The Indy Mini 2007 - Spectating Report

On Friday afternoon we headed down to Indianapolis to be able to be the spectacular spectators (say that 5 times fast) that I know we are.

On Friday night we hung out with Jason's brother Jamie and his wife Susanne and their three kids, Sammy, Claudia and Jordan. Always fun to see those guys and this night was no different. Jason is the youngest of three boys in his family and younger by 8 and 10 years. It's weird for me to be around his brothers because while they are all wildly different from each other, all thee of them will do or say things that are so similar it's kind of funny. I think that since there is such a large span in years between the boys their parents changed along with the years (as people tend to do) and so they knew different parents while they were growing up. ANYWAYS.

I employed the three girls to help me make signs to cheer on the racers the next day. Man I have GOT to get me some 9-12 year old girls....they made great (!!!) signs and all the runners appreciated it the next day.

We stayed up late chatting and so didn't get to bed until about 1am. We had gotten up at 5:30 that morning and so we were pretty beat by the time we crashed. We set about 10 alarms because I was on duty to get Bridgette and take her to the race in the early morning so that her hubby and kids could sleep in. I woke up at 4:20 with my watch alarm, which is amazing because I never hear that one. We were up and on it in about 20 minutes. We found a Steak and Shake on the way and got some coffee which was greatly needed...although it tasted like they used enough coffee to brew one pot and used a single cup of water.

We got to Bridgette's house at exactly 5:30am, she was raring to go....unfortunatly I can talk a *bit* loud and so woke Chad up (sorry Chad :-) ). We left there at about 5:45 and we were on it to the race.

We parked and walked around and warmed up a bit, ran into Josh and his friend Jay which is always funny when there are 35000 people and you run into the one person you know in the crowd. We left Bridgette in her corral and we ran out to mile 3 where we were going to cheer people. Now. I am kinda stupid. No sleeping....a few beers on Friday night...no breakfast.....oh let's run 3 miles. I don't know why I can't learn this. If you don't treat yourself right, it's never easy. At least for me that's true. We stopped at a gas station on the way out to the mile marker to grab some breakfast...and yes Krispy Kreme doughnuts have all the vitamins and minerals you will ever need. We got to the mile marker just as the first runners were passing. After about 30 minutes or so we saw our friend Josh looking good, then about 10 minutes after that we saw the ever famous Runner Susan and 10 minutes after that Bridgette came by with a big smile on her face.

After those kids passed we ran about another 1/2 mile to get to mile 10 to wait for our runners there. We saw all three again, high fives and smiles as Josh and Susan passed us (Barb and Lisa would have been really proud of my cheering...I to-tally could have been an awesome cheerleader). We waited for Bridgette as we planned to run some of the miles from here to the end with her. She came on us and we gave her the Gu that we had been holding. By this point the sun and the heat had come out. This race has the uniqueness of being able to run around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway...which is awesome....which can also be a killer. The first time Jason and I did this race I was like, "What the ass, I have been running for ever and I am still on the mother fucking backstretch...how is that possible!" Mile 10 is about 1.5 miles after the speedway, so there might not have been as many smiles on Bridgette's face when we saw her at this point...but she gave us a few. We ran with her as we had to get back to the runner reunite area anways and thought it might help to get through the next tough miles. To add to the pain of the end of any race, we were running directly into the sun and the temperature had to be about 70 degrees out...which is pretty warm for race day conditions. She grinned and beared it though and we left her at about 12 to let her tackle the last 1.1 on her own.

We walked over to the runner's family reunion area and hooked up with Chad (Bridgette's hubby) and their two sons Tony and Kyle and waited for her to make it out of the finishing shoot. We found her a few minutes later and gave her big hugs and congrats. She had done her first half marathon and I was so happy for her. Congrats Girly!!!
We hung with them and they treated us to some delicious bbq food and then we headed back to our car with Bridgette to get the stuff she had given us to hold on to. Chad met us a few minutes later and we went our separate ways. And then we had to drive....to Chicago...on 3 hours of sleep...7 miles and 3 hours of spectating. Wooooooooo...ROAD TRIP!!!!!! I dozed on and off and Jason drove the whole way back...what a guy huh!

So we had a great time cheering on the racers...although I was a little jealous that I wasn't racing...although I have never liked being on the sidelines. A big congrats to all the runners and thanks to Jamie and Susanne for use of their house to sleep in before the race.