If all goes according to plan, the women's winner of the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon will celebrate with a cold beer and a burger at Zip's Cafe in Mount Lookout.
Sometime around 10:30 a.m. Sunday, after hurrying by the Halloween harriers, 29-year-old Caitlin Keen hopes to join the exclusive club of two-time winners of Porkoplis pride.
Keen, who spent her elementary school years in Hyde Park (St. Mary's), has been training in sweltering Fort Worth, Texas, and is looking forward to a Sunday morning start with a chill in the air.
She breezed to her first Flying Pig win in 2018, then was outkicked at the end of the 2019 race by Anne Flower to finish second the last time this race was run. Where most participants are happy to finish, Keen's eye is on the prize, even though her last marathon was in Feb. 2020 at the Olympic Trials.
"I'm coming off of a lot of running without racing," Keen said. "I've been training all summer when it was hot. You're just dragging yourself through it, picking yourself up every day. I think it's probably going to be for my benefit. The weather looks pretty good."
In the previous 22 trots of 26.2 miles, there has only been a trio of female winners who have crossed "The Finish Swine" as champion twice. In the second and third years of the race, Becky Gallaher won in 2000 and 2001 back-to-back. Amy Robillard also went back-to-back in 2014 and 2015. Flower, the 2019 champ, is the most recent.
No autumn Flower
On a whim, Anne Flower put in a month's worth of training while working as an emergency room resident and won in 2016. The Anderson Township native, now a full-fledged doctor, repeated in 2019, which technically makes her defending champ since the coronavirus pandemic halted the "live" race in 2020.
Flower is skipping this year's Pig and running in a marathon in Indianapolis the following week. That leaves Keen, now a Fort Worth resident, as a heavy favorite.
Flower, who is hoping to get a PR on a fast course at Indy Nov. 6, is gravitating toward longer races having recently competed out west in events at Moab, Crested Butte and Pike's Peak.
"I've started running ultra marathons in the past few years and have had similar success," Flower said. "Marathon distance is starting to feel too short and fast for me to keep up!"
The emergency physician has not only withstood the grueling races but hasn't yet had to deal with pneumonia, chronic fatigue or any serious ailments despite being surrounded by a work environment full of Covid-19 patients.
She plans on cheering this weekend and points toward Keen, whom she outdueled in 2019 as a runner to watch.
"Caitlin Keen is super fast!" Flower said. "Cincinnatus Elite and Columbus Running Company Elite also have very talented teams. Of course, there are always the 'not yet known' runners who could perform well and finish first."
That was Flower's story in 2016 when she surprised the running community and was crowned champ, outrunning her old high school cross country coach Kerry Lee from Anderson High School.
Kerry on Keen
The 2016 race became one of Lee's four second-place finishes to go along with a pair of third-place efforts. The following year, Lee was bridesmaid no more as she finished with four members of Anderson's boys cross country team by her side. They had taken turns pacing her to a personal best time of 2:53.47. Lee was the first female winner in the 40-44 age category.
In 2018, her time was similar, but Southern Methodist University grad Keen returned to her previous hometown winning by more than seven minutes in 2:46.39. Flower then outsprinted Keen in 2019 when her time slipped by about four minutes.
"She was way ahead of me in 2018 when I was second," Lee said.
After Lee's triumph in 2017 and another second-place finish in the following year, she had setbacks with three major surgeries and treatments. In addition to hamstring reattachments, she battled breast cancer. Thus, she will return Sunday, but in a different racing capacity.
"I'm part of the pace team and will be running the second half of the marathon with the 3:15 pace group," Lee said. "Before I started racing the Pig I was part of this pace team. It's so rewarding to help others try to reach their goals."
Lee looks forward to the October racing weather but hopes her rehabilitation leads to another opportunity when the race returns to the first Sunday in May of 2022.
"Coming back in May to race the full would be a dream for me," Lee said. "I'll let you know if I'm able to get there."
Keen back on the scene
After her 2018 victory, Caitlin Keen donated her winnings to her old St. Mary's Elementary School. She looks forward to running through Hyde Park on Erie Avenue with a lead. As a youngster, she would view the marathon dreaming of someday leading the pack.
In her last marathon during the Olympic trials in Atlanta, she ran 2:48 on a hilly course, faster than her 2019 Pig finish. Though more than a year and a half ago, Keen feels she's in just as good a shape as she was for her jaunt through Georgia.
Her parents are coming from Fort Worth for the race and she still has family that will greet her along the way. Family or not, she looks forward to hearing people along the route.
"I don't know where the last two years of life really went with Covid," Keen said. "You blinked and fast-forwarded two years. I'm happy we can race again, that's for sure."
Keen also has a half-marathon title in her name in Dallas. Sunday will just be her sixth marathon with three of them coming in Cincinnati. Becoming the next two-time winner is a topic she doesn't avoid.
"It's heavy on my mind. I think about it every day," Keen said. "I'm in really good shape to do that and have a great day. That's obviously my goal. At the same time, I don't want to make that so much what the day is about that I'm disappointed. This is my first race in 610 days!"
Win or lose, Zip's is on the menu Sunday, followed by a Skyline Chili visit Monday.
"I'm in shape for something faster than my previous years," Keen said. "We'll just see how the day shakes out."
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