On December 21, 2014, I ran my 5th half marathon. It was the Santa Hustle in Indianapolis.
A friend had been wanting to do a Santa Run for ages, and this one worked in time, and was only a 3ish hour drive away – totally do-able. So we signed up for a race that gave us santa beards and santa hats and we ran like santa flies his sleigh.
I didn’t do much in particular to train for this. I ran a few long-ish runs on the weekends (6-8 miles or so), and ran a 15K on Thanksgiving at the turkey trot, but there was no 10 miler before the half marathon. Which worked out just fine, but wasn’t really what I had initially planned. 10 miles would have been nice a weekend or two before. My calves might no have been screaming at me for 3 days after if I had done the ten miler. But you know, whatever.
I was planning on doing packet pick-up the morning of, but my friends who stayed at a hotel right across from the start picked up my goodies for me. The packet included: bib, dry-fit sweatshirt, santa hat, santa beard.
The sweatshirts ran INCREDIBLY SMALL. I ended up swapping out my women's medium for a women's large. Luckily, it wasn't an issue at all to get the bigger size.
I warmed up inside the hotel until about 10 minutes before the race, and then headed across the street for the start.
I didn't bring my camera, so sadly no pictures, but the course was pretty nice. It started out in a state park in downtown Indy, and then traveled through the "downtown" area. The course was fairly flat, and the only uphills were very do-able short stretches that I ran up -- definitely nothing that necessitated walking.
Water stations were appropriately placed along the course, and there were a good number of port-a-potties available. Lucky for me, I didn't need them at all this race.
Right around mile 13, I caught up with my fellow runners -- it was one of their first half's and he was suffering major cramps, so I decided to wait it out -- this was always a "just for fun" kind of race for me, so It was fine with me to stop and rest and leisurely take that last bit of the race in.
The finish was almost at the start, and finished up going over the river again.
Final Time: 2:06.04. Not a PR, but not too far off from my previous halfs. (and only 13 minutes slower than my PR -- aka 1min/mile slower). Not too shabby at all.
The medals were pretty big and substantial. Always a nice surprise.
Post-race refreshments included bottled water, bananas, granola bars, and a few other things I didn't bother with.
I was just interested in seeing miss Maizey at the finish. And everyone had the sweetest things to say about the adorable pup. So all was right in the world.
