Traveled to Indy for the largest half marathon in the US with more than 35K participants. We drove on Thursday and stopped over in Richmond, IN which was about 70 miles from Indianapolis. We left early the next morning and was actually able to check into the hotel early which was nice. We walked from the hotel to the Indianapolis Zoo. Weather was nice but there were so many field trips so that meant tons of kids. The coolest part of the zoo was getting to pet the dog sharks that swim around in the shark pool. We went back to this twice. Saw the dolphin show that was lively and loved watching the dolphins. Legs feeling a little tired after walking around all day. We than went to the expo to pick up the bib and look around and take some pictures. We left making the decision to go to dinner early (4pm) and would go back to the expo later to look around. We went to the Old Spagetti Factory and it was a good thing that we went early-got seated and the food came quickly. When we were leaving there were people waiting for tables. We went back to the hotel which by the way was right at the Start line-they gave warnings that music would be playing at 6am and also they were doing breakfast early and had special grab bags. After relaxing for a little bit we ventured back to the Expo even though it had started to rain and the wind picked up. There was a tornado warning for the area. Went to bed early trying to get so good rest-woke up to sound checks and couldn't believe it when I looked at my watch and it was only 4:20am. I thought I would be able to sleep until 5:30 but no chance of that. I guess the wind may have knocked things down but this was way early! I wanted to make sure I was in my corrals by 7am because they made it seem like they shut down walkways (which they didn't). I had a mini meltdown when I couldn't find my Garmin-had to take a deep breath and luckily it was found. There were so many people it was crazy. I got in my corral and waited to start moving which was about 20 min after the start we finally go to the front. Off we went and the miles seemed to go a lot quicker than last weekend. I made the decision to go the bathroom before entering the Speedway even though the line was long. Note to self-use it inside the Speedway next time there were no lines! I took a lot of pictures in the Speedway it was just cool seeing thousands of people doing a lap around-2.5 miles is the lap. After the Speedway we were on the way back to downtown. The countdown was on from 3/4 left but I never saw a finish line-usually you can spot it far away. I heard the wind was the issue. The day was very windy especially on the way to the Speedway it was 30-50 mph wind gusts. I bought a finisher's shirt and we looked around-it was hard to tell if the tents were for us or running groups. We didn't have beer tickets and I didn't go into the garden to see if it was free. Maybe it should have been clearer. We went back to the hotel and went to eat at PF Changs-Tom's birthday lunch. We went to the 500 festival at the Speedway which was somewhat disappointing. We did go to White Castle after so check that off the list. We ended up packing a lot into Sunday and went to the Speedway museum got our pictures taken in an Indy car and took a lap around the track in a bus-wish we could have gotten out on the track. We rented bikes and rode around for an hour. Sun was out and we got lawn tickets to the baseball game. Since it was a long day we ended with dinner at the hotel-TGIF!
Great weekend-wish it wasn't so far away otherwise I would be back next year. Maybe 2012 we will be able to go back.
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