Indianapolis Marathon - RunMarathon

I doubt I would have ever signed up for a marathon on my own, but for the past few years my dad has been saying that he wanted to do one before he turned 60. Well, his 60th birthday is next month, so this year was our year.

I came down sick about a month before the race, missed a bunch of training including what should have been my peak long run, and I'm still not fully recovered. I also bruised my shinbone the Sunday before the race, so I definatly wasn't in top shape.

For the first mile, I got a jolt of pain from my leg every other step. That went numb in the first mile, so I was actually feeling pretty good. Dad and I finished mile 1 in just under 11 minutes and I said to him, "There goes the fastest mile of the day." Little did I know I was going to be able to hold the same pace over the next 9 miles. Dad faded back around mile 3 when we hit some hills and I kept at it. From mile 4 - 9, I felt bizarrely good. Endorphines kicking in early, I guess.

Mile 10-11 was the slowest of the day due to terrain - took about 14 min. It seemed like it was constant ups and downs. None of the hills were very long, but they were steep and the conbination of wet pavement and my injured right leg meant I wasn't comfortable coasting down the hills quickly like I usually do.

I passed a lot of people in the first half and in comparison, not many passed me. I suppose that's because I started in the second to last corral, but it made me feel good.

The turn off for the half marathoners came and suddenly I was all alone! It makes me nervous when I can't see anyone ahead of me. I caught up and started passing people shortly after though. The long out and back was tedious. I kept expecting the turn around and it just didn't come, and didn't come, and didn't come. Had I studies the course map a bit more, I would have know that the turn wasn't until mile 19. Oh well.

Somewhere around mile 14, my throat started to get pretty sore. Good thing I had the foresight to put a few lozenges in my pocket. They were a real lifesaver!

I could feel myself slowing down after the halfway mark, but I still felt ok. Finally came to mile 19 and knew all I had to do was head back to the finish! Crossed paths with Dad when I was nearing mile 20 and he was just passing mile 18. He was looking pretty strong too, especially considering the longest he'd went in training was 15 or so miles.

Stopped to kick some rocks out of my shoes a couple of times, but other than that, I only walked when I was drinking water or gatorade. I'd brought 3 servings worth of sports beans and planned on eating at least 2 through the race. I usually like them best because you can eat just a few at a time, which is good on my extra sensitive stomach. I like to eat 3 or 4 at a time. It turned out to be bothersome though. I take them with water, but didn't want them to slow me down, so the plan was to start chewing them before the water station then to walk while I downed them and the water. Well, I couldn't always see the aid stations until I was right up on them and my mouth was a bit dry so they were kind of hard to chew before getting the water. I ended up just drinking gatorade about every other or every third station, and it worked out fine. When I got home, I realized only only eaten about one packet worth.

Coming back in to the finish seemed to go faster than the trip out to mile 19, even though I knew I was slowing down. Didn't really start to feel tired until mile 23 or so, and even that wasn't too bad. My feet were hurting, but my hip flexer muscles, which always seem to be the first to tire out felt fine. The worst was the pain in my chronically sore left shoulder and the left side of my neck. I was constantly shaking out my left hand and stretching out my shoulder.

I'd heard there was a long hill in the last mile or so, and I saw it, but it didn't really register. I didn't feel like it was slowing me down or make me work harder. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention. At the top, one of the volunteers announced we'd made it to the peak and I thought, 'Huh, really? That's it?'

I gave an extra little push to the finish, though it wasn't what you would call a sprint. Didn't have enough energy left for that. Crossed the finish line, got my food and headed back to the finish so I could cheer on Dad as he came through.

I expected him to be about 20 minutes behind based on where he was the last time I'd seen him and I was pretty much spot on. He finished between 20 and 21 minutes behind me. He actually finished the race as the 5:30 pace guy. The actual pace guy, Steve, is a marathon junky and will have completed more than 90 this year alone. Dad fell in with him and in the homestretch, the pace guy gave him the sign and told him to finish out strong.



Train more, don't get sick, don't get injured... Also, use a bigger bandade on the small of my back where the tag from my running tights chafes. Or maybe I should just rip out the tag. I had one regular sized bandade but there's a good little area just below it that got all buggered up. It's scabbed over today. Not too pleasant. Didn't notice it at all during the race though.

I'm actually pretty pleased with how I did. With being sick and missing my peak week of training, I was worried about how far off my original goal I would be. When I originally signed up, I wanted to finish in 5 hours. Closer to the race, I felt I would be lucky for 5:30. And I never felt miserable, which I feared would happen in the final few miles, so I consider the race a big success.

Didn't do much. A few stretches after we got back to the car and that was it.


Getting sick three weeks before the race and not being fully recovered. Bruising my shinbone before the race probably didn't help much either. I'm sure I could have done much better had I trained more than three days a week, but that's all the motivation I had for this year with all the other activities I wanted to fit in over the summer.


I really liked the scenic aspects of the course. I even saw a deer between mile 7 and 8. There's also a point around mile 2 where you leave the road and go onto a paved bike trail through a stand of walnut trees. Being walnut trees, they'd already lost all their leaves and this string of brightly colored runners - hot orange, yellow, green etc - goes bobbing their way through the desolate looking woods. It was quite pretty, like a strange migration of exotic animals.