Thursday, April 23, 2009

Well, whadaya know!

This year will be my 4th running of the Indianapolis Mini Marathon. When you send in your registration they ask you for an estimate of your finish time or a finish time from a similar race. They then analyze that data and assign each participant a starting 'corral'. They start with Corral A and go all the way to Corral V or W (can't remember for sure...). The first year I ran I just had a guess for my finish time. I was assigned to Corral U. Picture a crowd of about 35,000 participants & then picture me in almost the last spot. The way back of the back. I was literally behind thousands of people who just wanted to walk the course. Ugh - frustration. Beth ran with me that year & we joked that we ran an extra mile zigzagging through the walkers.

Then the second year I ran I think I was assigned Corral S. Autumn was with me that year & she didn't have a qualifying time so I went back with her assignment to Corral T. Moving up, but not much.

Last year, I ran alone. I had a qualifying time & if I'm remembering correctly I was in Corral Q. Once again, forward progress. And I had a very, very decent (for me) finishing time last year so I was excited to see what my corral assignment would be for this year's race. I got my assignment in the mail this week...

For the 2009 Indy Mini I have been assigned to Corral G!

Unfortunately this is also the year that my training has been plagued by a busy schedule & frequent illness so my finishing time will probably stink, but WHO CARES!!! I'm starting in G!

2 comments:

Sharon said...

Good job, Mary Ann. I agree, who cares about your finishing time. You're qualifying time has obviously improved!:)

Adele said...

I had no real idea how that worked. I did a 2 mile walk a few weeks ago and didn't really think about starting in the front (which would have helped in the long run). I guess at the beginning I wasn't thinking about "winning", but then when I saw the frontrunners booking it, I decided to push myself too. I guess now know for next time!

I would probably be starting in Z, so I'm very impressed you're in G!