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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Half Marathons

Earlier this year I competed in the Louisville Triple Crown of Running. I wrote about the first two races in a previous post. The last leg of the series was the Papa John's 10 Miler. In the first two races, I won the 5K and the other female competitor Tina Vogel took the 10K. I was very eager to see who would win the 10 Miler because whoever won would take the entire triple crown. Tina was well ahead of me at the finish. I did not pace well because I did not know the course.

We got the chance to compete again at the Kentucky Derby Festival Half Marathon. I wanted to see what I could do because over all our times were very close. I started out ahead of her and stayed ahead for the first two miles. Later she passed me but I thought that that was fine because I had kept her at bay for a long time. About mile eight or nine through the race I saw her round the corner ahead of me. I was surprised because I thought that she was way out in front. I decided that I was going to try to pass her. Slowly, I worked to close the distance between us. About mile eleven I caught up to her. I passed her and stayed ahead. Tina passed me at the last turn because she knew that the finish was right there. We fought down the home stretch and in the end I won by 0.21 seconds! I was thrilled! I found out later that around mile eight she dropped her glove rubber and went back to get it. If that had not happened, I would not have stood a chance.

The next weekend, I raced in the Indy Mini, which had a much larger wheelchair division. There were four female wheelchair competitors from Illinois, which has the best wheelchair racing program in the nation. They got ahead of me and stayed way ahead. During part of the course I got to race around the Indy 500 track and cross over the brick yard. As I was going around, I looked up and on the jumbo-tron I saw a local news station interviewing the first male wheelchair racer to cross the finish line. I thought “I am little more than half way done and he finished and has time to be interviewed.” I fought to finish well. I pushed myself to go hard even though I had not felt well the night before. I finished with the time of 1:13:12 and in fifth place. I thought that it was pretty ironic that I felt slower in that race because I came in fifth even though I had the time of 1:16:09.57 in the Derby Festival Half the week before.

Here are some links:

A news article about the Kentucky Derby Festival Half Marathon:




Results for the Kentucky Derby Festival Half Marathon:

Results for the Indy Mini:

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