Today was race day and it was a blast! There were 13 of us from our church, Terrace Lake Community Church, who went up. I didn’t sleep well last night and I felt weird this morning. I was a little concerned I would fizzle out. God answered my prayer for strength, energy, and endurance! The starting corrals are set up according to the predicted length of time to finish as indicated on the registration. So, I started in corral X. The race officially started at 7:30 a.m. My corral didn’t cross the start line until a little after 8:00 a.m. That is what happens when there are 35,000 registered runners/walkers. It was great. My shins hurt around the second mile but after that I was fine. I had one of my power gels at mile 4 and then mile 8 as I was going around the Indy 500 track.
A weird thing happened….I actually ran! During training all I did was walk. Today I would run in intervals. It felt awesome! A couple of times it actually felt better to run than to walk. I maintained a good pace (for me). My goal was to do 15 minute miles. My official pace was 14:28. WOO HOO. All the work paid off. Here is my official standing:
Karen Riley
bib number: 39333
age: 35
gender: F
location: Columbus, IN
overall place: 23604 out of 29211
division place: 1689 out of 2197
gender place: 11117 out of 15244
time: 3:09:23
pace: 14:28
guntime: 1:15:28
5mile: 2:26:41
10mile: 42:42

Considering it was my first mini-marathon, I think I did pretty well. Out of the 13 of us who went, I came in 4th! I am stoked about the next race………….. Our group is talking about going to the Disney mini in January.