Monday, May 10, 1999
Race promoters thrilled by its success
BY JOHN FAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The sweetest moment of the Flying Pig Marathon came just after Karen Cosgrove crossed the finish line. Cosgrove was overcome by tears of joy, sadness and relief.
She broke down, then recovered, then looked up on the photo bridge and found Bob Coughlin.
Cosgrove gave him a thumbs-up sign and yelled: “It was awesome, Bob!”
Then she cried a little more.
Cosgrove is the local leader of Team in Training. Coughlin is the founder of the Flying Pig. Cosgrove has helped train hundreds of runners who have raised millions of dollars for leukemia research. They've run in marathons all over. But, Sunday, thanks to Coughlin's idea and execution, they had a hometown marathon.
“That's why I'm crying right now,” Cosgrove said. “It's meant so much to the community. They did an exceptional job. I've run in 52 marathons, and this was one of the best.”
The Flying Pig Marathon definitely hit the ground running. It had 6,150 runners, the second-largest field ever for a first-time U.S. marathon.
This was a people's marathon. Only 57 runners broke three hours, and hundreds were still on the course as they began closing it 51/2 hours after the 7:05 a.m. start.
“It was an awesome race,” said Steve Lutz of Nashville, Tenn., who finished in just less than four hours. “Cincinnati did itself proud. This is my sixth marathon. It's the best one I've been to.”
The race, which offered $1,500 for first place, did not draw an elite field. Elly Rono's winning time of 2:21:15 would not have put him in the top 50 at the New York or Boston marathons. But that wasn't the point.
The Flying Pig, a $750,000 project, came off without major problems.
“Everything went reasonably well,” said Coughlin “We got a lot of positive feedback.”
The one problem was heat or, more specifically, the sun. The temperature topped out at about 73 degrees, but there were few clouds, making the Eastern Avenue stretch of the race a broiler.
“It was the radiating,” said executive race director Mike Boylan. “The people who got in trouble were the ones going for PRs (personal records) and not letting the conditions dictate how they ran.
“Most of the first-timers were OK because they played it safe.”
But there was a lot pleasure to go with the pain. Like that Cosgrove-Coughlin moment.
“That was great,” Coughlin said. “She's an icon here. There's probably 1,000 people in this town that she got started in marathons.”
Coughlin decided 18 months ago to try to bring a major marathon to Cincinnati. He's spent 18 months making that goal a reality. Sunday, he mostly enjoyed the results.
“I was at the starting line at 5 this morning,” he said. “I didn't have a lot of responsibilities. I just kind of floated. I went out to the 9-mile mark People seemed to be enjoying it.”
Fans lined much of the course, but the finish at Union Terminal drew unexpectedly large numbers. Spectators probably outnumbered runners by noon.
“We didn't think we'd get that many people here,” Boylan said. “We could have set up booths and concessions.”
Flying Pig Page
