The 500 Festival Mini Marathon has been my favorite race thus far - and not just because I broke my PB at 1:58:11. The organizers took great care in making this THE event for spring. The Expo was Marathon Level quality, and debuted the Indy 500 Pace Car as soon as you walked in. The merch was also Marathon level quality. The information staff was very informative and told my mom the perfect place to wait along the course in attempt to see me. Race day, however, was PACKED. I ran the 5k first and it was difficult to really get into a pace for the first mile from how many walkers/runners were squished together but I still made it back in time before the half start. Meb Keflezighi was the "Green Flag Waver" (cause the whole race was Indy 500 themed) and the energy from the crowd and fellow runners were contagious. After take off, I honestly don’t remember much from the race (because it was almost 5 years ago) but WOW was this course flat and fast. I was basically running negative splits until mile 10!!!! Even more impressive was that these negative splits included the time spent running on the Indy Speedway (which was horrible on my hips from the slant). I will gladly run this race again.

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