Kissing the Bricks

Yesterday I did my half-marathon in Indianapolis. I had as much fun as a person can have doing one. The best you can hope for is some good times mixed in with the painful times. I had some of each, so it was great. I couldn't believe how big it was. There were over 30,000 finishers. That's right - 30,000. Just to give some perspective - I knew they were going to have some food and water for runner at the completion of the race. I have never seen so many bananas in my life. I was walking toward the starting area and I saw dozens of large tables, all with giant mounds of bananas. It was unbelievable. Anyway, I get to the starting line. When you register you had to give a predicted time for the seeding. I gave a fairly slow time because, frankly, I like passing people. I got put in Section T. I was literally at least a quarter mile from the starting line. I think that's a bit unfair. I knew I didn't have a good shot at winning, but I think that really killed my chances. I had to use scientific notation to compute the probability of winning. Anyway I found my spot within the huddled masses, just waiting. In a fun touch they played Sweet Caroline as a tribute to the Boston Marathon situation. We all sang along. It was fun.

The gun goes off and we don't move. Not an inch. Its probably five minutes before we move any and then its stop and go. Its the same thing as when you're the 5th car back at a stop light when the light turns green and you don't move. It just takes a while for the drivers (who at the time I typically refer to as "jerks") to react and then space themselves out as they begin moving I guess. This time there were 30,000 people at the stop light. When I finally crossed the "starting" line the clock said 25:00 minutes. Seriously. Timing technology has come a long ways though. They said the chip built into my registration number wouldn't start until I crossed the line. I'm not sure how it does that.

I'll have to tell more of my story in a later blog, because there is so much cool stuff to tell, but lets skip to the track. At about the 5 mile mark we go onto the Indianapolis 500 race track. Its huge - 2.5 miles for the lap. On TV the cars drive the straightaway and then suddenly they're into the curve. Running at my speed the straightaway lasts for an eternity. But that's alright. It was great fun just running there. I vaguely remember the phrase "kissing the bricks". Apparently that's a tradition of the Indy 500 winner. There is a row of bricks that make the start/finish line. I heard some people were going to do that. I thought, "That's stupid". But as I came up to it and saw a bunch of people doing it, I knew I pretty much had to do it too. And after the 25 minute head start I gave to the leaders, it wasn't like this time out was going to hurt all that much.