The 500 Festival Mini-Marathon in Indianapolis is known as one of the best half marathons, and I’m not surprised. They started things out on the right foot with this rocking expo!
(Really, today wasn’t the start. they’ve been doing things well for the last few months, sending just the right number of update emails and such.)
Today I got to go with my dad to pick up his very first half marathon bib… ever! I am unbelievably excited for tomorrow.
The expo was decorated wonderfully – decals of feet on the floor leading you in, signage everywhere, tons of friendly volunteers throughout ready to point you in any direction you’d need to go. There was even an exhibit showcasing all the previous years of the Mini-Marathon. It was so cool to take a walk though the history of the race.
We weaved through the humongous expo. I heard about some more races. (A number of races here overlapped with ones I saw set up in Louisville last week. Many things were new, though.)
My dad and I entered various raffles. I happily signed up to be on the national bone marrow donor registry. (I thought it was pretty bomb that they were there. This was the first expo in which I’d seen them.)
They had a sign that said, “Out of the 35,167 runners, only two would be your match.” Isn’t it kind of amazing when you put it that way?
We also stopped by the RunDisney booth. My dad signed up for the 20th Anniversary Disney World Marathon in January. (My sister and I are already registered.)
Signing himself up may have been a bit presumptuous, since he hasn’t done a distance race before… Boy, I sure hope he has fun tomorrow.
We watched a bit of this looping video of the course playing in the middle of the exhibition hall. 13.1 miles seemed to be sort of long way, watching it on video… I don’t think it will seem all that long when we’re actually on the course.
Here’s the scary part. (Dum, dum dum (Those are scary chords to hear in your head.)) There were big signs warning about the weather forecast. (We got warning emails as well.) It’s supposed to be super hot and very humid. We have been warned in large, bold letters multiple times. I’m interested to see what tomorrow brings.
So far, this half marathon has gotten every single thing right. I cannot even wait for the race!