The Indianapolis mini-marathon is the largest half marathon in the world with 25,000 runners and walkers. Saturday, May 3rd was the was the 27th running of the mini marathon. This year, 8 of us decided to run "race" (very liberal use of the term race cause I definitely was not trying to beat anyone). In case you don't know, a half marathon is 13.1 miles which translates into "a long ways" in common speak.

 

The runners before the race from left to right: Steve Klefsted, Ellen Potts, Dwayne Potts, Mike Blakeley, Jim Collins, Paul Olson, Reed Watkins and me.

 

The race course which includes one lap around the Indianapolis 500 Speedway track.

 

You might be wondering how they possible start a 25,000 person race. They stick everyone in starting corrals assigned to you before the race. They line you up by the time you predict you will finish the race in so ideally you won't spend a bunch a time running around (or over) slower people. I (and a few others) started in corral L which was closer to the front but we still had to go around a lot of slower runners. Now that I have run the race and I have an official time, I can use that time to get into one of the colored corrals for next year. Poor Steve, he had to start in corral O!

 

What it looked like down in the "L" starting corral. Its just not one of those days in life that you feel alone.

 

uhhhh, go! Its kind of a traffic jam at the starting line. You attach a little computer chip to your shoe and when you run across the starting line it starts your time. The computer chip also records your splits at 5 miles and 10 miles. Its a good thing they do it this way because it took me almost 3 minutes to get to the starting line once the race started. Poor Steve, it took him over ten minutes to get to the start line from corral "O".

 

Two miles of the course is running around the Indianapolis 500 Speedway track. It is a long, hot, boring stretch of the race but it is neat to be on the track. Can you see me down there?

 

The Kenyans dominate the sport of running and this day was no exception. You can see from the clock behind him that winner finished the race in just over an hour. In case you are wondering, that is well under a 5 minute a mile pace.

 

The finish line. A very happy sight. Once we finished the race they gave us bottled water, an apple, an orange, two cookies, a Gatorade energy bar, and potato chips. I ate it all.

 

We all made it and standing tall with our finishers medal. Yep, I am to tired to smile.

 

I am breaking down my running of the race to a captivated audience! (so you see, then I went around the guy in the red shorts..)