500 Festival Mini Marathon

Half marathon #2 - Done!

Running the 500 Festival Mini Marathon was a very different experience than my first half marathon last fall. First, this half marathon was much, much larger with a crowd of around 35,000 participants. The first mile or two felt like wall to wall people, and I had to run on the sidewalks to have enough space to find my own pace. There were points that people got so bunched up to round a corner they almost had to come to a complete stop. Second, due to the fact that the race hit at this time in our rainy spring this year, I didn't really train for speed and build up the weekly mileage. My longest run was 9 miles, and it wasn't really a continuous 9 miles. Last time I ran 10-15 mile runs at least three or four times before the half marathon. Third, probably because I didn't really train well enough, I had some heart/chest pain during the race. Especially after miles 8 or 9, I had to slow my pace nearly a minute per mile to continue running. I finished with a time of 2:09, nearly the same time as the half marathon I ran in the fall.

At any rate, this race was fun in a lot of ways too. Jason had never run a race this distance, and it was neat to train with him weekly for our long runs. (Granted, he finished the actual race nearly 20 minutes faster than me!) It was also fun to share this experience with Paul and Melody!



Noah enjoyed the fruit popsicles at the Purdue tent at the post race party.

Melody and Jason ran their first half marathons.

Paul and I ran our second half marathons.