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| Monument Circle |
As it goes sometimes, most of my marathon drama occurred the week before the marathon. In addition to adjusting to a new job so to speak (my original job location was destroyed by a tornado), four days prior to the marathon I rammed my toe into the corner of the bed. I didn't think I broke it at first, but panicked about 24 hours later when it turned purple and hurt to walk on. Luckily I turned out to be right the first time, as an x-ray would show no fracture, and the toe continued to improve every day until it was a non issue come race day. What's funny is the x-ray tech/philosopher suggested that I ask myself why did this happen, indeed, is there some sort of subconscious plot to dislodge myself from the race, perhaps due to lack of confidence or fear of failure? I gave it some thought. It had been a terrible summer of training. On one long run I came perilously close to lying down on a park bench and calling it a day. I finished another long run on a treadmill after crying uncle from the heat outdoors. A lot of walking was involved. Speed work was out of the question. Still, I concluded that I'm just a pretty clumsy person. I will admit though, that situations like these always leave me feeling ever more grateful at the opportunity to be able to toe the line and run yet another marathon.
So onward about the marathon! Although I love the more scenic and smaller marathons, it was nice to mix it up this year with an urban one. As far as urban marathons go, this one has been flying under the radar, but I think the word is getting out, as it had a record sell out in all three races for the first time, with about 5,000 full marathoners and twice that for the half marathon. Not only is it a flat and fast course, but logistically a really easy race as well. The start and finish are in the center of downtown, with several hotels just a couple of blocks away. Several restaurants and stores are within walking distance too.
Our only real concern was the weather. With a forecast of a 27 degree low, this was going to be the coldest marathon most of us have ever ran, so what to wear? Conversations went back and forth for days about vests vs two long sleeved tech tops, vs upper layer throwaways, etc etc. As Texans we rarely run in temperatures much below freezing, but in the end I think we all pretty much nailed it. Hand warmers in the gloves was HUGE! From now on I am using hand warmers on colder runs. They were still warm when I finally tossed them after about 3 hours.
Since the hotel was so close to the start we decided to forego checking a bag and just run straight into the starting corrals with less than 30 minutes to go. This saved us from having to deal with porta potties and having to drop off the bag and later retrieving the bag. So easy! The only bad part was that Laura (LSP) and I ditched our sweats and were ready to run, but our corral didn't head off until 15 minutes later and it was COLD COLD COLD! Before too long though, FINALLY, we were off!
With the half marathoners with us it was way too crowded at first. There was lots of dodging combined with a lot of turns and some uneven spots in the pavement. We rounded Monument circle, a scenic part I was looking forward to, but came to a near dead stop as we all funneled in and around. I wasn't able to settle into a pace until around mile 4 or 5. They need to rethink this going forward. At any rate, the half marathoners peeled off just past mile 7 and we were on our own for the rest of the race.
Just before mile 9 we passed under the Monon trail, which is where I ran when I came here a couple of years ago. We passed a lot of sights and through a lot of neighborhoods, all alive with spectators, even on such a cold morning! They had water stops at practically every mile and every single one of them had tons of volunteers! Lots and lots of kids were either handing out water or cheering for the runners. It was really great to see a city embrace their marathon!
There was also quite a few bands on the course, all varied from country to new wave to hip hop. There was even an all boys choir singing! There was a long dreary stretch with no buildings and no spectators on the second half of the course, so they had funny signs and trivia signs to entertain you. (But to be honest I was having a bad moment and didn't think anything was funny so I ignored most of them). Yes, there were some bad stretches here and there. Sometimes we were on what I thought was too busy of a road or on a road that was a bit too beat up, but I'd use my music to pull me along and keep me out of a funk about it.
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| Museum Grounds |
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| Passed this on mile 19...appropriate! |
Around mile 19 we entered the grounds of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and ran along a beautiful tree lined path around to the front of the museum and then exited the park. I really enjoyed that! I had been holding a consistent pace until just past mile 20, then starting slowing down some, but never got to a point where I had to give in to walking. I just had those bad stretches, especially when the wind would kick up, as it was mostly head wind as we headed back into downtown. Doing the math I could tell I was going to come in under 4:30, which I guess is my new benchmark these days, so all was good. I did enjoy those last few miles, especially the long stretch on Meridian street into the heart of the city. You could hear the finish line echoing off the buildings and people were lined up behind barricades for quite a distance. I forgot how fun these large urban finishes are. It turns out that Toby was right there yelling at me as I rounded the corner to the finish, but I didn't even see or hear him.
I came in at 4:23. I'll take it. I got processed through the chute, grabbed a bag of chips, then headed back to the hotel before the shivering kicked in. Before the race we had said to each other to just finish and head back to the hotel and not wait for each other (because of the cold), but it turns out Toby and LSP were there and they couldn't find me in the finisher's area. I think this was the only real disappointment-finishing alone and not hanging around for beers or anything, but it really was just too cold for any of that. I did love the cold weather on the course though! I was never too cold while running! Everyone else had a great race too and had very positive things to say about this one. Let's see, the expo was decent enough with race gear to buy, and if you're into posters they were handing them out for free. Our race shirts were decent short sleeved shirts. We received finisher's hats as well. The medal is interesting in that it's part of a 4-part series, which is great if you run the race four years in a row because they fit together like a puzzle. I wish I had more to add about the finish line! I can't believe I missed out on free beer!
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| A marathon in tights! Quite rare |
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| A lovely day with great friends |
