report was especially enlightening. I don’t mind hills if I know where they are going to be. It’s when I am not expecting them and it turns out they are there that I get angry about it. So I knew to expect a fairly long climb in the middle of the race, followed by a short, steep downhill, and a couple of hills near the end. The hill in the mid-section was on a street named “Kavanaugh” and I learned there was a saying that “What’s said on Kavanaugh, stays on Kavanaugh.” I found this amusing, as my maiden name is “Cavanagh,” just another spelling of the same name.

Hotel, Expo & Pasta Dinner
We arrived in Little Rock midday on Saturday and checked into The Peabody (race hotel). The Peabody was the site of the pasta dinner and is connected to the convention center where the race expo was held. When I made the reservation, I didn’t know if I would be travelling alone, so not knowing the city very well, I thought this was the safest bet for me. Plus, there are the ducks. (But am I the only one bothered by the statement that when they retire from their “jobs,” they are returned to the wild? I am wondering if a working life as a Peabody duck prepares one adequately for life in the wild.)

The Peabody is nice enough but a little long in the tooth. Built (I am guessing) in the 1970s, it is in need of a bit of remodeling. I would suspect it began life as a Hyatt, based on the elevators. If I did this race again, I would go for The Capitol Hotel (directly across the street from The Peabody and a lot fancier looking from the outside) or the Marriott Courtyard (down the street, and closer to the start and finish of the race). You can still visit with the ducks before and after the pasta dinner!

Off to the expo we went. Based on statements in the race info booklet that I got in the mail a few weeks beforehand, I was expecting strict attention to detail, and perhaps a bit too regimented a check in process. Fortunately, it was not like that at all. They didn’t even ask me for photo ID at check in, and they looked at me funny when I handed them the confirmation email that we were supposed to sign and hand in to get our packets.

This led me to wonder about the possibility of taking the early start option, an idea I had been mulling over for a couple of weeks. The Little Rock Marathon offers an early start (two hours before the official start) for people who expect to take more than six hours to finish. The problem is the language in the race info book made it sound like there was no middle ground. If you wanted to do the early start, and it turned out that you went faster than a 14-minute pace, the race info booklet said that you would be held back at the first relay exchange station, and might be disqualified from the race. And possibly executed on the spot. Well, it didn’t say that last part but it was implied.

For me, the concern was that if I decided to walk the whole thing, or most of it, it was going to take me over six hours. And I might not know that until I’d covered a few miles. I don’t mind being left out of potential age group awards (as if, right?) and I understand the street closure and aid station operating dilemmas, but I didn’t want to have to crawl the whole way just because I took the early start.

Oh, and if you were going to do the early start, there was a mandatory pre-race meeting to attend at the expo, but you would only know what time that was taking place if you had signed up ahead of time for the early start. Which I hadn’t.

I still wasn’t sure if I would even be finishing period, so I decided to just go ahead and start at the official time and hope I made it.

The expo was not very exciting. I’ve seen worse, I’ve seen better. I bought a tee-shirt that has the names of the major running routes in Little Rock (including Kavanaugh) printed on the back. The race tee was a short sleeve technical top in light blue, also not very exciting. No swag in the race packet. Ipico timing chip (small piece of cardboard) with one twist tie to strap it to your shoelaces---not the best way.

We had no time to do any sightseeing in Little Rock. Before dinner, we caught the 5 pm duck parade---this is when the ducks march out and go back to their Royal Duck Palace for the night (their workday is 11 am – 5 pm). Then we had dinner in the ballroom of the hotel. Decent pasta feed, as one tends to find at race hotels. Self-serve buffet, all you could eat. Choice of bowties and whole wheat rotini, meat sauce and butter sauce, rolls and salad, ice tea and coffee. All the skinny women runners carefully measured themselves a half cup of pasta and a tiny bit of sauce. I filled my plate and went back for seconds. This is why I am 20 pounds overweight. For dessert, there was a choice of blueberry/apple and peach cobbler.

During dinner, we were entertained by a guy playing guitar and singing songs that were hits when we were in college---so of course we enjoyed that. He was accompanied by a background recording of other instruments and backup singers so it sounded like a full band. He would change costume and put on wigs depending on which artist he was impersonating at the time. He sounded so much like the actual vocalists that I wonder if he was even really singing or just playing air guitar and lip synching.

During a break in the music, there was a brief speech by Bart Yasso of Runner’s World and some other guy, but fortunately they did not talk for long and I do not remember what they said.

We finished dinner and after a brief return to the expo to pick up some more GU Chomps, went to bed early. Before turning out the lights, I read some inspirational stories from various running magazines, and the last thing I said to myself was that I was going to finish the race.

I Bet the Marriott has Coffee Makers in the Rooms
I didn’t sleep well. Besides my stress about the race itself, I was worried about the morning coffee situation. There was no coffee maker in the room. They hadn’t said anything about setting up a coffee bar in the lobby. Surely they would, though, right? Many of us marathoners need our coffee. Caffeine is my performance enhancing drug of choice! In addition to Aleve, that is. It occurred to me that maybe they had just forgotten to put the coffeemaker in the room. I have a travel coffeemaker but I have stopped bringing it because there is always one in the room (plus I am trying to be less high-maintenance).

I could have ordered room service coffee, but it was $8.50 a pot plus 20% gratuity plus $3.00 service charge plus outrageous hotel tax.

So when I got up at 5:30 am first thing I did was call the concierge and ask about the coffeemaker. He told me that if you want a coffeemaker, you have to make arrangements ahead of time! Seriously. But he said they did have coffee in the lobby. So I went downstairs, and I saw that they were serving coffee and breakfast items in the lobby bar. For which you had to pay. And you couldn’t just charge it to your room. So I had to go back upstairs to get some cash. And on the way back, tucked into a corner by the elevators, I saw they had set up a couple of coffee urns where you could get free coffee. They did not have this the next morning---I checked---so I guess free coffee is not a regular deal at the four-star Peabody. Huh. I guess I have just gotten to used to the conveniences of the Red Roofs and the LaQuintas I stay at for dog shows.

I got some coffee (no lids though!) and took it back up to the room. So, for breakfast I had this coffee, a banana I had brought from home, and some Chomps. And one Aleve. Should have had two.

Read an article in the local newspaper about Leah Thorvilson, a local runner who would win the women’s division of the race for the 3rd year in a row. Coincidentally, she was also the winner at Fargo when I was there last May.

The temperature outside was in the upper 30s, with a high of low 50s and a little sun predicted for the day. No rain, fortunately. After some debate about what to wear, I decided on my long CW-X tights instead of capris, because they were more supportive of my knee and I was going to be slow enough that I wouldn’t overheat. On top, I wore my thin technical long-sleeved top from the Flying Monkey race, and a thin nylon jacket that I like because it covers my butt. I also had my hat from Oklahoma City, and an old pair of running gloves. I wore a fanny pack to carry my Chomps, room key, chapstick and cellphone.

Over all of this, I threw on an old jacket with a broken zipper that I had tried to pitch in New Orleans last year, but somehow they mailed it back to me anyway. This time it was not coming home.

Perks Pavillion
I just want to say something about this. One of the race sponsors had arranged a special pavilion at the start/finish area where you could pay an extra $25 to take advantage of “perks” like “special” bathrooms and food. I find this to be a very disturbing trend. I dislike this way of scrounging extra money out of runners. I can understand that elite and invited runners should get some special treatment. But I don’t think they should establish a tiered pricing system for the rest of us. Anyway, I did not participate in the “perks.” I do wonder if they had coffee in there, though.

Off and “Running”
At around 7:30 I headed for the start line. I was in corral D, which was for people who expected to be under 4:30. Just behind corral D was the “open” section for people who didn’t designate a time or were even slower than 4:30 (as I fully expected to be). I was surrounded by half-marathoners and relay runners. Including walkers, there were over 3000 half-marathon finishers, 223 relay teams, and just under 2000 marathoners.

It took about five minutes to reach the start line, which is pretty slow for such a small race and considering I wasn’t really that far back. I actually walked the whole way until I crossed the start line.

I was immediately in a lot of pain. The first mile was horrible. I hoped that it would get better as I warmed up, just as it had on recent training runs. If I wasn’t feeling a whole lot better by mile 5, I was going to drop out there because that was close to the hotel. I would have another opportunity around mile 8. After that, the course went out away from the city and I would not have a graceful way to DNF.

I ditched my throwaway jacket before we even reached the first mile marker. But the rest of my attire would serve me well for the balance of the race. It never got that warm, and when the wind kicked up it was a bit chilly. The sun didn’t come out until I was on my last six miles or so, and it wasn’t very strong. Good marathon weather, actually.

I reached the first mile marker in 11:23. Too soon to quit.

The early section of the race reminded me very much of parts of Cincinnati’s Flying Pig Marathon. We ran through downtown, then crossed a bridge into North Little Rock---very much like crossing over into Newport, KY when you do the Pig, except the bridge was a bit smaller. We ran around a little over there and then it was back over the same bridge, retracing our steps a bit. Got to see the race leaders and eventual winners, already miles ahead of me.

I was holding an 11 minute pace, drinking mostly Gatorade every couple miles at the aid stations, and having my Chomps with water every 3-4 miles. Again, no wonder I can’t lose weight.

Not Dropping Out After All
Came through mile 5 feeling pretty good. Waved to Tommy and kept on going. One mile at a time, I told myself. I had my running watch set up so I was only seeing the elapsed time of the current mile. I didn’t want to focus on how long I had been out there or how far I still had to go---although I did peek occasionally.

One nice thing was how many of the spectators would read my name off my bib and call out to me. On one corner, a group of guys started chanting “Mon-ic-a! Mon-ic-a!” as I ran by. That really gave me a lift.

I don’t remember much about miles 5 through 10. Around ten, we were in the neighborhood of the Governor’s Mansion. I guess the current Governor was outside waving but I didn’t really know who he was. Former Gov. Mike Huckabee ran the race in 2005 after he lost over 100 pounds. He’s since put back on a lot of that weight, it seems to me when I see him on TV. Anyway, this is a neighborhood of large, old homes. Somewhere in here, we split off from the half-marathoners and I was happy to see them go. Unfortunately, we would rejoin them in a few miles for a short stretch, but I would be happy again when they were gone for good. I just find myself getting irritated with the half-marathoners who are back there slogging at my pace and complaining about how hard it is. Especially when I am not even half done yet with MY race. I know everybody has to start somewhere but stop whining about it, will ya? Suck it up and run.

What’s Said on Kavanaugh, Stays on Kavanaugh
At about the halfway mark, we ran by the State Capitol, and then we hit the hill. Since I was expecting it, it didn’t throw me. Plus, it had “my name” on it. How can you not enjoy a hill with your name on it? And I found the neighborhood quite pleasant. The cute little shops and small, interesting homes, as well as all the crowd support in this section reminded me of my neighborhood in Cincinnati, and I knew that if we lived in Little Rock this would be the place. This was my favorite part of the race.

My steady 11 minute pace gave way to 12s on the hill but otherwise I felt okay. Around mile 17 we hit the short but steep downhill. If I wasn’t so injured, and if it was a shorter race, I would love to fly down that hill. But at mile 17 of a marathon in my current state, I walked most of it.

On the River Trail
After the hill, we had a long, flat, out and back section along a paved bike trail. This is a really nice feature of Little Rock, the Arkansas River Trail. It will be 24 miles when it is completed. The sun had come out a bit but fortunately not too much because there was not much shade (too early in the season) along the trail. I hooked up with the five hour pace team, which had been behind me up to this point. I normally hate pace teams but this was a more pleasant bunch than usual. They were taking walk breaks roughly every 11 minutes. I also finally caught up to and passed the 8-hour pace team---that is, the slowest people among those who had taken the two hour early start. I was now really glad that I had not started with them!

On the way back (other side of the trail) there was a golf course on our left. I was struggling now to hold that 12 minute pace, and I had to bid farewell to the 5-hour pace team. I was not going to break five. I called Tommy when I passed mile 23 to let him know approximately when to expect me.

The Last of the Hills
And then there it was, that hill I had heard they threw in at the end. It looked worse from a distance. It wasn’t that long and it wasn’t that steep. I thought that was the last of the hills, but there was one more, shorter but steeper, in mile 25. That one surprised me. Really Little Rock? Isn’t there any other way to design this course? Why don’t you reverse it so we do the hills first? I guess because you want to get the ugly part over first? I had a few 13ers from 23-25.

Near the 26 mile mark, they had a lipstick stop, sponsored by L’Oreal. You are supposed to put lipstick on so you look good for your finish line photo. I did not stop. It hurt more when I stopped. Got back down to 12 for the last mile, and 2:25 for the last .2, for a final time of 5:06.12. Considering my horrendous physical condition, I am more than okay with that. I was actually even a bit proud of myself for about 30 seconds.

#35 in the Bag
Gave back the chip, got that hideous medal (really heavy around my neck!) space blanket, and then even stopped for one of those posed pics with the medal. Outside the finisher’s area, I found the promised chocolate milk. Otherwise, it was pretty slim pickings. Some fruit, and some Little Debbie snacks. As many other marathoners have complained, I would rather have better food at the finish and forget about the damn medal.

Found Tommy, who had purchased not one but two different turkey sandwiches for me to pick from. Unfortunately, I picked wrong, and ended up with a mild bout of food poisoning! But once that bad sandwich was out of my system, I was fine, and perfectly able to enjoy the barbeque at the post race party. But maybe he really is permanently barred from turkey sandwich duty.

Post race party was held at the Clinton Presidential Library. This is straight down the road from The Peabody, past the start line of the race. From the outside, it is a rather ugly building that reminded me of an airline terminal. But from the inside, there are great views of the river. The food at the party was decent, but there was no place to sit, so we ended up on the floor with our backs against the wall. That is not how you want to sit right after a marathon! Getting up was especially fun.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in at the Flying Saucer bar. Fun place, with dozens of beers on tap. I had one of the 5-beer samplers. Back at the hotel, I indulged my craving for chocolate with a couple of truffles from the gift shop. And that was that.

It’s been a couple of days and I’m still limping around but not much worse than usual. Need to recover by Saturday for a trail race!