Indianapolis Monumental Marathon

Saturday, Nov 1, 2008:

Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. Not bad, not great. This was the first-ever running of this marathon. It had a few startup jitters, but not a lot. I ran 4:32:38, about four minutes slower than Des Moines two weeks ago. I should have been faster, because this course is flat, but for whatever reason I wasn’t faster.

Things I liked about the marathon:

• Aid stations were frequent, more than one every two miles.
• There were about 1100 marathoners and 1700 half-marathoners, a nice-sized race.
• Much of the course was on tree-lined streets, ablaze in fall color.
• The weather was very good, a little warm toward the end but quite tolerable.
• Two or three aid stations had a table containing an assortment of gels. Nice.

Things I didn’t like as much:

• Much of the course was on roads open to traffic, with cones separating runners from cars.
• In a couple of places, drivers were stopped for a long time and got pretty angry. That’s not fun for anyone.
• Aid stations were disorganized, with no convention for distinguishing between water and gatorade cups. You always had to ask.
• Not many spectators.
• There was no expo. I was actually counting on one, to buy some gels. Fortunately there were gels on the course.

As in other recent marathons, I slowed a lot after 20 miles, walking frequently. I just ran out of gas. Hip flexors started bothering at about the halfway point, but I found that if I did an exaggerated duck-walk I could stretch those body parts and make the problem disappear for a half mile or so. Yay. Now I will add a stretch like that to my regular daily routine and see if that fixes the hip flexor issue more permanently.

We bought gasoline for $1.93/gallon in Indianapolis. It’s a 10-hour drive.

Splits: 9:46, 9:04, 9:25, 9:33, 19:01 (2 mi), 9:34, 9:23, 9:40, 22:10 (2 mi, potty stop), 10:06, 9:45, 9:48, 10:30, 10:18, 10:51, 10:54, 10:39, 10:49, 11:05, 21:58 (2 mi), 12:54, 11:24, 11:47, 2:24, total 4:32:38, pace 10:24.