Indy Mini #5

Here's all the nitty gritty sweaty details of my 5th running of the Indy Mini.

Thursday afternoon Mike found out that he had to work on race day.  This was a huge bummer for a zillion reasons.  Our plan was to head to the Big City Friday night & have dinner with his brother & then stay at his brother's apartment for the night.  Mike & Stew (the brother) were bummed that they weren't going to get to hang out & I was super bummed to lose my #1 cheerleader.  Don't tell Mike I called him a cheerleader...doesn't sound too manly, does it?  Anyway, I felt like I should revamp all the plans because I didn't want to tie Stew up all evening & morning, blah, blah, blah.  Turns out I couldn't figure out how to swing the race without getting up there the night before.  So I ate Fazoli's with Mike - had to carb load! - then I took my time packing & got to Stew's at about 11 p.m.  Stew got up early Saturday morning & dropped me off within blocks of my starting corral.
I was in Corral E this year.  The first Mini I ran in I was in Corral U!  I've done a little bit of moving up *grin*

This was a fun corral - there were beach balls flying around everywhere!

I tried to tame my nervous butterflies by taking a few pics.

The actual running of the race was pretty uneventful; I didn't trip & fall this year!  It was as crowded as ever & I never really felt like I got out of the horde.  It didn't bother me too much though.  The weather was perfect - overcast & cool with a light breeze.  It did sprinkle rain a few times & that just made me run faster.  I hate running in the rain!  Mike texted me every time he could while he was at work to cheer me on (what a guy!).  Every time I felt my iphone vibrate I knew it was a message from him telling me to keep going.  I didn't actually read them all until after the race - I was way too paranoid about falling again!
One of the best things I did this year was look at the clock when I crossed the starting line.  That shows the gun time.  When I crossed the start line there were 3 minutes on the clock.  Then every time I hit a mile split where they had a clock with the gun time, I could keep track of my pace.  That really helped me stay consistent.  I also tracked my run on my iphone Runkeeper app.  Since I was tracking my pace I was able to maintain a 10 minute per mile or less average until about mile 11.  Then I hit a huge, hard, ugly wall.  At that point I bargained with myself & let myself walk through the pits while I was getting a drink.  It gave me just a little recovery time & I actually got most of the water/gatorade down my throat instead of all over me!  But it did slow up my pace. 
I finally crossed the finish line with a time of 2:13:03. 

And that finish time put a big smile on my face.  I wasn't sure then, but now that I have had a chance to look it all up, this finish time is a Personal Best for me.

I have been keeping track of my training schedule on this blackboard in our kitchen.  This last week the miles were low but the time seemed hard to come by - isn't that always the case?  Anyway, I wanted to document that I finished the program on schedule because it took a lot of effort to get it done.

And this funky box of numbers?  I call it "The Box of Shame."  Yeah, these are the workouts that I missed.  Out of 79 scheduled runs, I missed 8.  I don't think that's too awful bad.  It bugs me a little because I always have the delusion when I start out that I can do them all!  No matter what!  Yeah, that is not the real world.  But I do plan on trying to make these up over the next couple of weeks.  We'll see *grin*

And just in case you are bored out of your mind with nothing else on earth to do, here are the full smattering of statistics from all of the half marathons I've run:

2004 Indy Mini
Finish Time - 2:55:01
17,338 out of 19,577 participants
7,207 out of 8,763 females

2007 Indy Mini
Finish Time - 2:39:41
18,966 out of 29,213 participants
8,066 out of 15,241 females

2008 Indy Mini
Finish Time - 2:15:25
13,411 out of 30,063 participants
4,761 out of 15,734 females

2009 Indy Mini
Finish Time - 2:20:15
15,785 out of 30,281 participants
6,127 out of 15,877 females

2010 Blues at the Crossroads Half Marathon
Finish Time - 2:28:09

2011 Indy Mini
Finish Time - 2:13:03
12,763 out of 30,642 participants
4,563 out of 16,384 females

This is just stuff I want to remember & be able to look back on.  One day when I'm old & decrepit & have arthritic, creaky joints I'm going to tell stories about these races & I'll need the facts to back me up.  Otherwise all the young whippersnappers won't believe me!