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"I have competed well; I have finished the race" - II Timothy 4:7
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| Myself, WIllie, and Dominic (in the blue) - running the 1/2 marathon! |
Good afternoon everybody! Today was the Indianapolis mini-marathon. As you probably heard, a few of us guys here at Bruté competed in this race as part of the group running for vocations. A few priests (and I'm sure others) from the arch-diocese of Indy started this several years back, and it now has at maybe a hundred people that do it each year.
Yesterday evening, after picking up our packets (shirt, tag, advertisements, etc.) for the 1/2 marathon we headed over to St. John's. There was probably 20 Bruté guys that vested in cassock/surplice, and another 10-20 guys from St. Meinrad (A upper-seminary in Indiana). St. John's recently had a fire, which damaged the ceiling, so it was really interesting to see it with all the scaffolding overhead. Anyway, most of us seminarians were crammed into the first few rows of pews because the sanctuary didn't have room. It was a great Mass. Arch-Bishop Tobin gave a great homily on how the communion of saints is like the greatest social network ever and they are where we get the inspiration and help to keep on the right track. (It was a wonderful homily, unfortunately my paraphrase/summary was quite inferior to it). After Mass, they had a pasta dinner for all; it was really, really good meatless pasta! (besides the bread-sticks salad, brownies, and fruit). Got some good carbo-loading in before the race. I also picked up my race for vocations t-shirt (it is really nice - not just your average cotton t-shirt).  |
| lots of people! |
Anyway, I got to bed as soon as I could after that event (around 10pm), and woke up around 6am this morning. I had been feeling pretty good the entire time we were training, but like yesterday I came down with a cold (staying up late working on a Shakespeare essay does that to you), so this morning I wasn't feeling the best (clogged up nose and a small fever). Needless to say, I wasn't feeling bad enough to not run, but I was aware that it might impact my performance. I ate a banana and a brownie (thanks to whoever set them out!), and then we all (5 Bruté runners + Driver) headed down-town. Everything within a mile of the race area was packed with people and cars trying to maneuver around. The Indianapolis Mini-Marathon is the country's largest with some 35,000 people running in it. Anyway, the roads around the start line were packed with people. We worked our way over to the start road, which was divided into sections based on your expected time. We were in group H, so we were up near-ish to the front. I squeezed into the crowd a bit before Willie, Dominic, and Michael (they guys I've been training with), and tried to get back to the H section (going the wrong direction...). I gave up after several yards of squirming, and just stood there for the 10 minutes or so until the race. It was around this time that I ate the electrolyte-goop which was supposed to keep my body going the entire time (your liver holds about enough energy for 20 miles, but I didn't feel like depleting myself that much).
Anyway, the fast runners and wheelchair division started at 7:30, and the rest of the crowd finally started going about 5 minutes later. I was stuck maybe 15 yards behind the other guys (W, D, & M). Unfortunately, it seemed that most of the crowd had signed up for a time faster than they would actually run, so (literally) the first 5 miles were composed of a ton of dodging around people, jumping up onto the sidewalk, squeezing around signs, etc. So, while it meant that I wasn't thinking about the running, it meant that we were going pretty slow (8 min/mile-ish) and wearing ourselves out. By about mile 5 or 6 the crowd was a little bit more spread out, and we were kind of with people of the same pace. I mean, we were dodging around people (or people were dodging around us) the entire time, but it got a little bit better.
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| Entering the 500 track - guys cheering us on! |
Around the 6 mile mark, I started feeling tired. Unfortunately, it wasn't the tired that I was used to - where one joint, or muscle would hurt - I was just overall worn out. We were going pretty slow still (compared to how fast we usually do the first miles), but I was still just not feeling up to par. Thankfully, right around this point we ran past some guys from Bruté who cheered us on. It was an awesome moment, and I am very grateful that they come out and watched (THANKS GUYS!). Right after we passed them, we entered the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I had been looking forward to doing this part of the race the entire time we had been training - I figured I wouldn't be too tired yet (wrong), and that it would be really awesome (wrong again). I mean, it was alright, but the crowd got a little more squeezed at this point, the track was ridiculously long (2.5 miles), and it was a little bit boring because all you could see was a lot of pavement and the stands. I managed to miss when we actually crossed the yard-of-bricks. I don't know how I missed it, but, well, I did... :-( We took our second packet of electrolyte goop probably at the 7th mile. This stuff is really nasty; the taste is alright I guess (raspberry), but it is the consistency of jelly or something, and just sticks to the inside of your mouth. I grabbed some water, but I'm pretty sure I only got about 3/4 of the packet in my mouth and a good bit of it was lost when I tried to drink the water... Anyway, that got me through the next few miles.
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| Exiting the speedway - guys cheering us on -yours truly doesn't look too good... |
The guys were cheering us on again as we exited the stadium, so that was great. But the excitement quickly wore off as we got to about 10 miles. I guess I assumed that adrenaline would kick in about this time - only 3 miles to go right? But, it didn't. Dominic and I stuck together (kept ourselves running), but Willie had some energy left so he gradually pulled away. I was glad he did, because we (ok, at least I) was slowing him down. Anyway, those 3 miles went by really, really slowly. All the other miles had passed pretty fast; they had water stops and a clock with the duration so far just about every mile (which was great), but this section of the run felt like it took forever. I wanted to walk so bad, even with only a mile to go (when I though for sure the adrenaline would show up), I barely could keep jogging. Anyway, we kept forcing each other forward, and the crowds cheering helped a little bit, and we finally worked our way through the last mile and finished. (I ran/sprinted the last few yards, but really had nothing left for the finish).
Right after finishing I grabbed some water, waited to stop feeling light headed, and met up with Michael (who finished a few minutes after us) before walking over to the food tables and getting a banana, cookies, etc. Generally I feel hungry after running (especially that long), but today I just felt dead. I did force myself to eat and drink a little, but there was no way I was going for a hot-dog at the Race for vocations tent. Of course, now when I am typing this I would eagerly go for it, but not right after finishing.
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| Michael cruising along! |
OK, if that didn't seem to optimistic, it's because was really hoping to feel better during the race. However, there were plenty of positives: I finished under 1:45, which was my goal with a time of 1:44:54 (more stats here). That means I finished 2347th overall (top 6% or so) and 88th in my age group. The weather was perfect (60 and cloudy). I ran the entire way (unthinkable a few months ago). I could go on and on... I am so glad that I ran it, but I wish it hadn't hurt so bad. Goal next year: beat 100 minutes!
Thanks to Luke, Corey, and Andrew for the pictures!
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You are truly a SURVIVER
ReplyDeleteYeah, it wasn't as fun as I would have liked it to be, but, man, all the training has really gotten me in shape. There is no way I could have ran that even a month ago! Plus, I've gotten to hang out with the guys and have a ton of fun! Totally worth it!
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