This week, Scott and I drove down to the Indy 500 Mini marathon race. Since both of our cars are not quite at 100%, and neither get the greatest gas mileage, we decided that renting a car that got good mileage would both save a little wear and tear on our cars, as well as be more cost effective, with gas prices around $4:20. All was going well, until about 1 hour into Indiana, when apparently I was going 81 in a 65. Like many situations, I have an excuse.
I am used to driving my Firebird, which with its cruise control and lack of smooth driving ability, I can usually keep myself withing 5-10 of the speed limit. My base Aveo, however, did not have cruise control, and actually had a very smooth ride. Every time that I glanced at the speedometer, I was going anywhere from 60-85 mpg, so I was mostly depending on the other traffic to dictate how fast I drove. When I got pulled over, I was pretty much keeping to speed with everyone else...maybe passing a semi that was going not much slower than myself. I was supervised both in that I got pulled over and that I was not given any opportunity whatsoever to explain myself. "Business as usual," he asked for my information, went to his car, and graciously wrote me for 15 over instead of 16...I also did not realize that the limit had dropped to 65. This was my first speeding ticket, and I hope that it doesn't set me back too much.
And then we arrived for the race. Like last year, we ate dinner at Buca di Beppo's with
Frank Shorter, a gold/silver medalist in the 1972/1974 Olympics. The dinner was very good, and Frank had a lot of good input on racing and training for marathons, and also had some interesting anecdotes as well. We actually had breakfast with another Olympic Silver Medalist,
Nick Willis, at a local charity race in Ann Arbor, the week prior, so the past few weeks have been pretty exciting. After dinner, I passed out pretty quickly, and the next thing I knew, it was time to race.
The race started out better than I had expected. My original goal was to run 5:10 pace, and maybe pick it up towards the end, which would put me anywhere from 1:07:00 to 1:08:00 ish. A pack of 15 or so went out in 4:55, while Scott Schmick, Jeff Powers and myself trailed in 5:07. We were still together through the next mile in 5:02, and then we strung out the next mile. My next mile was 5:09, followed by a 5:11. The biggest hurdle, at this point, was that I was hitting my splits in basically the same times as my most previous race finishing times. I came through 5K in the 15:40s, 5 miles in the 25:40s, and the 10K in the 32:10's. By 5 miles though, I was by myself, feeling a little tight, and just a little too lazy.
During the rest of the race, I pretty much settled into a pace that I knew I could comfortably finish with, which was right around 5:20-5:25. In the past, when I felt like I did today, those splits would have drifted into the 5:40s, so I feel good that I didn't completely fall off of the boat. I am not happy, though, that I let myself stop racing. I eventually finished the last 3 miles at about 5:15 pace, but the miles between 5 and 10 slowed down mostly because of laziness and a lack of drive. At the end of the day though, I ran a 1:09:12, which is only 11 seconds off of my PR. I probably should have ran a low 1:08, but I can't say that I am disappointed either. I just sent in my request to get in to the Bayshore Half Marathon, so I will have another chance to drop the time in 3 more weeks.
If you ever get a chance, run Indy, but keep your eye on the speedometer...at least until you get into the race.
The Results
