Cross-post from my log:
INDY MINI RACE REPORT - LOOOOOOOOONG!!!
5/5/07
DISTANCE: 13.1 miles
TIME: 1:44:27
AVE. PACE: 7:59/mile
Friday 5/4/07 -- After months of anticipation... finally I was on the road to Indy to meet up with Jim (twinsavsvikingsfan), Ralph (kmwest), and Jamie (JRuck37) from the forums for the first annual Runners' "Summit."
The 7 hour trip was uneventful, although I realized when I crossed the Ohio River from Louisville into Indiana that I hadn't been too good about hydrating. So I chugged another big cup of coffee (had already had several due to not sleeping well at all on Thursday night) and downed 2 liters of water between Southern Indiana and our hotel in Indianapolis.
I met up with Jim at the hotel around 4:30pm. Jim's a really outgoing guy, so it didn't seem too odd at all to actually meet someone from the forums for only the second time (I met Buk last year in Birmingham for the Mercedes Marathon and Half). We took off to the Expo to pick up our packets and hook up with Jamie. The Expo was okay - I'm not all that into them - and we struck out on our major quest while there... the free Snickers Marathon Bars. But we did get the photo with Danica.
Jamie's brother-in-law and sister-in-law arrived at the Expo, both really nice people, and we headed out for dinner. We were surprised to get seated immediately at Houlihan's, just a block or two from the Expo. Although we were afraid that wasn't a very good sign, hunger won out... and we had a decent dinner and talked for awhile while loading up on more water. Unfortunately, we had to serve our own water, but what the hey. Then Jim and I headed back to the hotel and made it back much faster than our more roundabout trip in to downtown Indy looking for the Expo!
Saturday - 5/5/07 - Wow, that 4:45AM alarm came early!! I wasn't feeling so great with about 4 hours of sleep on Thursday and maybe 5 on Friday night. I was pretty glad when Jim hopped out of bed to take his shower first, so I could get an extra 10 minutes of semi-sleep. We carbed up on the Ramada Inn free Continental breakfast and then drove downtown to the race. We were expecting a mob, but it was pretty dead when we got down there around 6AM, and we parked at the closest garage to the race start on the first floor! We spent the next hour wandering around the race start and using the porta johns while apparently playing hide and seek with Ralph, who we intended to hook up with before the race. There was a lot of pre-race water and gatorade - everything seemed very well organized.
About 7:15, we decided to stop playing peekaboo with Ralph (wherever he was!) and I started the long walk back to the H Corral.
The race started a little bit after 7:30AM, and from the H Corral, it took about 6 minutes for us to get to cross the mats at the start line. This was the first time I have run a race anywhere near this large, aside from Boston. But Boston is corralled really well according to runners' qualification times and moves smoothly in spite of the crowding. I had screwed up ahead of this race and forgot to send in proof of my previous race results, so I wound up in a corral behind people who had submitted proof of being able to run a 2:30 1/2-M and were placed into "preferred corrals" immediately behind the fast corrals. So, I knew it was going to be a logjam. My goal time was 1:35 or about 7:15/mile, although I didn't really know whether I would be able to run it with only 5 weeks of training after a 4 month injury layoff.
Mile 1 - 7:54 -- I was pretty happy that the first mile was only 40 seconds off my goal pace given the very crowded field. Fortunately, I was able to run over on the side of the road on the grass for a decent portion of this mile, but in other parts that wasn't possible, and it was very slow.
Mile 2 - 7:23 - Better, but still a lot of crowding. Actually, I think I was running too fast when I could get over on the side of the crowd. Many times when I looked down at my Forerunner, it was giving me real time paces of well under 7:00/mile and sometimes under 6:30.
Mile 3 - 7:11 - This seemed right on pace. I was feeling really good, but again, this 7:11 came from a mix of running too fast and too slow rather than a nice even pace.
5K split - 23:16 - Probably would have been happy at the end if I could have stayed on this average pace
Mile 3.1 to 5 - 14:40 (7:43 ave pace) - Not good, but I had to make a portajohn pit stop in here due to my last one before getting into the corral happening 30 minutes before the race start. This is only the second time I've made a pit stop during a race -- the other one happening during Boston where there was a similar situation of not being able to hit the porto for a long time before the race start. Oh well. And I was still having to do the run-on-the-side thing fairly often during this stretch.
Mile 6 - 7:47 - Wow, that sucked. I think at this point, I was starting to give up mentally if not physically. Maybe physically, too. I'm not in condition for all that "fast interval" stuff during a race. I felt good while it was happening, though.
10K Split - 47:24
Yikes. Oh, by the way. If you are into scenic courses, this is not the race for you. It essentially winds through dilapidated neighborhoods between downtown Indianapolis (which is very nice) and the Indianapolis Speedway.
Mile 6.2 to 7 - 6:05 (7:36 pace) - I think this was where we got funneled into the Indy Speedway. That created a little more logjamming, but then it seemed to open up for awhile on the first long side of the track.
Mile 8 - 7:30 - On the Speedway. I guess this was okay. I remember feeling like it got crowded again on the second long side of the track around a water stop. I know I was really starting to feel the fatigue here.
Mile 9 - 8:02 - Uh, yeah. Definitely getting fatigued... tired of the crowded field, etc. The Speedway wasn't as cool as expected - I think everyone agreed with that.
15K Split - 71:57
Mile 9.3 to 10 - 5:41 (8:07 pace) - I suck. I want this to be over!
Mile 11 - 8:12 - At this point, I hate my Garmin, because my eyes are practically glued on it, ticking off every 0.1 mile. Ugh!
Mile 12 - 8:45 - Wow, I'm dying like at mile 24 of a marathon.
Mile 13.1 - 10:06 (9:11 ave pace). That finish line looked almost as good as the ones at the end of a marathon.
POSTRACE - This race was well organized at the end. At first, I really thought I was going to puke from attempting to sprint the last 0.25 miles. I was determined not to have an 8:00 average pace and knew I was right on the line - LOL. Funneled through the food line, where they asked us to only take one of each item, including a bottle of water. Photographers were stationed to take photos of us with our medals on. I'm sure I'll look really good absolutely drenched with sweat from cap to shoes.
Jim and Ralph (finally) found me at the bag check. We milled around in the postrace park area for awhile on a seemingly unending quest for more water. Apparently, the idea was that once the runners were out into the postrace park area and beyond the immediate finish line, we were supposed to BUY water! Interesting, since the majority of runners weren't likely out their with their wallets and purses, and we hadn't been brave enough to stick them into our bags at the bag check. However, later a table with water pitchers miraculously appeared (obviously they heard us bitching), and volunteers graciously filled our water bottles just as the vultures were starting to circulate over our shriveled, dehydrated corpses. We tried to connect with Jamie after the race, but that didn't work out, and we decided we would meet up with him later that evening. Ralph, Jim, and I headed out from downtown Indy, and somehow Jim's car was teleported into the parking lot of a greasepit in Tijuana, Mexico. Even though the restrooms had no soap or paper towels, we decided if we were tough enough to run a half-marathon, we were tough enough to eat Mexican food prepared by cooks who hadn't washed their hands after wiping their asses. Actually, the food was pretty good!
Ralph wanted to start a hot sauce shooters contest, but he was the only one brave enough to down some of the feces-contaminated "homemade" concoction. After we were certain he wouldn't puke all over the back of Jim's car, we left Mexico to head back to downtown Indy to drop Ralph off at his car and send him on his merry way and back to his family who allegedly misses him while he is in Virginia.
Jim and I went back to the hotel, where we both lapsed into a 4+ hour coma. Thankfully, Jamie called and saved us from sleeping until Sunday. We decided to catch the Indianapolis Indians baseball game back downtown. Even though the baseball stadium was one block from where we had parked for the race, Jim and I decided to take a 45 minute tour of downtown Indianapolis, checking out the various skyscrapers, the RCA dome, the new stadium under construction, and a couple of ghettos. Finally, we decided it was time to head on over to the stadium, which we DID KNOW exactly where it was from the beginning... it was just that we WANTED to see every square block of downtown Indy and the ghettos.
Jamie and his brother-in-law, Charlie, came down for the game, and we all stretched our legs out on the lawn (very good idea), talked, and drank a couple of beers and ate overpriced stadium junk food. A perfect way to end the race day! We all agreed that we need to plan a second summit and get some more people to show up.
The only negative was that I was sort of disappointed that Hot Gym Chick never showed up to stalk Jim.
Sunday - 5/6/07 - Jim and I planned to take up the Indy Mini folks on their offer of a free pancake breakfast and a chance to see the Rookies practice at the Speedway, but we found out that no cars would be out there until Noon. So we took the Ramada up on their free breakfast offer instead and decided to head home early.
What a great weekend! Jim, Ralph, and Jamie are all really great guys...which I already knew from interacting with them here for a couple of years or more. It's pretty amazing to finally meet the "avatars" in person after so much time. I hope we are able to do it again sometime soon and get a bigger group to show up.
As far as the run - I was disappointed, but this just gives me a true picture of how much work I have to do to get back into shape for racing. I ran a 1:26 half-marathon just six months ago, so an 18 minute increase!
On the other hand, as late as the end of March, I was really wondering whether I would be able to run it at all. I'm hoping I just had a bad day and wore myself out with running on the side of the road, dodging, etc. since I ran 11 miles at home, six days earlier, at the same average pace but with some hard hills. I'll figure that out as I continue to train. I have a long time before any more major races (late Fall of this year). I did run in the Nike Free 5.0 v2's and felt fine in them. I still think I feel generally better post-long runs in these shoes versus others, but I'll have to figure out whether I am running slower in them and whether I can adapt. No pain from the ITB problem!!!
Here's a cool image from Google Earth using the data from my Garmin showing the race route around the Indy Speedway (you can see the thin red line, sort of, which is the data from my Garmin):
JPF Runners' Summit / Indy Mini Report
Linear Mode
