It was MONUMENTAL!!

This last Saturday, I ran my second 1/2 marathon this year. The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon. I've been training with a girl in my ward, Juliana, since school started. She had already registered for the full marathon, so with only 2 short months to train, I jumped in and signed up for the 1/2. I ended up doing her same training schedule for the full which really kicked my butt into shape. It has been an intense 2 months. 6:30 am workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Student Rec Center on campus (I really loathe running on treadmills now). And 7 am long runs on Saturdays. I've actually come to enjoy working out so early in the morning. At the end of those days, I feel like I've had a very full and productive day. I feel less productive on Saturdays, though, since our long runs were...well...long. 17 miles was the longest I ran and it took a little longer than 3 hours. And then coming home and doing blister and chaffing first aide. Then eating a lot of food to recover all the burned calories. By the late afternoon I was generally struggling to stay awake and didn't usually get any homework done. Needless to say, I'm kind of glad the race is over because we only have 4 weeks left of the semester and it's getting to be pretty hectic right now.

But the race was great!! I finished in 1 hour and 57 minutes, which is a 10 minute PR over my time in the Indy Mini in May (which I completely didn't train for and struggled through). A few weeks ago I began having problems with my IT band and got a little worried that I wouldn't be able to finish this race because it was so painful. But I bought an IT band leg strap thingy that is supposed to help stabilize everything in your knee area, and for the most part, it worked. The course was nice and flat and ran through some beautiful areas in downtown Indy. It was freezing cold though. I wore three layers during this race and felt pretty good while I was running. It never got warm enough to take any of them off, though. So when I finished, I was soaked with sweat and it was only about 30 degrees outside...and windy. I was covered with frost. So we all got silver emergency blankets to bundle up in as we came through the finish chute. Those things really work!! I stayed bundled up in mine while I waited in a nice warm hotel lobby for Juliana to finish the marathon about 2 hours later. Then i found her on the course and ran the last 3/4 of the race with her. It was great!!!

Here are some race day pictures. Enjoy!

Post race meal...the chili really warmed my frozen insides.

Sitting in the warm food tent with all the other 1/2 marathon finishers.

This is the pile of clothes that were collected from the streets of the race course. As people got warm they just chucked their clothes. The race organizers clean and donate all of these clothes to the local shelters to help during the winter.

Hangin out in the lobby of the Westin in my silver blanket. The chair I was sitting in was really comfortable and I was trying hard not to fall asleep.

Juliana as she finished the full marathon. She also ran a 12 minute PR over last year. Woo Hoo!! She's a great running buddy. We really push each other. We're going to do the Indy Mini in May. It's going to be AWESOME!!!