Carmel is just outside of Indianapolis and is known to be a little more upscale in terms of housing and shops. The expo was located at the Monon Community center and had a decent amount of races and vendors to check out while getting your race packets.

The day of the race was absolutely beautiful but you could tell it was going to get warm as it was nearly 50+ degrees at the start of the race - not a good sign. Especially since we haven't had that kind of weather yet throughout our training. I was able to run with a friend and was hoping to get a PR for the day.

The course was mostly flat with some steady mild inclines throughout the course. The marathon and half were together for the first fourish miles and then the half did a turn around while the full went straight. When we got to the bike trails the full joined back with the half which I'm sure was annoying for the top marathoners having to weave in and out of the slower half runners on a somewhat narrow bike path.

Not to any surprise the temps got really warm and the water stations were few and far between it felt like (had it not gotten up to 70+ degrees, I'm sure the amount of water stations would have felt fine) and so I felt the effects of dehydration because I opted not to take water at the first few stations - trust me, I learned my lesson lol.

One thing Carmel did this year was the sprint to the finish.... They compared your overall pace for whichever race you did to the last half mile of the race. Whoever had the greatest pace increase was awarded a prize. For me this was a little odd... So a person could walk the half marathon with a 20 min pace (there was a six hour time limit) and then book it that last half mile to win the sprint to the finish challenge. It wasn't for me but I'm sure others enjoyed it so to each their own I guess.

After the race there were lots of food options: water, bananas, pretzels, donut holes, pizza, cookies, fruit snacks, and of course, chocolate milk.

I did end of PRing even with the heat and I'm sure I could have done better if the weather hadn't gotten above 70 degrees... But the one thing you can never predict is the weather. We hope to go back in the future.