One of my favorite things about the Indy 500 is the intro to the broadcast…

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In 2012 they also ran this video… a tribute to Dan Wheldon, the 2011 winner who had died a 6 months before the race.

My first 500 Festival Mini Marathon (13.1miles) last year was a mess. I ran a 2:39:32 but I gave myself a pass on it because it was like the hottest Mini EVAR. In November I ran a 2:11:55 in the Monumental Half Marathon… that was more like it.  I was happy but annoyed that I JUST missed having 10:00/mile pace by 55 seconds.

So my goal coming into this year’s Mini was just that… 10:00/mile pace… and my stretch goal was finishing under 2 hours… that’s a 9:11/mile pace.

I was running all spring and doing fairly well I thought.  My training 10mile runs were at a 9:34/mile pace and I ran the 15K training run at a 9:17/mile pace…

But then my legs starting yelling at me. Mostly my right lower leg. My calf started getting really tight and that limited my running… so I couldn’t keep up the training as much.

Going into the Mini I was actually kinda worried about being able to do it at all.

So Saturday morning comes and we get our butts up at god-awful in the morning and head downtown along with 35,000 of our closest friends…

A little background… this is the 36th running of the Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini Marathon. It is the largest half marathon in the country with 35,000 runners and has sold out every year for the past 11 years. You start in downtown Indianapolis and run out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, take a lap around the 2.5mi track and then run back downtown.

I was supposed to start in Corral K, which in the picture is about where that circular brick with the green top building is… But Mandie was back in Corral V (where the arrow is) so I wanted to be back with her… Caity was running her first Mini with her boyfriend and they were up there in K… Mandie was feeling a little sick and she was running her first half-marathon alone. She’s always run with someone giving her encouragement… Prior to this her longest solo run was 5 miles.  Caity was also feel sick… sicker than Mandie.  Caity beat me last fall by like 7 minutes, but she wasn’t sure she could make it either.

Here’s a view from the ground…

Yeah that’s a lot of people. Which turns out isn’t conducive to great running… So the gun goes off at 7:30 and off we go… oh… wait… no… off we go slowly shuffling towards the start line… 30 minutes later… Off we go… so I’m trying to run, dodging people, weaving in and out, stopping, starting because there are SO many people… I didn’t actually get any sort of real pace until about a half mile into it. Even still… my first mile was 10:02…

My calf was still hurting a little despite running only like twice in 2 weeks prior and wearing new compression sleeves on my legs… But I was feeling fairly good… rattled off a few nice miles… Mile 2 - 9:25, Mile 3 - 9:18, Mile 4 - 9:31… I was fairly confident I wasn’t going to be able to reach my 2:00:00 goal… I wasn’t too upset I wouldn’t.

I got a little slower in 5, 6 and 7 (10:04, 10:09 & 10:07) but I wasn’t too concerned because I’d accumulated some time in the previous miles… I was still ahead of my goal pace.  At 7 miles I was at 1:08:39… 1:20 under my goal pace.

This is where it started to fall apart. First problem was the track.

I’ve been to the track many times and each time I go I’m still awestruck. First is its size. It’s 2.5 miles around the track and in the infield of the track you can fit Yankee Stadium, Wimbledon, The Rose Bowl, Churchill Down, the Roman Colosseum and the entire Vatican, AT THE SAME TIME. In addition to its size is the fact that… It’s the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This is hallowed ground. I was running on the place where Danny Sullivan had his Spin-And-Win right in front of Mario Andretti… This is where Al Unser Jr and Emmerson Fittipaldi dueled side-by-side in the final laps until they touched…  All of this is just to point out that running on the track itself kind of took my mind out of the game. I was just running along, thousands of other runners… looking around… down the back straight where Mario slowed so many times… around the massive corners (BTW, we don’t run on the corners themselves, but on the warm-up laps… I’d rather not run on the 19degree banked corners)… down the short chute… looking up at the stands where I’ve sat and watched the race in Turn 4… And then the front straight…

Indianapolis is unusual in tracks in that there are stands on both sides of the track. Drivers have talked about coming around Turn 4 to start the race and driving down a canyon of people. Running down the front straight I can totally envision it. 

And as is tradition… when I got to the Yard of Bricks… I got down and kissed them.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built in 1909 and was originally paved with 3.2million bricks. When they paved the final bit of it in 1961 with asphalt, they left a strip of bricks exposed at the Start/Finish line… and as with tradition, when you get to the yard of bricks… you kiss them.

That was me (In the grey) last year… They haven’t put the pics from the race up yet… I hope this year’s pic turns out as good. (As a side note, last year we thought it was odd that it didn’t record when I crossed the bricks… and now I see why… those cones in the picture are to guide you across the timing mat and apparently I ignored them… so I never crossed the timing mat. So there you go.)

So I got up from the bricks and started on my way… I was coming up on 8 miles and realized… Hey, I’m actually supposed to be running a race. Mile 8, 10:45, Elapsed time - 1:19:22… My margin of error was gone… But what was worse my left hamstring had started to feel a twinge. By the time I’d gotten to Mile 9 the twinge was a full blown cramp.  I’d stopped to stretch and walk at the water/gatorade stops and that made it feel better, but when I started running again it started coming back.  Mile 9 - 11:14. I fought back the best I could… but I could only manage a 10:14 for Mile 10. My goal was shot.  Elapsed time 1:40:41… I was 41 seconds over the 10min/mile goal and my cramp was only getting worse.  Mile 11 - 10:38 - Elapsed time 1:51:24.

I started to get really down. My right calf still hurt. My feet hurt. My left hamstring was cramping. I was hot. I was tired. My goal was shot. Mile 12 - 12:33. Elapsed time 2:03:56. I never had a doubt I’d finish, but I didn’t want to finish like this.

And that’s when this song came on…

It started soft and I could barely hear it over the bands that line the race… But once I realized what it was and the chorus played loud I was determined to not finish weak… I mustered up everything I had left, turned down New York Street and ran the best I could. Mile 13 - 10:50…

Finish - 2:17:41 - Avg Pace 10:24min/mile.

It wasn’t what I wanted. But it was the best I could do. I’m disappointed, but I know I can do better and next time I will try again.

After finishing I rushed to get our stuff from the bag check and went to the finish line to cheer Mandie in…

Her original goal was 3 hours. That was 16 minutes faster than she ran in the fall. In the morning before the race she was feeling sick and wasn’t even sure she could finish… but here she was finishing strong… final time: 3:04:43. Kicked its ass.

Caity did well too considering her sickness… she finish in 2:38:43.

This picture makes me happy.