Inauguration

I'm not talking politics. I'm talking about racing. This past weekend I hopped on a plane and landed myself in Indianapolis, Indiana to participate in an inaugural race!

I've talked in the past about my training for running the the NYC Marathon this year. What I haven't talked about is the fact that I had to drop out of it about a month ago. I suffered an injury towards the end of September that forced me to take some time off from running. What that did was to really not give me enough time to get my long runs up to the distance that they needed to be in time for running the marathon this past Sunday. I was bummed to have to postpone my second marathon to 2009.

So what does a runner do instead? I knew I could handle the distance of a half marathon so I signed up for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. This was their very first Marathon and Half Marathon on this course. While I didn't get to run the 26.2 mile distance I had wanted, I was very happy that I got to race the 13.1 mile distance the same weekend as the NYC Marathon. It helped me not be so bummed.

I ran the race with my speedster running friend and totally enjoyed it! It was a wonderful flat course, with about 2 hills total, through downtown Indianapolis. The weather was perfect and it was so cool when the Elite First Place Male Winner of the Marathon ran past me at 2 hours 10 minutes and I was just hitting mile 11.5 while he was only a couple miles shy of finishing his 26.2. Talk about inspiration to move my rear!

I was completely thrilled with my finish time of 2 hours 30 minutes flat. That was my goal. I had been sick ever since I returned from Rhinebeck so my longest training run during the past two weeks had been 3 miles and I was concerned how I would do on race day. I surprised myself for sure.

We received really nice technical running shirts and very cool medals. I'm looking forward to setting a PR on the course next year!