21. Wild Card - Indianapolis Marathon

  Friday night, I drove down to Indianapolis to run in the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon.  The race was on Saturday and the weather was gorgeous - 55 degrees at the start and close to 75 degrees at the finish.

  I had a great time during this race.  I met Warren and Cheryl (Warren's the one on the left) at mile 4 and ended up running with them all the way to the finish.  They were from Chicago and had done multiple marathons so we had plenty to talk about.  I was very thankful to find them because it can get pretty lonely out there sometimes.

Here's the bling from the race.

  I made this into a pretty long day for myself.  I had the Marathon in the morning in Indianapolis and had to be home in Milwaukee by 5:30pm for company coming over for dinner.

Here's the outline of my day:

(All times CST)

5:45am - 7:00am - Wake up / drive to race start / try to remember why I like running marathons

7:00am - 11:25am - Run 26.2 miles / make some friends / high-five strangers on the street / think about Arby's

11:25am - 1:00pm - Stretch / take pictures / shower / gas up car / get Arby's

1:00pm - 5:26pm - Drive from Indianapolis to Milwaukee / Listen to Pearl Jam / wear my medal

5:26pm - 5:30pm - Pick up Pizza for dinner

5:30pm - 7:45pm - Have company over for dinner (8 adults and 10 kids total - in our small house!)

7:45pm - 8:30pm - Clean up house / Put kids to bed

8:30pm - Present - Reflect on how long a day that really was!

  Here's the video I posted earlier of the entire marathon course.  Before I ran the race, I looked at this with a feeling of doom in my stomach.  Overall, Indianapolis put on a great race experience and I could see myself doing it again some day.