Showing posts with label 500 Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 500 Festival. Show all posts

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Racing... finally.

With all this rain we've had the last couple days, there hasn't been a lot of racing going on over at the track. Today is Pole Day, which starts around noon and runs until 6pm. The weather is great, and the cool temperatures are even better for racing, so I knew a lot of people would want to get out on the track as early as possible to get some practice in, considering they hadn't really been out at all. I got up this morning around 9am to try and get some work done, and I can definitely confirm that cars are on the track. It took me a few minutes to figure out what the noise was that I was hearing, but I can certainly hear the cars from my apartment window. We may head over there to watch some qualifying, so stay tuned for some photos maybe tomorrow.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

500 Festival Mini-Marathon

It's May, which is a pretty huge month here in Indianapolis. They kicked off the 500 Festival this morning with the Mini-Marathon. Everybody in Indy knows the Mini is a pretty big deal. It's a half-marathon, so runners go 13.1 miles, with 2.5 of those miles being a lap around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. According to their website, "the Mini-Marathon is the largest half-marathon in the U.S., and overall, the eighth largest running event in America." So, it's a pretty huge even for Indianapolis, especially for being an event within an event. It's a great way to start the month.

This year, as you can see from the photo, the race ended in a tie. I find it pretty Canadian to declare a tie, but apparently the eighth largest running event in the U.S. can't afford or doesn't have the foresight to get a finish line camera. They don't have a good enough photo or video to determine the winner, so we are left with a tie. Each runner received the full winner's prize of $3,500. Pretty incredible race. In case you were curious, Kenyans Lamech Mokono and Valentine Orare each ran the course in 1:02.53, or about 4:46 a mile.