Well, I did it. I finished the One America 500 Festival Mini-marathon in 2 hours and 12 minutes. My original goal was to finish in less than two hours but considering that I had to stop training several weeks before the race, I am not too disappointed.
I didn’t even really have a chance to get too excited about it because we were so busy that weekend. Tommy and I drove out to St. Louis on Friday morning. We thought it would be a good idea to spend a few hours at the race since we couldn’t be there on Saturday. We headed back to Indy at about 5 that afternoon and stopped in Terre Haute, Ind., to find an Italian restaurant, so that I could load up on carbohydrates for the next day. We found a great local place called Pinno’s. The only downside was that it took us about two hours to get back on the road.  We stayed at a hotel downtown so that we wouldn’t have to get up at 5 a.m. to be downtown in time. That worked out very well. I am not much of a morning person so every little bit of extra sleep helps.

The weather was perfect on Saturday morning, overcast and right around 50 degrees. As I waited for the race to start there were probably 50 beach balls that were being passed up and down the starting grid. On the course they had entertainment at every mile marker. There were quite a few bands and even some cloggers and square dancers. That was great motivation. We even got to run around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That might have been one of the toughest parts of the run. That’s when I started to have a little knee pain and quite a bit of pain in my foot. Thankfully it wasn’t enough to keep me from finishing.

I have to admit that the last three miles were tough. I just plain ran out of gas.  I am already thinking about what it will take to get my knee and foot prepared to try another one later this year. I know I can get under two hours with just a little more training.  I am very glad that I decided to do this, and who knows, this may be something that I keep doing for a long time. 

On Sunday we returned to St. Louis for eliminations. Both Roger Burgess (my team owner) and Raymond Commisso who drives Roger’s other ProMod car were qualified for the race. Raymond had a mechanical problem in round one but Roger went on to win the race.  In the final he won on a holeshot with a .014 light! How about that for your first win! Tommy and I are very happy for him and the entire team. All in all it was a great weekend.

Check back soon to see if Tommy wants to fill you in on his experience from this weekend.