Yesterday was the One-America Indianapolis Mini-Marathon. I had been hoping to set a personal record, and from my training seemed well on pace. I ended up being a couple of minutes short. We’ll have to see what the doctor says is actually wrong with my ankle, but the time I did set was slowed considerably by my running the last 5k+ with kind of a limping shuffle. I had a bit of an ankle pain — nothing really too notable — when I started. I chalked it up to the aches and pains of training. In fact, I felt really good as I got to the track. I entered the track just as a great song came along on my iPod (“Red Banner Rockers” by Randy — a song the majority of you probably haven’t heard of), and I started picking up my pace. But, by the time I left the track, my ankle was really giving me problems. By mile 9, I knew something was pretty wrong, but determination sometimes outweighs good sense, so I went ahead and finished the race. Now I’m gimping along. My in-laws had some crutches in the garage, so that will help me keep pace with the family as we pack up and head home. Poor Amy is no doubt having flashbacks to 5 years ago when I broke my knee skiing. I’m not terribly demanding when I’m all gimped up, but I’m not very useful in assisting with the children, so Amy considers it a taste of single-motherhood, a role she doesn’t much care for.

Aside from my injury and idiocy, the race itself was very well done. The organization is impeccable. The weather, against all odds, cooperated nicely — a bit overcast and cool, but no rain. Amy ran a good time. A friend of ours ran with Amy — using this half-marathon as her very first race, having only run 8 miles in the past and being a mere 7 months out from having had her most recent child. Some friends of ours came down from Cleveland and ran. One of them runs a lot of half-marathons and offered the opinion that this is the best or among the best of the races she has run. There are a lot of bands and other road-side entertainment and a lot of folks come out to cheer. One minor complaint I have, I suppose, is that a lot of the walkers seem to start pretty far up in the corrals. I’m not terribly fast, and started in the back of the pack, and there were 35,000+ participants, so I expect to deal with a fair amount of passing. But, it seemed like I was passing walkers well into the race. This isn’t a bother with one or two together, but when they start walking four abreast, it gets tough to get past.

So, hopefully I haven’t injured myself too badly. I’ll probably take a month or two off running, and then maybe I can get back in shape by next year to post a better time.

Because I like local merchants and because I thought they did a good job for me today, I thought I’d put in a plug for Sports Etc. in Lafayette for athletic equipment. They don’t seem to have an official web page and some information has them at their old store, so I’ll just note that in November 2008, they relocated from West Lafayette to downtown Lafayette at 676 Main Street. (765-463-1120)

My particular need was that it was finally time to retire my old running shoes – a cheap pair of New Balances that have taken me about 450 miles over the past 2 years. The Sports Etc. had a good selection of running shoes and a salesperson who knew what she was talking about and was able to give some pretty good advice and information about the shoes. I have yet to run on the new shoes, so I’ll just have to see how they perform, but just walking around, they make my old shoes feel like cinder blocks.

Mark Stosberg, who is blogging around the Richmond area, has some nice posts on bikes as transportation. (H/t Chris Hardie). Though, his casual mention of traversing the hill on Niewoehner Road (near Richmond), twice, suggests that he is in far better biking shape than me. I haven’t seen the road in 10-15 years, so it theoretically could have gotten smaller, but as a kid, that was the ultimate hill. I recall that, as kids, my sister and I called it “roller coaster road” — mostly because we were on our way to King’s Island and had such things on our minds.

Not that anyone should care, but I had an excellent run this evening. I was really apathetic about running, but I’m training for a half marathon, so I forced myself out the door. You can tell I picked up steam along the way:

Mile 1 – 10:17
Mile 2 – 9:39
Mile 3 – 9:29
Mile 4 – 9:06
Mile 5 – 8:29 (Only .68 miles, but at an 8:29/mile pace).

At this point, I have to be careful about overdoing it — you get to where you feel good, and you run more than your body is really ready for, then you get hurt and you’re out of commission for awhile.

At the moment, I’m pretty much on track with the training. I ran 20 miles last week, including a 7 mile run on Saturday. This week calls for 22 miles with 8 of them coming on Saturday.

Not sure why anyone might be interested, particularly, but it’s what I’m doing, so I’ll write about it. I’ve decided to try running the Akron 1/2 marathon. They have a full marathon, but I’m not quite that stupid. I’ve completed “week 3” of my training, but that’s not entirely accurate since it’s technically week 3 of a 12 week training program where I skipped the first two weeks since the race was only 10 weeks (now 9 weeks) away.

So “week 3” consisted of 14.87 miles:
Mon – 2.51 at 9:20 min/mile
Tues – 2.0 at 8:57
Weds – 3.23 at 9:35
Sat – 5.13 at 10:50
Sun – 2 at 9:50

The Saturday run was obviously much slower – partly because it was my “long” run for the week, but also in significant part because the humidity was just brutal. Today’s run is specifically geared to be an “easy,” relatively slow run.

Next week has 16 miles on the calendar. Amy will be gone for the week, though, with me as sole caretaker for the kids; so that could be a little tough. The YMCA we belong has childcare while you use the gym as part of the deal, so it’s doable. We’ll be see.

Amy & I ran in the Susan G. Komen “Race for the Cure” in Indy; to raise money for finding a cure for breast cancer. There was a huge turn out – something like 40,000. Some knucklehead Catholic out of Lafayette urged boycotting the race — apparently there is some tenuous connection to Planned Parenthood, though not in Indiana. Somehow Amy & I managed to ignore the injunction. It was rainy and about 60 for the race. Good times.

Update The results are out. I finished in under a half hour which I suppose is my basic goal. I only wish I’d turned on the gas just a little bit at the end. I was #667, and if I’d finished 0.4 seconds faster, I could’ve had the sign of the beast. In light of my comment about the Catholic bishop, that would’ve amused me.

Today I ran in Indy’s St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Run (not on St. Patrick’s Day this time). It’s a fun little event. They decreased it from five miles last year to four miles this year, but rerouted it so it started and ended at the Circle. Green beer was available at the end. I haven’t been running much the past few weeks because of that flu. I’m mostly recovered, but I was awfully slow. But, no matter. It was a lot of fun.

This morning, Amy and I ran in the Lafayette YMCA’s Sleigh Bell Run. It was well organized, and there was a good turn out for a 5k race in December – about 250 people give or take. I did reasonably well for me – 28:13 for an average of 9:06 minutes per mile. Really, though, if I’m going to run in these things, I probably ought to get in the habit of training a little bit — seems like lately I’ve been running once or twice a month, then running in a race.

Before this year, I’d never run in one of these events. This year, I ran in the Indianapolis St. Patrick’s Day race, the Flora Hog Jog, the Lafayette Zoo Run Run, the Bloomington Half Marathon/5k (I only ran the 5k), the Pumpkin Push, and now the Sleigh Bell Run.