Run, Ride, Race.............Repeat: Kentucky Derby Mini Marathon Race Report

This was it, my "A" race for the first part of the year. The hard training, the losing weight, the taper tensions all added up to this race, my goal to go under 1:18:00 for the 13.1 miles.

I rode my bike Friday and had a great time, didn't try too hard and felt great. On Friday evening I headed down to Louisville, there's no race morning packet pick-up, so the day before race trip was necessary. Instead of facing the drive home again and the 4am wake-up to drive back down to Louisville, I stayed at a hotel out of town near the Cyclocross track at Eva Bandman park.

Louisville looked pretty good in the spring evening sunset

I ate pasta with my family before leaving Columbus, later in the evening I had a baked egg

Protein & Carbs

from the Skratch Labs Feedzone Portables book as well as a U-Go bar, this "last supper" was washed down with some Hare Trigger beer and a large glass of Beetroot juice - not exactly an inspiring culinary experience but quality fuel for the task ahead of me.

Waking up at 6am was far better than the 4am alternative even if the price paid was not sleeping in my own bed and a hotel air conditioning unit which sounded like a small aircraft trying to take off in my room!

A short drive had me parked about a mile from the start location, it was a cool morning, but not cold. I started a short warm up run, after about half a mile I picked up the pace to what felt like a comfortable race effort. Looking at my GPS, I was at 5:45 min/mile - faster than my target pace, and my legs felt good. Sometimes in these brief warm up efforts, you just get the feeling that it's going to be a good day - today was one of those days.

After 2.5 miles of warm up I arrived at the start. I hadn't appreciated how big this race was going to be. With the mini-marathon and full marathon combined, there were over 16,000 participants - that's a lot of people trying to use a porta-potty within 30 mins of the start!

I was seeded in coral A based on my projected finish time - this was great - only the second time in my life I've been brave enough to stand right at the front of a big race & watch as the elite athletes (who don't get a coral) finished their warm ups and lined up just ahead of us. My Quaff ON! Racing team mate, Danny Fisher was running the full marathon and as a previous champion was seeded #6. It was great to see a friendly face and shake hands before the start, even though I knew I wouldn't see him again until he finished his race!

There were two things I noticed about my peers in the race - this is a group of people who've all trained and are strong enough to run a half marathon at around 6 min/mile pace, so they're all experienced runners
First - within the first 5 miles, 2 people stopped to tie shoe laces, one of them ran past me again, then stopped again to tie the other shoe lace!
Second - the number of people not running the shortest course. USATF certifies the course over the shortest distance, the roads are closed which means you run corner to corner. I passed people running the left hand gutter like it was a training run expecting oncoming traffic.
So my takeaways from this, even for experienced runners is (1) always double tie your shoes, really, it takes no additional effort, just do it! (2) run the shortest course - turn off the training mentality and look for the line corner to corner.
Sounds basic, it is basic, but there are plenty of people running semi-elite times that aren't paying attention to these basics.

My race quickly settled into a rhythm with my pace at or just below my target of 5:58 min/mile. It quickly got thinned out and by 10k there were really only 3 or 4 people around me. The course goes through the Churchhill Downs race course, as we dipped back under the tunnel to start the dead straight 4 miles to the finish, Paul Althoff, caught up with me and we exchanged a few panted words about our objectives - both wanting to break 78 mins - we came through 10 miles in 59:33, I knew it would be a close call to hit my goal time - we remained in sight of each other to the finish briefly exchanging positions as one started to fade, or the other felt strong it was good motivation to stay on pace and definitely helped me when the going got tough. We were running into a head wind which at first was hardly noticeable but the closer we got to the down town, the taller the buildings got and channeled the wind directly at us. The final mile of this was truly miserable, culminating in running under the long bridge of the conference center which was like a full-on wind tunnel. I kept telling myself that once we turned out of the wind onto Main Street for the final 0.6 miles, I'd find some speed but when we finally made the turn, there was nothing left to accelerate, just maintaining pace was taking my full effort. Finally I made the last turn to the down hill finish and found something to pick up the pace. I could see the clock already past 1:17:00, with a weak surge I crossed the line with an official race time of 1:17:45.

Finishers medal 1:17:45 - new PR!

I had beaten my goal time, I came 23rd overall (out of 11,800 starters!) and won my age group. A result I'm really proud of - the preparation in training paid off.

After a short cool down run back to the car, I was able to cheer on Danny Fisher who finished 4th overall in the marathon with a PR time of 2:30:18 - he'd just run two half marathons back to back faster than my personal best - a humbling thought! Also running the full marathon (his second in 7 days) was team mate Joe Bell, who come in at 2:58 - sub 3 hour marathons are becoming the norm for Joe who's endurance and persistence are inspiring.