OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini Marathon - RunHalf Marathon

mile 5 10 13.1
chip time 0:35:48 1:17:15 1:43:26
section split 0:35:48 0:41:27 0:26:11

section pace 7:10 8:17 8:27


Where do I begin?

I knew I was in trouble the night before when as I was sleeping, I could feel a side stitch. I've been having sharp shooting pains in my abdomin and diaphram area lately that have made running a real challenge.

These hit about 1/5 mile into the race. Granted I probably did start out too fast, but I'm not so sure it would have mattered. Once they set in, I was done. It was everything i could do just to keep moving. My splits above tell the tale fairly well.

Now since I ran 13.1 miles with almost no core support, my legs are screaming because my form was so crappy.

The weather was 'ideal'.... low 60's, light overcast and NO wind. However, it was super humid...so much that you could see your breath while running. The no wind and high humidity made for what I consider less then ideal conditions.

probably not run the race. I really didn't like the venue, and I wasn't feeling the race at the start.

walked through the expo fighting the huge crowd


not sure....must have pissed of some God somewhere


The organization was good, but it was more of a circus then a race. It was definately geared towards slower runners and walkers...the crowd that wanted to experience a socal event and not actually race.

The course itself was nothing special. It was routed on major city streets through bad areas of town. If you like looking at run down homes and buildings, then this race is for you. You did get to run a lap around the speedway, which was very cool, but not as much as you would think. The straights are horribly long and you have to do them twice. I can't stand running on a 400m track... Imagine running on a 2.5 mile one. Other then that, the only cool things to run past were the government buildings within the first and last .25 mile. The rest is junk.

They also had bands all along the course. Most of the time you just heard one band merging with another and most of the bands sucked. They were honestly more annoying then entertaining and did a good job of distracting me. I think part of my problem getting into a solid grove was this.

I will say that water stops were well organized and they did have clocks at all the mile markers, making it easy to pace without a watch. The finish expo was okay as well, with plenty of free food and a free massage...that's if you didn't mind fighting the thousands of other people there. The course was also a very fast and easy course. No big hills at all to speak of, so if i didn't explode 1 mile in, it would have been a good race to get a fast time.

I really don't understand what the big draw to this race is