2014 Indianapolis Monumental Marathon Race Report
Saturday November 1, 2014
Background: 26 years old, male, 5’11 160 (155llb race weight) This will be my 6th marathon since 2012, PR was set at 2013 Grandmas’s Marathon in Duluth, MN with a time of 3:02:35. BQ’d there and ran a 3:03:25 at Boston this year. The goal since then has been to get under 3 hours. 13.1 PR of 1:20:58 in 2013 gave me some confidence that it can be done. This was my first race running for a cause (St. Jude Children’s Research Hostpital)
Training Plan: 16 week building period, 3 week taper, max weekly mileage of 50 miles, longest run prior to race day is 21 miles. Every week I went 2 days on followed by 1 day of rest. Mixed in a lot of long cycling rides and running hill work which I believe ultimately helped me reach my goal. I live in a nice location with plenty of trails and nice 3/4 mile hill with about 100 feet of climb and 1/4 mile of flat to make hill repeats easy and convenient once a week. That and Biotta Beet Juice… I swear it works 3oz 3 hours before every run and I felt amazing.
Weather: As expected, anything can happen in the Midwest around November. The week before the race Indianapolis had temps in the high 70’s to lower 80’s. The Friday before the race an “Arctic Blast” came to ruin the party. Winds came out of the North/North West at 15-25mph and brought cold air with it. At packet pickup on Friday winds were at 20mph gusting to the mid 30’s and the temp was 41 feels like 25.
Expo: We arrived from Iowa (6 hour drive, split into two drives Iowa City->Champaign, IL on Thursday evening then Champaign → Indy) on Friday morning. The expo was about average, although they did have It open on Thursday, and all day Friday which was nice. Wasn’t too big, easy to find your way around and get bibs/etc.The expo was downtown and very close to the start line and they even had 2 separate sessions of pre race warmup yoga on race morning which was nice.
People/City: Nice people, volunteers were great. There were plenty of young kids out there handing out water/gels with adequate supervision and training. The city itself had a lot of homeless people and honestly wasn’t very clean besides downtown I thought.
Course: See Garmin file below. Dead flat, and fast. The minor changes in elevation did come at the right times though and it gave my hamstrings a bit of a break. I honestly don’t remember any significant hills that weren’t longer than a city block or so. Very flat, but the course did have a lot of turns I thought. The course was never too crowded, even at the final 2/3 miles where the full and half marathons came back together. The race directors did a decent job of keeping the marathon runners/half marathon walkers separated into their own traffic lanes with cones so congestion was not an issue.
Race: Race morning it was 30 degrees, with a wind out of the N/NW of 15mph, which made it feel like 19. Honestly the wind wasn’t a factor at all, we ran protected downtown Indy by buildings and there were plenty of trees/old homes along the course to block the majority of the wind. I wore an old long sleeve race shirt with my St. Jude Hero’s singlet over the top, 2XU compression shorts, and some windproof New Balance compressions over the top to keep everyone safe down stairs. Stocking hat (tossed at mile 15) and gloves (tossed at mile 19) Overall, the wind proof bottoms were not necessary, but they were nice to have. The gloves were nice, until they got wet and spongy from the water stops and my hands were freezing.
Race Plan: The plan I had been working on and training for was to go out 1:30 half and go negative on the way home. That’s how I BQ’d and always heard that’s how the fastest times are run. Well, the wind changed that in my head, and I gambled a little and thought to go out around 1:27:30 to “bank” some time and use the tailwind on the way home to my advantage. Well, it worked and I could have gone negative on the backside but keep reading. Went out fast, in a small ground and used each other to black the wind when it was in our face. Then hung on for the last half.
Overall: 2:56:30, ran 1:28 on the front end, 1:28:30 on the back end. I ran with an excellent runner for the first 21 miles before realizing I had enough time in the bank to finish under 3 hours and was not sure I could keep up the pace (6:25’s for a while on the back half) without blowing up. I told him he was on his own at mile 21 and enjoyed the last 5 miles at my own pace (6:45-7:00). Looking back, I could have probably taken another two to three minutes off, but I had an excellent race, and I’ll save those minutes for the next one. The guy I ran with finished with a 2:53:xx while I came in at 2:56:xx and couldn’t be happier. On to the next one!
Garmin Race File: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/624465260
Garmin Hill Repeat File: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/609250949