At the starting line for the 2011 Drumstick Dash, about halfway back

This “race” is a complete frustration for those who want to run.  Its name is the Drumstick Dash, but I would call it the Stuffing Shuffle at first, then maybe the Apple Pie Amble, then the Turkey Trot.  The dashing had to be saved for the end.  But if you could let go of the need for speed, it was an enjoyable human river of good cheer.  Need I mention that the shirts were a happy bright orange this year?  You can pick out several of last year’s Day-glo green in the crowd.

For some reason, the start of the race was delayed by about 25 minutes.  There might have been an explanation given, but from where I was, maybe halfway through the crowd, the PA system sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher: “wah-wah-wah-wah.”

On Broad Ripple Avenue, shortly after the start

The nuts and bolts: Runners and walkers had a choice of 4.5 miles (chip-timed or not) or 2.3 untimed miles, both with a 9am start.  The course begins and ends on Broad Ripple Avenue, near Broad Ripple High School.  The packet pickup (on Wednesday) required preregistrants to look up their numbers in a book that was as thick as the phone book for a small city; the accompanying expo was as big as that for some marathons.  After-race food included bagels, bananas, granola bars, coffee, and water, if you could get to any of it.  I thought that the 2010 race had outgrown the venue, the bigger 2011 version stretched the capability of the Blue Mile parking lot to the limit.

Race results are here.

Happy runners. Two of them had never run 4.5 miles before.

THE GOOD

This race is very well-organized and has been from the first year.  There is good communication via email and the booklet given out at packet pickup, and the Facebook page is updated regularly.

The volunteers were unfailingly cheerful and courteous; water stops were well-staffed and well-supplied.

The logo-imprinted timing chips were disposable/recyclable, so that finishers didn’t have to stop to get a chip cut off if they preferred to go pass out or throw up somewhere, or more likely, keep moving.

The knit hat given to finishers along with the medal came in handy to ward off post-race chill.

Results were available immediately, on a printed ticket that looked like a receipt, complete with the race’s logo.  (Probably best to photocopy it if you want to keep it around for any length of time.)

The course, except as noted below.  It takes in the State Capitol Building, Lucas Oil Stadium, Monument Circle, Massachusetts Avenue, the Old Northside, Meridian-Kessler, Broad Ripple, Butler University (oddly quiet this year), the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Riverside Park, and Meridian Street from Fall Creek Parkway to New York Street.

The course changes.  They were subtle at the beginning, adding a bit of mileage early on so that in Mile 26 runners could turn right on New York and not go twisty-turny backtracking within tantalizing spitting distance of the finish.  I did enjoy doing a second quarter-turn around Monument Circle and running toward the front of the Capitol on Market Street in previous years, but did appreciate eliminating all the turns at the end this year.

THE COULD-HAVE-BEEN-BETTER

At the finish, there was no promised milk.  There were no bananas.  There was nothing from Jimmy John’s or Panera.   The chili came in only one variety — MEAT — which not all people can tolerate after hours of exertion.  People who finish at the end of the pack put out just as much effort (maybe more) as the frontrunners, and pay just as much, and deserve to have something besides a bagel and water.

Worse, I complained about this last year, and saw no improvement.

The short-sleeved technical t-shirts are pretty much transparent.  That might work for the men, but women might not be comfortable wearing it.

The placement of some of the mile markers seemed off, particularly 5 and 17 (both seemed to be late).  I don’t run with any technology beyond my watch, but I really don’t think I ran mile 6 a minute faster than 5.  A lively conversation on Facebook suggests that the entire course might have been long for both the half and full marathons, but don’t these things have to be certified?  I would trust my stopwatch over a GPS.  But I would trust the elite runners’ “intuitive percentage feel” over all of it.  The organizers defend the accuracy of the course by saying that it is measured on the tangents, where most runners aren’t.  But isn’t that where the elites run?

Likewise, the water stops seemed to be off a little from where they were supposed to be.  Not a big deal.

A bigger deal is the looooong stretch between water stops at 20.1 (30th and White River Parkway) and 21.8 (Burdsal Parkway) and a mile and half on either side of those.  These are the most desolate miles, without fans, music, or variation in terrain or scenery.  These are the miles that start the “there be dragons” uncharted territory where most training programs’ long runs don’t venture.  There is an attempt to make it a little interesting with trivia questions on signs by the side of the road, but those were recycled from last year.  George Hill is no longer with the San Antonio Spurs.  And there was a baffling reference to “Broad Ripple too” that had no antecedent, which made me think that the signs were out of order.

Individual results are available online, as is the list of finishers before 4:30 or so, but the latter is available only through a link on the Facebook site.  I still have no clue how many finishers there were — that number doesn’t seem to be posted anywhere.

THE INTERESTING

There was a variety of aural entertainment, from the terrific bluegrass band on McCarty Street in Mile 2 to the earsplitting music from speakers in front of the Scottish Rite Cathedral close to the end of the course.  In between were a young boy and his father (?) drumming on a plastic bucket (did you see the dent they put in it?), a duet of young flautists, a band on the driveway of the Governor’s mansion, a guitar duo, a woman playing some kind of reverberating gong-like thing near the Butler campus, and a guy making love to his guitar, seemingly oblivious to the runners.  And cowbells.

The election for mayor Indianapolis is only two days away.  Judging from the signs along 26 miles of city streets, it’s a very close race.  Mayor Ballard may have a few more signs, but Melina Kennedy has more square footage of sign space.

On 16th Street there was a billboard for Save the Star (Indianapolis News Guild Local No. 34070) about Gannett’s efforts to outsource the production of the local Indianapolis newspaper to Kentucky.  This is why the Star no longer covers such local events as the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon except with a few sentences — they don’t have anyone left to do it.  The billboard certainly got my attention.  (The Star did manage to run a story about a local charity that encourages runners, and something about how the marathon was going to cause traffic headaches.  Puh-leeeeze!)  Save the Star is on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/indynewsguild.

While marathon finishers were still coming across the line, the Occupy Wall Street protestors were growing louder.  They flowed over the grounds of the Capitol and down to the timing chip removal area before changing course like a flock of geese and heading north on Senate.

I heard a joke behind me on 38th Street as we passed the State Fairgrounds:  An invisible man married an invisible woman.  Their kids weren’t much to look at.  Ba-dum-bum!

In Broad Ripple, I talked to a man who was running his third marathon.  “Yeah, I’ve run Chicago and New York, so this completes the Big Three.”

I kept hearing people saying something about not being “passed by Elvis.”  I thought it was an obscure pop culture reference that I was unaware of.  But I saw Elvis after the finish.  I hope his jumpsuit was made of technical material.

AS FOR ME

It was a PR, by about 7 1/2 minutes.

I walked to the car dreading two things: dealing with my manual transmission with marathon-tired legs, and finding out how badly Indiana was being blown out by Ohio State in Columbus.  Ha!  The score was tied at 20.  Alas, the legs held out, IU didn’t.

________

UPDATE 11/7: Full results are now available: http://www.onlineraceresults.com/race/view_race.php?race_id=22141#racetop

There are some changes to the course.  The second quarter-turn around Monument Circle has been eliminated for a right turn onto New York Street, which means that more mileage was added earlier in the course.  The 13.1-mile mats were on 66th Street last year; now they are on College Avenue at just about the northernmost point of the course.

__________

As part of the Super Bowl LXVI festivities, there will be a 5K, the “Legacy Loop,” starting and ending at Arsenal Technical High School on January 28th.  Proceeds will benefit Near-Eastside development efforts.  Registration is scheduled to begin in mid-November.

Lee Circle, after which you can run with the streetcars

This was nothing like the Monon, because on the Monon, only the ghosts of trains share the trail with runners.  The concierge at my hotel recommended this as the best and safest running route.  Note the well-worn path between the tracks in both directions. When a streetcar came by, I would zig onto the other track, and then zag back when it passed.  I wonder how many distracted runners have been smashed by streetcars?  Where are the lawyers?  The trees along here are dripping with Mardi Gras beads:

Running along the St. Charles line

There are other unaccustomed sights along the way — there is poetry in the facade of this church.   The street is one-way — common in the city.  There are also two grocery carts.  I wonder where they came from?  I did not see one grocery store in four days of walking and running in the city, and riding in streetcars and cabs.

Church in New Orleans

I came away from the week with shin splints and sore knees and hips, probably from running and walking on bricks, concrete, and impacted Mardi Gras beads:

The running surface between the tracks of the St. Charles line

St. Charles Avenue is lined with beautiful old houses, and although there is a lot of support for the Indianapolis Colts (the Mannings are from New Orleans), there is no question where loyalties lie:

New Orleans is known as "America's Spookiest City" and the decorating for Halloween starts early

Audubon Park was a lovely detour.  There’s a paved path that separates walkers and runners from cyclists.  You may choose to cross the golf course at your own risk.  That’s the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in the left background:

Audubon Park

My destination was the Mississippi River.  I ran about a mile along the levee:

From the levee along the Mississippi in the Riverbend neighborhood

And then I ran back, for a total of 14-15 miles.

There were 162 half-marathon finishers, compared to 205 last year.

A warning about the shirts: the logo on the front kinda melts in the dryer.

The start is on Indiana State Road 19 in front of the high school, between Arcadia and Cicero.

Start line. Note the Vermeer cheerleader and the hot mist. Photo by Michael Hoyt.

The assembled runners were addressed by the high school’s principal, who noted that some kind of officials had held off on “graveling” some of the roads on the route, whatever that means.  The first two miles proceeded straight south, past a billboard advertising a seductive strawberry lemonade from McDonald’s and featuring an astonishing variety of roadkill – possums, a raccoon, squirrels, a shrew (mole?  mouse?), a bird.  A turn to the west on Jackson Street through the heart of Cicero put the sun at our backs as we crossed a flag-lined causeway over Morse Reservoir and passed a crow-shrouded cemetery and began our orderly turns through the soybean and corn fields of Hamilton County.  Spectators were few from this point: there was a gaggle of women, cameras at the ready, waiting for some friends, and a woman in a lawn chair in the shade of a front-yard tree.  And lots of crickets.

Crossing the water on Jackson Street, mile 3. Photo by Michael Hoyt.

The course, in alphabetic terms, is a stumpy “Y,” or maybe a sloppy “H” with one leg cut off, or maybe a drunken “U.”  It’s all right angles and straight lines except for a tiny portion of mile 12 that follows a creek as it tangents against East 256^thSt. The flat landscape makes for some long vistas (the elevation changes can probably be measured in single digits), or it would have had the very tangible moisture-laden air not interfered.

In the shade of corn. By Michael Hoyt.

None of us ran alone: the heat and humidity were constant companions.  I tend to melt in anything above 75 when I’m not running; conditions above 65 threaten to do me in when I’m moving.  This day ultimately had record-breaking heat (100 degrees smashed the old record of 96 in Indianapolis).  The race started in the mid-70s and probably finished in the mid-80s.  (On the drive home, an electronic billboard in Westfield said 92, but I suspect that reading was a bit high.)

Running east, by Michael Hoyt

Results: They were available a few minutes after finishing, which is how the organizers were able to avoid staging a pesky awards ceremony.  Finishers just had to check in at a table covered with medals on ribbons to see if they’d placed.  With standard 5-year age groups, as well as overall awards, probably half of the runners went home with hardware (if they knew to check).  So why can’t the results be posted to the race’s website?  Maybe because parts of it haven’t been updated since it was first put together more than two years ago.  The current system is not without problems: more than once I have been in the situation where a woman in my age group with an androgynous name has been erroneously counted as a man.  Once she claimed her rightful gender, I moved down in the finishing order and out of award territory.  What if that happened at this race, after the awards had already been given away and the participants dispersed?

On the website, some inaccuracies still persist:  This is most decidedly NOT an out-and-back course.  I don’t know how that crept in there, because it never has been.  And it is not “tree-lined.”  There is very little shade, although you can keep your ankles in the shade in miles 7 and 8 if you run close to the east edge of the road because the corn is tall enough to cast a shadow.   And as recently as a couple of months ago, the website said that the race would be run the last weekend in August.  I assumed that the new date was to avoid a conflict with the new Indianapolis Women’s Half Marathon, but nope, someone moved the Morse Mini back to September and a conflict with the new race (that drew probably ten times the participants of this one).

So why did I do this race for the third time?  I really like the course.  I don’t run races with headphones (see earlier post) and the runners are spread out over the miles, so it’s just communing with the pastoral landscape and personal running angels and demons.

While out there feeling like a crazy person, I found out that there were even crazier ones trotting along beside me.  Michael, from Indianapolis, told me about his group “Half Fanatics” and his pledge to run 52 half-marathons in 52 weeks.  We ran together for a while, then he dropped back.  I told him he’d pass me later, and he seemed surprised when he did.  He was taking it easy, as the Morse was the first of three (!) half-marathons he had planned for this holiday weekend.  A woman from Cicero named Deb and I kept passing each other, until finally we both had had enough and walked the rest together.  A woman named Catherine was seeing spots.  The four of us represented a relatively senior contingent who consciously decided to honor our health over our finishing times.  As Catherine’s husband put it, “ You see old summer runners, and bold summer runners, but never old bold summer runners.”

What was good: Short-sleeve technical shirts in dark blue with an unusual asymetrical design, although the sizes ran huge.  Extremely energetic water-stop volunteers.  Lovely landscape.  Well-marked course.  Quiet.  Friendly participants, officials, and volunteers.

Water stop with energetic volunteers at mile 6, by Michael Hoyt

What they could do better: Here I go into broken-record mode: Ask for feedback from the actual participants!  The post-race food needs bolstering.  (Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies which they ran out of, Red Delicious apples, and animal crackers are all reasonable treats, but were all too sweet to even consider after running in the heat.  That left water and Vitamin Water for post-race sustenance.)  Post the results on some sort of bulletin board at the finish line.  Post the results on the website.  Water stops should be more frequent.  Every two miles wasn’t enough in the heat (and Labor Day weekend, heat is a real possibility every year).  I ran with a water bottle, and refilled it at Mile 10, and it still wasn’t enough.  The finishers’ medals are generic, without even the year of the race noted.  Still no recycling at the finish line.

So some people won the race, but we won’t know who for a while.  As for me, I don’t know if it was a failure of body (after a turn into the sun and a dramatic increase in temperature, breathing became difficult, even with Albuterol), or a failure of will, but at 10.1 miles, I just… stopped running.  It was not premeditated at all.  I walked much of the rest of the way, in the company of others who acknowledged the very real danger of continuing.  My time was one of my worst ever, tied with the 500 Festival Mini I did while I was 2^nd-trimester pregnant, but I still managed to come in 2^ndin my age group.  That just means that a lot of other people stayed home, out of the crazy heat.

Morse Mini 2011 finisher. Thanks, Michael Hoyt!

Thanks to Michael Hoyt for his gymnastic photo skills.  The man can run backward, snap pictures, and stay upright with the best of them.

There was a new course this year, an H-shaped concoction beginning and ending on Penn in front of Conseco Fieldhouse that took in parts of several of the state-named streets and a quarter turn around Monument Circle.  It’s always fun to run down the middle of usually-busy streets, and the crowd support for this race is great.  Pockets of color-coded fans cheered on all the racers despite the good-natured rivalry among the schools.  I even saw a group from Nebraska, a little early.  The Ohio State and Penn State bands provided start-line entertainment.

New Big 10 logo

The new Big 10 logo was branded just about everywhere.  I’m sure it is copyright-protected, and I am not using it with permission, so note that it is the property of the Big 10, 2011, etc.  I have problems with it — I know that it is supposed to be ambiguous, that we read the last character as both a zero and a “G,” but the first hundred times I saw it, I wondered if B-ten was some new vitamin I hadn’t heard of.  The G needs to be a bit G-y-er, IMHO.

Some complaints:

This is a BIG complaint.  Tuxedo Brothers, are you listening?  Times were gun times only, so if you started way back in the crowd, your posted time was way off.  Why do we have chips if we don’t get timed with them?  Why are there mats at the start line?  There was lots of grumbling about this among the finishers, and talk of avoiding races that operate this way.

On Delaware, behind Conseco Fieldhouse, there was a line of tour buses angle-parked and idling, spewing fumes onto the course.  Couldn’t they >cough<  have been asked to turn off their engines >cough, cough< for the duration of the race?  Or better yet, just turned off?

The “random” prizes are anything but random.  The announcers just saw the number of someone close, looked on their list, and announced that name.  A much better system would be to draw the numbers ahead of time and post them on a white board while runners are out on the course — participants could check the list when they finish and then proceed to the prize table to claim their goodies.  It would give everyone something to do during the wait for the awards ceremony.

Purdue won the team competition, again.  What’s up with that?

All in all, a pleasant run.  It was a PR for me (even the gun time!).

When I started my run at the 96th Street rest area yesterday, I encountered two middle-aged guys with fat-tire bicycles, uh, resting.  “How’s the path?,” I asked.  “Not so bad,” offered one.  “We nearly went down a few times,” said the other.  They’d been both north and south, and said it was the same, which didn’t help make my decision of which direction to go.  I chose north.  If it was so bad, I reasoned, I could always run back and forth in the I-465 tunnel 50 times.

I quickly saw that they had been unable to hold a steady, straight line.  Their tracks were drunken s-curves as far as the eye could see.

Still, it was “not so bad.” The Monon had been plowed at some point (after the ice storm).  Now it is like concrete covered with a layer of sand.  A few areas of asphalt peeked through (very few) and there are some difficult patches of ice.  The worst is directly north of the I-465 tunnel.  The bridge over Carmel Drive is a ski-jump.  It’s a little bit of extra workout for calves and ankles.

There weren’t all that many people out, despite the mild (mid-30s) temps and sparkly sun.  I would judge that I saw NO ONE — walkers, runners, cyclists –  under the age of 40.

And yes, there was evidence that a few folks had been through wearing Yaktrax.  I slogged on without them (they stayed in my car) — another runner told me he wished he’d worn them.

According to the New York Times (States’ lawmakers Turn Attention to the Dangers of Distracted Pedestrians), legislatures in several states are considering bans on the use of electronic devices while riding bicycles, walking, or running.  New York’s bill would prohibit a runner from crossing a street while using an MP3 player.  A violation would bring a $100 fine.  In Arkansas, a bill to prohibit pedestrians from wearing headphones in both ears was withdrawn.  These were in response to an uptick in pedestrian deaths.

“They” used to say that we shouldn’t run with headphones because we couldn’t hear the bad guys sneaking up on us.  Now we shouldn’t wear them because they might make us forget to look both ways.

10:00 minutes/mile pacers: "Because the math is easier"

10:30 minutes/mile pacers

Zulu socks are the best!

"Meet the Pacers" drew a crowd

The extra "e" is for enthusiasm!