Indy Monumental Marathon RR

I was looking forward to running Indy for close to a year, since it was a race that people recommend, it's where my BFF lives, and it is always cold and good for running.  They also said it was flat but to this Miamian, that shit was NOT flat.  But still, everything else was true.

I had been dealing with asthma issues since the Chicago Marathon, plus my hamstring and glutes were sore during mostly every run, so I wasn't expecting to be fast by any means.  My plan was to break 5 hours on this one and to have fun.  Since my BFF Mary said she would run with me, my plan to try keeping up with her and not make her waste her day.  I kind of fail at that, but we had tons of fun!

We arrived at Indy on Friday afternoon and headed to the Bru Burger Bar, a place friends had recommended as having great burgers.  They were probably the best burgers I've had.  I had the Mexicali Burger and Richard had the Bru Burger.   Both were amazingly good.  Next time, I'll try The End Burger, just for the fried egg, ha!

After lunch, we headed to the hotel to check in and rest a bit.  Met one of my friends from the Chicago forum and Sub-4 Hour FB group, Michelle:

Glad to have finally met her in person.  She had a great race!

After a while, we met my BFF Mary downstairs to meet her kids, which are as amazing as her.  It's amazing how we met online and ran one of the Disney Goofy races together.  You learn a lot about a person when you run for 3+ hours with them.  We became BFFs after that and talk to each other almost daily.  She was key in me finishing the race, because I sure did not have a good day. I told her to not let me walk too often and not let me quit.  She achieved that and more.

We forgot to take a picture of all of us so failed at that!

Then, it was time to meet the Dailies FB Crew!  So many of my friends are online and I've had the pleasure of meeting many in person through the years, but from the Dailies Crew, I've only met three so far, so it was great to meet more of them for dinner.  Here is us:

We had a great time and great food.  Richard had the Club Sandwich and I had Fish and Chips, which I've never had before a race but will have many times more because my stomach was happy with that.

We woke up at around 6:30am and got ready on Saturday.  Once Mary was ready to meet us downstairs, we headed that way so we could meet one of our friends from the Love INKnBURN group, Jeanette:

It was 36F and lovely.  Everybody was freezing, but me.  I think I was born in the wrong country (PR) since I feel like I belong in the snow, haha.

Hubby did not take a picture of us, so again, we failed.

I also got to meet another one of my friends from my Sub-4 FB Group, Marciano, and here is both of us at the start:

He also had a good race. Hubby also had a great race and ran a 2:29.  Which left me happy.

We started out doing pretty well, between 10-10:21mm and walking the water stations.  I felt great until around Mile 14. Mary noticed I was slowing down but so far, my lungs were holding.  But at some point, I started sounding like Darth Vader. I used my rescue inhaler every two hours and even that didn't feel like it was enough.  At some point, Mary said I did not look good, but I told her we could move on.  I started walking sooner than I wanted (Mile 16ish, I think) but we were still ahead of Chicago and that made me happy.  We took a couple of pics throughout the course:

 By Mile 18 I was done. I mean, my lungs were done.  Poor Mary was running ahead of Darth Vader, LOL. I wanted to walk all the way to the finish, but as requested, Mary never faltered in getting me to start running again.  We headed to the finish and I started crying. Crying from the frustration that I had lost my endurance (mostly due to my meds) and that once again, I had a disappointing race.  But, by the time I crossed the finish I had shaken that shit off and headed to the finish line with a smile on my face, as I knew I had beaten my Chicago time by somewhere close to 25 minutes.  Not fast by any means, but getting better.

We had a great time, for sure. Fun in spite of my issues.  After the race, we met with LRB for lunch:

Since the race, I have been able to get off two medications and feeling much better.  Endurance has been wrecked from the BP meds (which right now I am not taking because my BP has been too low).  But now I'm rebuilding.  I have another marathon next week.  All I want is to continue improving.  The time for attempting a PR might be there next year, but right now I need to continue rebuilding the endurance that I lack.  2016 can really finish soon.  Good riddance!