Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

This is a fast course and the weather was close to perfect, so I was hoping to PR. I decided to leave the HR monitor at home and run by feel. That had worked well for me at my last Oly, where I ran faster than I thought I could. I took it easy the first mile, giving my legs a chance to warm up after standing in the cold for so long. Then I picked up the pace, probably a little too much for several miles (<7:10s), before settling in to a more sustainable pace (~7:22s) after the 10K mark. I've been running a lot of 15Ks this season, so I felt strong through mile 9+, but started hearing from my legs by mile 10. However, that's also my favorite part of the course, running along Meridian, where people put out motivational signs and sit in their yards cheering. Someone had written in chalk across the road "RUN FASTER!" - so simple, but it gave me a real boost. The 12th mile back into downtown is a slog, without much crowd support but plenty of wind, and the the last mile.1 breaks your heart over and over as it twists and turns through downtown Indy. During the 2nd half of the race, I'd fallen into pace with a woman in yellow and a woman in pink, and on the 11th mile Yellow and I both started fading a bit as Pink kept her pace. Yellow and I leapfrogged along, never talking but pushing each other just the same. At the mile 12 marker, I said "let's catch our girl in pink" and we both dug in again. We didn't catch her, but we finished with a strong last mile (~7:15). The 3 of us met up at the finish and thanked each other - running with them had kept me from giving in to the hurt.

I'd been watching my mile splits all along, but not doing the math, so I was totally surprised by my time: a 5 minute PR! So, so happy!

Keep my pace in check a little better in the first 10k, but I would have been hurting at the end either way, so I don't think it would have made a huge difference.

Got my medal, mylar blankie, and a nice knit finisher's hat. Then I had to stand to the side for a little while and wait for a wave of nausea to pass. Made it through that without an embarrassing incident then went through the food line, and wow what a spread! Unfortunately, I couldn't eat any solids for a couple of hours, but the chocolate milk was awesome.


5 minute PR, not going to dwell on the negative!


These guys always put on a great race. Super organization, tons of helpful volunteers (some even held signs that said "ASK ME"), great police support on the course, music right when you needed it, nice goodies, and a generous post-race feast (chocolate milk: need I say more?).