Indianapolis Monumental race report

I've had a few days to process it and I have a little time right now so I guess I'll write about it.

Before getting into the details, I just want to say that it is a really nice race. I enjoyed it last time I ran it (the inaugural event) and it has definitely improved over the years (under different management, I believe, since the second year). As far as organization, the course, every little thing that goes into putting on a successful event, overall they do a nice job.

But not much they can do about the weather! Which basically sucked.

And not much they can do about my lack of training or my psychological state!

But I went there and I tried to relax and enjoy myself a bit, and I did manage to finish (even though, at times, I thought it was really stupid to be out there continuing).

The Day Before

We decided it made more sense for Tommy to stay home with the dogs and for me to travel by myself. For one thing, I would avoid four hours of extra driving taking the dogs to and from the kennel. For another, Tommy could get some more work done on his porch project. The down side was that I had to drive myself there and back, endure loneliness, and have to check myself out of the hotel in the morning before the race.

I wanted to leave around 10 am so I could get there around noon and make it to the expo in time to hear Wesley Korir speak at 1 pm. But I didn't manage to make it out the door until 11. Oh well. The drive was relatively uneventful. I stopped for lunch at a Subway, and in honor of Korir, I purchased a tuna sub. Although unlike Korir, I did not purchase a second sub to give to a homeless person. I'm just not as good as he is.

Once I got to Indy, I wished that I had spent a little more time figuring out on a map where the expo and pasta dinner took place, so I could figure out a sensible route, rather than relying on the GPS to guide me. But I didn't have to drive around the block too many times before finding a parking garage near the convention center. Unfortunately, I think I picked the more expensive of the available options. But at least it was a short walk.

Hanging at the Expo

I found the expo pretty quickly, and made my way back to the registration table to pick up my bib and shirt. There was also a poster (which I have thrown away), but otherwise not much else in the goody bag, which was a brown paper supermarket bag with handles. The race chip was embedded in the bib, just like the way they did it in the first year.

I took a walk around the expo. It was about standard for a mid-sized race. I saw a lot of nice stuff but told myself that I didn't really need anything. Nick Willis was not going to speak until 3 pm, and then the pasta dinner was not until 6. I didn't want to move my car out of the garage to drive to my hotel and then have to come back here later for the pasta dinner. It was going to be a long afternoon.

I remembered that I wanted to buy a new fanny pack for my gels, because the one I planned to use was starting to fall apart. I found an identical one and bought it. This purchase activity loosened the purse strings and soon I was perusing the sale races. I bought a couple pairs of warmup pants (which I like to use for dogwalking and agility) at 50 percent off.

I sat down in one of the chairs in front of the stage where they had the speakers and waited for Nick Willis. Some others joined me.

And soon he appeared, in a Reebok (his sponsor) shirt and jeans, looking a lot cuter in person than he does in all the Flotrack videos I have seen of him over the last five years. Taller and cuter. Not too scrawny considering he is a miler. I remind myself that he is my daughter's age.

Anyway, he gives a nice little talk about, if I had to sum it up, recognizing the importance of your support systems and just being happy to enjoy running. He spoke a little about how fortunate he felt to have had the opportunity to come to the USA to train with Ron Warhurst at the U. of Michigan, and what it means to him to continue the great tradition of New Zealand track athletes. He took us through his experiences at the Olympics in 2004 (when he made the 1500 meter final), 2008 (when he won the bronze in the 1500 meters, which was later upgraded to silver when the winner subsequently tested positive), and this past summer when he had been running great leading up to the Games but totally bombed in the final.

His theme, as I said, seemed to be about how recognizing the importance of having a team behind him helped him win that medal in 2008. After 2004, he added his brother, his sister-in-law, and his wife to his support team, in addition to Warhurst, and it paid off. I thought about how my support team was just Tommy, and he wasn't here. Oh well.

He also spoke a little about recovering from the disappointment of the 2012 Olympics, and how as he got back into training, he wanted to always remember the joy that there is to be found in simply going for a run. This was how he attempted to connect to a topic that might be of interest to Joe Marathoner. I didn't really care about that---I have followed this guy's career for the last few years and I was happy to just hear him talk about himself, I didn't need him to connect it to me. It didn't need to have anything to do with marathoning.

Anyway, he took some questions. I don't remember what the other people asked, but I asked him if he was planning to move up in distance. He said that since he was still improving in the 1500, he wasn't really thinking about that. Makes sense, I guess. I just asked because it seems like that is the progression that so many of the professionals follow. But he's right, he is an Olympic medalist and he is still improving, so why move up? Leave that to the guys who can't compete at the 1500. Which, I have to agree, let't face it, is real running. Yeah, I'm a miler at heart, too.

When he was finished, I went up and boldly asked somebody to take my picture with him. Like he was some kind of zoo animal. I didn't even ask for his autograph! I just wanted the picture. I'm sure he thought I was some kind of crazy stalker. But afterwards, I wondered if maybe he had to be careful that I wasn't wearing any clothing from Nike or Adidas or Asics or whomever. Especially Nike. Maybe his contract with Adidas says he can't have a picture taking with somebody wearing the Swoosh. Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Nick's talk was finished around 3:30 pm. Still so much time to kill. Emboldened, I went over to the Kenyan Kids Foundation booth. That's Wesley Korir's charity. He was standing behind the table. I told him that I was sorry that I didn't get to hear his talk, but I really supported what he was doing. He told me that he was collecting donations via PayPal and that for $30 you could get a shirt. He turned me over to another couple of volunteers who took my information on their iPad.

Later, I found myself wondering if it was really Wesley Korir whom I spoke with or if it was another Kenyan guy who was with him. Later when Korir spoke at the pasta dinner he seemed a lot more self-confident than the guy at the booth. If this guy was embarrassed because I had confused him with Wesley Korir, that would explain things. Stupid old white woman.

Still had time to kill before the pasta dinner. Sat through another speaker, the guy who was the head of the company in charge of the pace teams. Pace teams have come a long way from their terrible debut at the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon in San Diego. The whole thing has become quite professional. Anyway, this guy spoke on six secrets to running a good marathon, or something like that. Let's see how many I can remember:

1) Pick the right pace team. (This one I failed, BTW!) This means, be realistic about what you will be able to run. Don't pick a number out of thin air or because it sounds good. Base it on the reality of your training and the conditions.

2) Oh, I am realizing that I am not sure I remember the rest. Okay, another one was "Wear the right clothes" or don't wear new untested clothes, or something like that. But I don't think it was number two.

3) Was there something about not eating weird food? I don't remember! Gosh, I really can't remember the rest of the things he said at all, but I enjoyed his talk. He seemed like a good guy.

After that last presentation, I headed over to the pace team booth and chatted briefly with a Chinese woman named Hong who was the 4:10 team leader. She seemed really nice and I thought that maybe I would start the race with her group and see how it went. (Wrong pace for me, unfortunately. See #1, above.)

I still had over an hour until the pasta dinner. I decided to go sit in the lobby of the Westin. Found a comfy chair and settled in. Facebooked a little and read a book on the Kindle app on my phone. Overheard people talking about the NYC marathon being cancelled, which had just been announced.

Around 6 pm, I headed upstairs to the ballroom where they were having the dinner. It was not very well-policed, and I think I could have gone in to sit down and eat without actually having paid for the dinner. Nobody was collecting the "tickets."

There were plenty of seats available. I looked around for a promising table of friendly folks to dine with. I settled on a table in the middle of the room with four woman sitting at it. They turned out to be nice enough, but they were all half-marathoners. You would be surprised how much of a difference this made. I really wasn't in the mood to have to answer a lot of questions about marathoning. I wanted to sit with a group of people with whom I could actually share experiences. At least two of the women were first time half-marathoners and it sounded like they were walkers. So I didn't have a whole lot in common with them on that score.

Wesley Korir and Nick Willis spoke during the dinner. Wesley didn't talk for very long, but as I said, I was left wondering if he was the guy I had met at the expo or not. Nick gave a slightly different version of the talk he had given at the expo. It started out quite differently, and at first I wondered if it was actually going to be a different presentation, which would have really impressed me.

The dinner itself was kind of odd. They brought the food out to us instead of having a buffet. There was a tossed salad, which was okay except that the only dressing was a very thick caesar/ranch concoction that had been sitting on the table for awhile and congealing. There were rolls and butter, also okay. And then they brought out the pasta, which was a smallish serving of ziti covered with a tomato sauce. But the strangest thing was the chicken breast that sat atop each serving of pasta. It tasted good but I think most of us would have preferred more pasta. And I was left wondering what the vegetarians were supposed to do. The wait staff was not very communicative (mostly Mexican) and the basically just brought the food out and didn't offer any other options.

As Nick's presentation winded down, I realized that we were not getting any dessert. That was also odd. Usually at these things there is some kind of cake or brownie. What kind of catered meal is it when you don't get a dessert? Overall, it was a very disappointing pasta dinner.

After dinner, I headed to the hotel. It was just a couple blocks away but after driving there I really had not idea where we were in relation to the start. I stayed at the Marriott Courtyard, which had a convenient outdoor parking lot where I could leave my car during the race after checking out of the hotel---they were not giving late checkout because they were booked for the next night. My room was spacious and comfortable, and there was a delicious sugar cookie waiting for me which made up for not getting dessert at the dinner. I watched some TV and Facebooked until I got tired enough to go to bed. I was comfortable in the room and I think I recall sleeping reasonably well. Didn't I? Or did I have nightmares? I don't remember!

Race Morning

Note: I'm returning to this report after a ridiculous amount of time has gone by. But I would like to get it done! Okay, what do I remember? I followed the standard ritual of getting up early enough so that I could finish drinking two hours before the start. I had the motel room coffee and a Picky Bar. It was too early to take advantage of the bagels and coffee they had promised down in the lounge. Nice of them to offer, though.

I wore...gosh, I don't even remember what I wore now! Did I wear the CW-X capris? I know that I had my old torn up blue nylon anorak and I ended up leaving it in the car, so it survived another race. Yeah, I don't really remember what I wore. I think I had a long sleeved shirt and a thin jacket and my thin black gloves.

I was a little confused about the direction to the start from the hotel. I found a guy and (I'm guessing) his daughter (but could have been his wife, it was dark out. He was older, she seemed younger. But she was kind of heavy, not trophy-wife type). Anyway, I walked with them. I think he said it was his second marathon? And he had been targeting 4:00 but he'd been injured or sick or something so he was just going to go out with the 4:20 pace team. Like I should have done, as it turned out.

I had timed it pretty well so I didn't have to wait too long at the start. It wasn't raining, yet. I found the 4:10 pace group and chatted with them. Figured I would start with them and adjust as needed.
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The Race

I must have been delusional. The gun went off, we shuffled to the start---didn't take too long---and the pace team leader took off. And the rest of the group went with her. I couldn't even run a block with them. So much for the going out slow.

My pace, for the first mile, actually was a little bit faster than I would have liked if I was going to do the classic 10, 9:50, 9:40, 9:30 cut down. First mile was 9:44. That was dumb.

My condition (or decay, as it were) can be evaluated by breaking the race up into three segments.

The First Eight Miles

I'm looking back over the course description as I go through this part. I do really like the course. It's flat but there's plenty to see. Not boring. Lots of turns but can still be fast on a good weather day if you're trained properly. Anyway, the first couple miles go through the core downtown area, and then you head north.

First, you run around Lucas Oil Stadium, otherwise known as the House that Peyton Built. In mile 2 & 3, you run though Monument Circle, by the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Near mile 3, you pass the Federal Building and the Courthouse. Mile 3 to 4 is run along Massachusetts Ave., an area of restaurants, galleries, theaters, and boutique shops.

I don't remember much about miles 4 to 8. I think it is mostly residential. Anyway, I was pretty much holding a pace in the 9:40s for these first eight miles. I knew that wasn't going to continue.

The half-marathoners split off from us just past mile 7, and I was happy to see them go. Pretenders. Actually, I was jealous and wishing I was only doing a half. But as I heard someone say, we didn't travel all this way just to run a half-marathon.

The Second Eight Miles

Between miles 8 and 9 we pass my favorite part of the course, which is the Indiana State Fairgrounds. It's my favorite part because of all my happy memories of showing dogs in conformation at the big Indy Cluster in February the past 6 years or so, and before that the time I took Libby there for dockdiving.

The fairgrounds, of course, like fairgrounds seemingly everywhere, is not in a good neighborhood. But just past the fairgrounds we make a right turn and head into a very lovely neighborhood of large, older homes. I'm not sure what this area is called but it's probably the nicest residential area of the course.

In miles 13 to 14, we run through the village of Broad Ripple, which is an area of interesting restaurants and shops. If I lived in Indy, I'd probably want to live in Broad Ripple.

In the second eight miles, my pace climbed into the 10:00 range. I was keeping it under 11, though. Still not too horrible. The 4:20 pace team caught me around the halfway point, and I wondered what it would have been like if I had started with them. I tried to stay with them, but by mile 16 I couldn't keep up.

The Last Ten Miles

And here is where the wheels came off. But to continue with our travelogue, you pass by the Governor's Mansion between miles 16 and 17. I was already feeling so bad that I don't even remember much about it.

In mile 17, the course runs through the Butler University campus. I enjoy this part of the race, but this year the bad news was that the rain (which had begun falling awhile ago) was turning into sleet. So basically, it all started getting really miserable. I was thinking that if there was anyway that the course would pass by my hotel early, I would just drop out.

In mile 19, you run through the grounds of the Indy Art Museum. This is another pretty part of the course.

I don't remember much about the last six miles of the race, as far as the scenery. There isn't really much written in the info guide, either, except for a bunch of monuments near the end. I think I remember running through some sort of park somewhere in there, but that's about it.

Anyway, pace-wise, I was in the 11s for miles 17-20, and then I climbed up to 12s for 21-25. I was not enjoying myself. Freezing rain is absolutely my least favorite conditions to run a race in. Well, isn't that true for everybody? I was in a pretty bad mood about being there, feeling kind of stupid about the whole thing, and remembering that after I finished I was going to have to climb in the car and drive myself home, which really was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

I managed to pick it up a bit to an 11:32 for mile 26. I just wanted to get it over with. I finally did pass by my hotel but it was just a half-mile from the finish, so that didn't do my any good!

Post-Race

Finally got there, and I guess I was glad to have finished it. I got a handshake from a guy who might have been the race director. The finisher's medal is really quite nice. They also gave out knit running caps that had a race logo patch sewn on and the word "finisher." It was an ugly cap but still kind of a neat idea. Unfortunately, I dropped mine somewhere on my way back to the hotel.

Food-wise, there was a tent where they were supposedly serving chili, but they were out of it when I got there. They said they were bringing more but I didn't want to wait around. So, after asking a couple of people I got pointed in the right direction and started the painful walk back to my hotel, which was not too far away but it was still kind of rough in the nasty weather.

Back at the hotel, I got my bag out of the car and headed inside. I went into the bathroom on the first floor and just spread out inside the handicapped stall. After I got into dry clothes, I did feel a whole lot better.

Still, the drive home was no picnic. For starters, it took me awhile to get out of the city, since the route that my GPS wanted me to take involved crossing the race course. As I drove block after block trying to find a way to get to the highway, I saw the still struggling plodders shuffling along. Some of those people still had two miles to go, and I had been done for an hour already. Put things in perspective for me. It could have been worse!

I think I stopped for Starbucks once I got out of town. I don't remember! Oh yeah, I had Starbucks and one of their breakfast sandwiches, which is similar to an Egg McMuffin but more expensive, of course.

So, in the end, although I was miserable during the race and really questioning my own sanity, I am glad that I went there and did it, even though I knew I wasn't going to be able to run well. On a good weather day, and appropriately trained, it could have been better. But it's still a great race, really well organized. Nothing they can do about the weather! Or my lack of training!

In the end, I was 46 of 84 in my age group, and 722 of 1135 women, and 2099 of 2865 overall.