Indy Mini

Saturday morning, Cameron and I ran in the largest half marathon in the United States, the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon, more commonly referred to as the Indy Mini. 35,000 runners were registered for the race, and as of this evening, 30,265 finishers are listed in the results. The weather was nearly perfect at the start, with overcast skies, light winds, and temperatures in the mid to upper 40s. The sun broke through the clouds a little past the 8-mile mark, which made it feel a bit warm, but overall we could not have asked for better conditions to run in.

As you can imagine with a race of this size, it took a long time to get everyone past the start line. We finally made it to the start a little more than 12 minutes after the gun, and the last person crossed the start line over 50 minutes after the official start of the race. Once we passed the start line though, we were able to get into our planned running pace nearly immediately. Cameron and I ran together for the first 10 miles, which included a lap on the track around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway from about mile 6 to mile 8.5. At the 10-mile mark, I told Cameron to go ahead and run the last 5K at his own pace...he no longer had to stay back with dad. Our 5-mile split was 51:15, and we hit the 10-mile mark in 1:47:44. Once Cameron took off on his own, he was off to the races, and he ran the final 5K in 25:13, to finish with a chip time of 2:12:57, which was over 12 minutes ahead of me. Based on our finishing positions, we estimate that Cameron passed somewhere in the vicinity of 3000 runners over the final 5K of the race.

Cameron's finish time of 2:12:57 placed him 36th out of 113 in the 12/under age group, but only 5 runners in that age group ran a faster final 5K than he did. He was 8557th out of 14,380 males, and 13,333rd out of 30,265 overall. After the race, we were left wondering just how fast Cameron's time could have been had he run the entire race at his own pace, instead of just the last 5K. Basically, he ran the equivalent of a 10 mile warmup, followed by a 5K race. Cameron's total distance run was 13.1 miles, which is also his total for the month. This brings his yearly total to 200.5 miles.

Cameron also became a TV star after the race, as a local Indianapolis TV station that was covering the race interviewed him. This interview can be seen at:

http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/500_festival/mini_marathon/2009_Mini_Marathon_20

Cameron appears at about the 3:15 mark of the segment, and then I appear with Cameron at about the 10:50 mark.

Cameron also gets a mention in the following clip at about the 4:30 mark:

http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/500_festival/mini_marathon/2009_Mini_Marathon_22

The official race photographs of Cameron can be seen at:

http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=47187&PWD=&BIB=26074