RRCA Convention in Cincinnati

I'm back! It was a good trip, but I'm tired. Not enough sleep.

I'll start at the beginning. I went through security at the Mpls/St. Paul airport and my backpack was flagged as needing to be searched. Hmmm ... I didn't have anything in there that I thought was suspicious. The gentlman operating the machine identified the offending article on the screen to another TSP employee and identified where in the bag it was located. They asked if I had a problem searching my bag. Certainly not, I said. What was the questionable item?? My 2 bananas!! They let me go. That was a first for me ...

There were a number of things going on in the Cincinnati area during the weekend, the least of which was the RRCA Convention. On our plane, and seen in the airport (which was actually in KY), hat boxes. Big hat boxes. The Kentucky Derby was held on Saturday and people were flying into the CVG airport for the derby. One gal opened her hat box and took out her 2 hats. Very big, and very fancy indeed. I think it's the kind of hat you'd only wear once a year to the derby, though. She was from Montana.

Our hotel was also the host hotel for the Flying Pig Marathon so it was busy, busy and full. My room was on the 13th floor. ??? I didn't think they had a 13th floor on tall buildings. Bad karma or something. Oh, well. Whatever. The convention kicked off on Friday. There was a group run that morning, 6:00 AM (eastern time!), and maybe 20'ish showed up. (There were probably a couple hundred total at the convention.) We used 'chips' (actually laminated cardboard-type thing) produced by Ipico. They wanted to demo their product. We also got samples of Chill Towels . It's a packaged, moistened towel that feels cool upon contact. It was 67 degrees that morning, so the chill towel felt good to me. The folks from the south didn't think it was that warm.

I then attended various sessions at the convention and wandered through the Flying Pig Marathon Expo, which was right across the street and accessible from our hotel via skyway. I got my picture taken with Dick Beardsley. He's VERY skinny. I signed up at the expo to subscribe to the publication Marathon & Beyond, which is really more like a book. I browsed the issues I picked up on the plane on the way back and really enjoy them. Covers mostly marathons. Anyway, one of the back issues I picked up was about Dick running Grandma's marathon so I had him sign the cover. I believe he still holds the course record there. Also had my photo taken with Henry Rono who at one time set world records in the 10,000, 5,000, 3,000m and steeplechase. He was there signing his book. It's great being around the positive, pent-up energy of a marathon expo. ;-) (I'm embedding some photos here as the slideshow doesn't seem to be loading correctly.)

Our guest speaker for lunch on Friday was Bart Yasso, from Runner's World. Very good speaker and very funny. He had a slideshow and had some very funny global running experiences to share with us. He was also in New Orleans in 2005. We ran by a levee there for one of our early morning runs and I heard from someone from the NOTC (New Orleans Track Club) that that levee is STILL under water. 'Tis a shame. It was a beautiful place to run.

Friday evening the RRCA convention attendees were invited to the V.I.P. gathering for the marathon, which was basically drinks, appetizers and a live band at Fountain Square, an outdoor venue down the street from our hotel. The weather was a preview of Saturday. Rain. Wind. It had to be held in a tent which made it very hard to talk as the band was also in the tent and the tent walls held in all the sound. As I'd been up for 14.5 hours and was tired, I called it an evening at 8:00 and went back to my room and read some of the club newsletters which were available for us to pick up and bring home and watched My Best Friend's Wedding (Julia Roberts) on TV.

Saturday morning. The 10K was at 8:00 AM. I was awake at 4:15 AM (Eastern time!) afraid that the alarm wouldn't go off. When I got up I looked out the window it was really raining. When I got ready to leave the hotel about 7:20 for the walk/run down to the start, it didn't appear to be raining too hard from my 13th floor window. Until I got outside. It was indeed raining. Hard. And blowing. I debated going back for a hat to keep the rain off my face (somewhat anyway) but decided the wind would probably blow it off anyway, so I decided against it. Luckily, it was about 60 and humid so I didn't feel terribly cold. And I didn't bring my camera as I'd hoped to. I don't think it's waterproof and didn't want to ruin it if it wasn't. The weather wouldn't have made for great pictures anyway.

The events started down by the Ohio River on Pete Rose Way. We went through downtown Cincinnati before crossing over the Ohio River for the first time and over to Kentucky. There were a couple of hills downtown Cinci, but nothing like the 3 bridge crossings to come. The KY side of the river the scenery wasn't much. Like the poorer section of Anycity, U.S.A. One of the bridge crossings wasn't too bad (it wasn't over the Ohio river), but the other 2 were certainly a challenge. The third one came at about 5.75 miles. (Mile 6 was on the bridge). It was long. And felt like Heartbreak Hill in Newton, MA. Everyone seemed to be breathing pretty hard and had slowed way down. It was a challenging course and challenging weather as was evidenced by the relatively slow finishing times. I got the 1st place 45-49 female award, but was actually 2nd in that age group. They had masters awards and the 1st female 45-59 was actually 3rd female overall. But hey, ... I'll take it! It boosted my spirits after a less-than-stellar Boston Marathon. The finishers medals are pretty cool. They're double-sided--front of the pig on one side, tail end of the pig on the other. I'm sure the marathon medals are even MORE cool. Judy Weller has run this marathon (the day after running the Indy-Mini (half marathon)!!)

We got shirts, medals, embroidered fancy duffle bags, printed sport towels. Very nice. Luckily all this stuff, in addition to the food, was in part of a parking ramp or under a freeway overpass or something to keep it all dry. Otherwise they'd have had a real mess.

They had beautiful weather for the half and full marathons today. Clear, no wind, cool temps. Thank goodness. From an email from the event directors: "Due to a multiple-alarm fire on Mile 22 of the Marathon course, the start of the race was delayed by about 15 minutes. The course was re-directed around the emergency, adding an estimated fourth of a mile to the route. The route still will be certified as an official course." Bummer. I've heard the marathon is a challenging course as well.

Saturday brought more convention sessions and then the awards banquet where Dick Beardsley was our guest speaker. I had to give a short little thank you speech, short being the operative word. I'm not so much into public speaking contrary to public opinion!!

Well, it's now 9:00 and I have the desire to chill. More tomorrow on more local happenings.

Sleep tight.