The Indiana Monumental Marathon (and half, and 5K) or "The Monumental", as it's affectionally known by locals, is maybe one of the all-around best races I've ever participated in. Clearly runners in the Indiana area are aware of its charms, but I can't really speak for how well-known it is beyond that. Despite it being one of the 15 biggest marathons in the country, my West Coast self had never heard of it before I started researching smoking fast half marathon courses.
What makes this race so great in my opinion?
- Smoking fast marathon and half-marathon courses. Now, we should all know by now that a flat or mostly-flat course does NOT necessarily equal a fast course. Any number of things can cancel out the advantage of a nice flat course, including too many turns, unreliable course measuring, poor logistics, a poor time of year for favorable and predictable weather, or a region that itself just doesn't have favorable/predictable weather. Which leads us to...
- Favorable weather. The first week of November in Indiana is pretty safe from a weather perspective; like CIM, it's often quite cool at the start (40s or 50s) but even if it's not that cool, it's unlikely to be particularly warm, either.
- On-point organization and logistics. The first time you run a race, sometimes you just get a feeling for how well-organized and runner-friendly a race is going to be. My coach recommended this race to me so I was feeling pretty good about it anyway, but from my first dig through the website and the first emails I received after signing up, I just had a good feeling about it. The website has all the information that competitive runners* are interested in right on the front page. Ancillary information is super easy to find in the sub-menu pages. Emails covered information that competitive runners* find relevant. The expo was well-organized and together; it was big enough to feel like a for-real, fun, celebratory race expo but also extremely easy to navigate and not over the top with the absurdity of some of the truly big marathons.
- Out-of-towner-friendly. The entire downtown area of Indianapolis is only about a square mile, which includes the Convention Center, start/finish, plenty of food options, and about a billion hotels. (Okay like 20 but still.) Everything is very easily walkable so there is no need to rent a car. The airport is an easy ~15 minute cab ride or ~45 minute bus ride from downtown. Travel logistics couldn't be easier.
- Super easy race-eve and morning. Related to the previous bullet, race-related logistics are a dream for all of the same reasons. You have about a billion pretty affordable hotel options within easy walking distance of the Convention Center; this year the expo hours were Thursday 4-7pm and Friday 11am-8pm, so there is plenty of time to amble over from your hotel and grab your stuff at your convenience. Same with the start/finish; it's right in the middle of town a block from the Convention Center (which is also where bag check is), and the course is basically a loop so there are no start/finish shuttles to contend with. Super easy to walk a couple blocks to bag check, one more block to the start/finish, then afterward a block back to your bag; a couple blocks more and you're back at your hotel. SWEET.
- Warm-up area. I love this! A section of the Convention Center (again, a block from the start) is available for hanging out & warming up before the start, particularly useful if it's one of those colder years. This also means, say it with me now, FLUSH TOILETS.
- A truly worthy VIP option. So many races have a VIP option that's clearly geared more toward social/experience/destination runners rather than competitive runners*, so I appreciate when races have a VIP option that's clearly geared toward, "Hey, we get this is a race you're targeting to run REALLY FAST, let us help you make sure everything goes super smoothly." I paid for this ($110) since that was originally my goal. While I didn't take advantage of all the VIP perks (such as reserved parking & two free post-race beers) and some of them I didn't really care about (an extra, fancier tech shirt, an extra goodie bag), some of them were really nice (special indoor pre- and post-race area, race morning breakfast & coffee, express gear check before & after). That said, this race is so well-organized and smooth and so logistically easy that if I were to do this race again, I don't even think I'd bother.
- A great price. Good races are getting more and more expensive for lots of reasons, so it's always thrilling to find an excellent race that isn't exorbitantly priced. I paid $75 for the half marathon back in June, and if you're really on it and register right when registration opens, you could get the half for $55 or the marathon for $75. Face it, the days of these kinds of deals--for a smooth, well-organized race on a fast and reliable course--are by and large long gone.
(* When I say "competitive runners," I don't mean "fast runners" or "real runners" or "serious runners" or anything elitist like that; I'm just using it as shorthand for runners who put real effort and planning into their training and racing and mostly race with the goal of running fast and achieving some kind of performance goal they care about, vs. runners who mostly sign up for races for other (equally valid!) reasons such as a fun destination or theme, cool swag, a social event with friends, etc. Absolutely nothing wrong with any of these reasons for racing; it just means that you're going to have different selection criteria when you choose races and there is maybe a different set of things that make a race "good" or appealing to different types of runners.)
Why did I sign up for this race?
Originally, because I was shooting for a 1:37 half (the New York qualifying standard for my age group), which would be a PR by nearly two minutes. In March I ran 1:40 without a ton of effort so I thought it could be in reach this year if I could optimize as many things as possible. We have some decent half courses in my area but I didn't feel like that were any really, really great, reliable fall HM options, particularly in terms of weather. There are some flat, fairly fast courses but most of them run the risk of being hot, so after consulting with my coach, I decided to go with Indy.
And then what happened?
Like I said with Urban Cow, see this post for more details, but, long story short, I somehow damaged my left ankle/lower tibia while traveling and walking a lot and couldn't run at all for several weeks. It's been off-and-on Not Great since, AND THEN I got sick (not COVID, just a super unpleasant head cold that made its way into my chest, FUN) and I wasn't even sure I was going to be well enough to run. Originally I'd been like, "Forget it, it's not even worth going," but since the airfare was already spent, I decided if I could get to a place where I felt like I could finish 13 miles under my own power, I'd go ahead and go for the experience and to sort of scout the event and see if I thought it was worth coming back when I'm healthy and ready to run fast.
Race Day:
First, a moment of hilarity for the fact that for all I knew the race was on November 5, I have had it in my head SINCE JUNE that November 5 was the Sunday! To the extent that I even booked my return flight for Sunday. It was also why I booked my flight in on Thursday -- I knew I'd be fighting jet lag, so the plan was to give myself three days to adjust to the three-hour time change. I didn't realize my mistake until I went to the race page to look up some details and saw that the race countdown clock said "1 day, 15 hours, xx minutes."
"Wait, that's not right," I thought. "That must be for the 5K on Saturday." Uhhhhh no, Angela, ALL the races are on Saturday! D'OH! Thankfully I was able to rebook my flight out for Saturday (on a cheaper flight!) and also able to cancel the extra hotel day. I'm just glad I discovered this issue on Thursday evening and not Friday. 😬
I LOVE that the race started at 8am and I got to sleep in until 6am (so, like, 3am to my West Coast brain). I also love that I got to go straight to the State House (VIP area) for breakfast and that there was a gear check and nice bathrooms in there as well. I had my bagel and coffee and enjoyed momentarily cosplaying in my WVTC singlet & corral A bib (which I got with my Oakland Half time) as someone who was maybe going to run a little bit fast.
One of the advantages of this race is that it tends to be cold on race morning (30F, 49F, 35F, & 46F in previous years) but this year was unseasonably warm. It was 76F and full sun on Friday afternoon, with temps in the mid-50s projected for race morning. Originally it was supposed to be dry with rain on Sunday night or Monday, but over the last couple of days before the race I watched the rain get pushed up sooner and sooner; by race morning, there was something like an 80% chance of rain between 8am-noon with heavy winds to boot. It was warm, dry, and calm when I left my hotel, but by 7:40am when I went out to start my warm-up, it was already raining and so windy that I kept losing my hat.
While I've run in much worse (AHEM and AHEM), I was still happy that I was no longer shooting for a serious time goal--all I really cared about was finishing. Of course I (try to) always leave mental room to surprise myself, so I did have a (verrrrry) loose plan of starting with the 1:45 pacer (~8:00 pace) & then speeding up (hahahahahaha) or backing off according to how I felt, but I certainly had a lot of things going against me in terms of being able to run even *kind of* fast. There was the left ankle/tibia, definitely not fully healed yet, the right hamstring that hasn't felt right since Urban Cow, the fact that I was still hacking up a lung, and OH YEAH the fact that I haven't done any real training in basically two months.
But the logistics were so easy and stress-free and I had the silver lining, at least, of being rested, that by race eve and morning, I was feeling weirdly--and maybe inappropriately--optimistic. Hey, you never know! I thought as I warmed up. Maybe I'll surprise myself! I set my watch to where I couldn't see pace at all and decided I would just run by feel, and let the pace be whatever felt right.
Alas I didn't even get a chance to try implementing my follow-the-1:45-pacer plan because a) I was trying to get a decent warm-up in so didn't get to the corrals until like 7:55, b) I misunderstood how the wave signs were placed & at first ended up in the elite/sub-elite corral (😱), & then c) once I got myself to the right corral, I was still right at the front (with like the 1:25 and 3:00 pacers) & it was just impossible at that point to squeeze back to where the 1:45 pacer was. So I figured I'd just let all those fast people blow past me in the first minutes of the race & pick up the 1:45 pace group when they went by.
Once the race started, my cosplaying moment was over. It became quite clear just a couple miles into the race that there would be no good surprises today and I needed to dial it WAY back if I didn't want to completely blow myself up. My first mile (7:59) felt too hard, as did my second (8:06). I was already having trouble breathing, but slowing down didn't really seem to help much. (On the plus side, my left leg felt fine! As did my right quad, where I've had some compensatory pain on and off.)
Around mile 5 I finally went, "Waaaiiiit, this kind of hard-to-breath doesn't feel quite...Oh shit, I'm having an asthma attack, aren't I? Shit. 🤦🏻♀️" I always take my inhaler before running and haven't had asthma issues during a race since CIM 2011 (my first marathon, oy!), which, not coincidentally, was right after I had been sick with something similar. But I was expecting it that time and carried my inhaler the whole way, sucking on it every two miles or so.
Well, I didn't have my inhaler today, so I really had two choices--drop out, or try to manage the hypoxia the best I could for the next ~7 miles & hope for the best. At this point I was really slowing down, but more importantly my asthma was getting worse, and eventually I had to stop and catch my breath. The asthma didn't go away but after a couple of minutes I caught my breath somewhat and was able to start running again.
The rest of the race was called, "Run for as long as you can without passing out, stop to let the airways open a little, wash/rinse/repeat." I tried to stop only at aid stations or when my watch clicked off a mile so as to avoid being out in the rain all morning, and mostly succeeded. The last couple of miles were torturous, not because it was physically hard but because I just could. not. BREATHE. There were a few points where I was not sure I was going to make it & would have no choice but to stop for medical attention, so my main emotion when I did finish was pure relief.
Even though I still finished in under two hours (1:58:09 if you're curious), there was already a HUGE bag check line, so I was very happy to have access to the VIP express bag pickup, partly because my rescue inhaler was in my bag and partly because once I'd stopped running and walked through the entire finish area, I was getting really cold!
In theory we were supposed to have access to the State House again after the race, but the door I'd gone in before was locked; since walking all the way to another door to check if there was another entrance open was not all that much closer than just walking back to my hotel, I just found a doorway to block the wind while I stripped out of my wet clothes, toweled off, and put on my warm-ups. Then it was two blocks back to the hotel and into a hot shower!
The Aftermath
I have to say, I was really stunned how good my body felt after, including my hamstring and left ankle/tibia. Probably because I never ran all that hard and took like nine walk breaks in the second half! Also, amazingly, I had no chafing whatsoever anywhere, something I really appreciated after being chafed seven ways to Sunday after Urban Cow for no discernible reason. No screaming in the shower for the win!
The Bottom Line
This is a great race! Super well-organized, logistically easy, and very reasonably priced. Also if you are someone who prioritizes good swag, just know that I left Indianapolis with basically an entirely new wardrobe:
Yes, the black long sleeves was a VIP perk that I actually forgot about, but friends, it is a NICE shirt. It's thick, luxurious technical fabric (Polar-tec maybe?) with the softest micro-fleece lining inside I think I've ever felt in a shirt. It was so nice to have after the race and so warm and cozy and soft that I even wore it on the plane home. Yes the VIP package was $110 but I am pretty sure this shirt would run you *at least* that much almost anywhere on the internet.
What's Next?
Long-term, Mesa Marathon in about 14 weeks, fingers crossed I can get and stay healthy. Between now and then, I'm also planning to run Christmas Relays & Club XC Nationals with my club in December, just for funsies.
No comments:
Post a Comment