Monumental Marathon was state number 49 for me. The weather forecast leading up to race day was a little disconcerting with initial thunderstorms predicted, which then became showers predicted, but thankfully on race morning, it was cool and overcast. Ideal running conditions!

Indianapolis is a pretty cool town and if you book your hotel in advance you don’t need a rental car downtown. I took an Uber from the airport to the convention center for packet pickup which was pretty painless (lots of vendors, good expo) and then walked the two blocks to my hotel. There are lots of restaurants and monuments (hence the race’s name) and it’s a fun place to explore. I’d advise you get dinner reservations in advance. My party of four had a table reserved at super casual Buca di Beppo for carbs and due to the marathon, convention, concerts, and a marching band competition, they weren’t taking walk ins. Phew!

Race morning is low stress because it starts at 8am and again, two blocks from my hotel to the start (and the finish). It’s well laid out and organized and we went off on time. There were waves assigned based on finish time but it was on your honor. My first complaint, and really my only complaint, is don’t make that optional. If you go to the trouble of assigning people to waves, then ensure they go to the correct wave. I felt like I was constantly weaving and dodging for two or three miles around walkers and much slower paced runners. I’m not knocking anyone who chooses to walk but if you do, line up closer to the back please.

The course itself is pretty typical for a city. We started in downtown and ran around downtown for about three miles then outside the city, into neighborhoods, past a college, down a highway, through a park, and eventually back downtown. The half runners split at around mile 7 which was nice as the crowd thinned out. It’s also fairly flat with just a few small hills, no monsters. There were a lot of segments where runners were in one lane and cars were in the others, which didn’t always bother me but in his day in age, it’d be nice if that could be avoided for safety and security reasons.

On-course support was fantastic. There were probably 20 aid station/water stops, lots of portajohns, plus a few Gu and candy opportunities. Crowds were pretty good too, with very enthusiastic supporters!

The medal was good. It was the last in a four year series so it had a notch taken out of the corner (if you ran all four, it would form the Indiana flag and the notch makes sense). I’m not a fan of series because I don’t run the same race over and over but I can see the incentive to get people to return. The shirt was nice though I think they gave me a men’s small so it’s a little big. There was also a knit cap which you got at the finish line. I like that they distinguished between distances for all the swag - half was red, full was blue, etc. There was a pretty nice finish line spread plus space blankets and chocolate milk. I was freezing after I stopped running so I didn’t linger, just walked back to my hotel.

All in all, I think this is a solid race. The weather turned out to be perfect, I had a lot of runner friends present, and it’s a fun city, so a good way to finish off the year until number fifty. I’d recommend it for sure.