Knowing that I couldn't drive up, run two races, and drive back by myself, I called up my favorite race crew. Rob's grandparents talked it over and decided to come. The stage was set. Kentucky would be my next state.
My Training Plan: Training for double marathons is exhausting. I ran every Tuesday (10 miles), most Wednesdays (3 miles), Thursday (8 miles), Saturday, and Sunday. I did long runs on both weekend days, including a 20/20 week. On Wednesday and Friday I did my CrossFit class, and I took Monday off.
Weather: The weather was low 60s and rainy. It started sprinkling around 9am, and then poured around 11. It continued to rain through the end of the race.
Running Attire: I wore my purple and pink Nike running shorts, my Liz shirt, my Delaware Marathon hat, my pink CEP calf sleeves, and my iFitness running belt.
Who I Ran With: For about 18 miles, I ran with a fascinating woman named Amy Lambert. She is originally from Michigan, but now lives in a motor home and travels all over. We had great conversations about different races in different states. We met because we were both running with the 4:30 pace group. Our pacers were great, and brought us to the finish line right on time. They encouraged us to speed up on the last mile while they stayed back to ensure a 4:30 time. They were fairly quiet, but talked to everyone and motivated them when it mattered.
The Course: For the most part, this is a pretty flat course. In the very middle of the race, you run into a park. The park itself is very hilly. There are three big hills and four smaller hills as you go through the park. The hilly part has a lot of nice green trees along the road. The course goes through Churchill Downs before the marathon and half ("mini") split. The course is pretty crowded until the split, but after the split it spreads out a lot. Cliff shots (gel) was offered frequently (but not my thing, so I carried my own Carb Boom gels). Water and Powerade stops were about every other mile. Porta potties were pretty frequent (about every other mile or so, with two to four porta potties at each spot), but always full with lines while the half marathoners were still with us, then no lines the rest of the race. The course shows off Louisville well.
Organization: The communication prior to the race was great. They sent regular emails with information. They have a great website, that has all the information you could need about the race (except the spectator scream zones). They have an app with the same information as on website, so you can easily acces it from a mobile device. You can sign up for text alerts for yourself or others who want to track you. As I mentioned before, the website was not good for spectator information, which is probably why the crowd support isn't that great. They talked about the scream zones, but had no information as to where they were on the course or how to get there.
The race Expo was okay. The best part about it is that it is open late. There is no race-day packet pickup, so for those of us that we're traveling into town, it really helped that it was open until 9pm. The Expo takes up a decent sized hall in the convention center, but there were no big giveaways. Runners like when they can get freebies at the Expo, and I didn't see a lot of that. Maybe I got there too late.
My biggest complaint about the organization was that the water station did not have enough volunteers at the Powerade tables. I saw several times where they were frantically pouring from Powerade bottles because all of their filled cups were already taken. I had to wait at one stop to get any because they were still filling them. Perhaps the race director should consider using the big containers with the spouts that you push and the Powerade comes out the spout (like they use at construction sites). That would be easier to use to fill cups than pouring out of bottles.
Swag: This race had the typical SWAG: men's/womens drifit shirts and a metal. Both the shirt and the medal had the course map on it. In addition to the norm, they also gave you a small poster of the course map and a dri-fit hat with the race logo. They also gave us two boxes of coldeez in our race bags (maybe it is cold season up there?) and a 10% off coupon for Dicks Sporting Goods.
On our bib, they gave us a ticket for engraving with purchase of bourbon bottle at a local store. The place is in 4th Street Live, which is the pedestrian only area of town (where mostly tourists go). The place, called Urban Stillery, engraved the race logo, your name, and race finish time onto the back of a Jim Beam bottle of bourbon, you had to buy the bottle, but the engraving was free. Just a note to those who do this, it takes awhile. Order the engraving and then go to lunch and come back later.
Starting Line: The starting line was very well organized with good signage. The gear check was central to most of the corrals and was easy to find with all the good signage. There were small lines for the porta potties, and a decent amount of them at most cross streets. Being back in corral D, I couldn't hear the national anthem, if they even played it before the start. If there were any other announcements, I couldn't hear them either. They had volunteers who walked through the corrals to answer questions.
My favorite part of the start was that they have pace teams. I love when races have pace teams. I don't often stay with them the entire race, but they are great to help me keep the right pace at the start so I don't go out too fast.
The corrals all started together. They were basically only there to set the pace and allow the faster runners toward the front. Otherwise, they didn't use them to start in waves. Once the race started, we all walked up to the start together and started running. It's definitely better than not distributing the runners by pace, but they also didn't enforce the corrals, so really anyone could start in the front. I was definitely still weaving around slower runners (who should have been in the later corrals) at the beginning.
Fans: Crowd support was okay, but there were a lot of quiet spots. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate, which I'm sure kept a lot of fans away. The race organized "scream zones" but didn't publicize anything about how to get there or where they are, so spectators who came from out of town with the runners had no idea how to best see their runners.
I was able to see my cousin Robb cheering at the finish line, along with my husband's grandparents.
The finish line had tents with vendors, but it was too cold and wet to check them out. There was a carnival with rides right on the river, but again, I was too cold and wet to stay. They gave a beer ticket and had a beer tent set up, but I ended up giving mine away, since I can't think of drinking beer after running 26 miles (or anytime, for that matter).
Results: 4:28:58
How I felt: When I run with pace groups, I usually feel pretty good throughout the race. It was raining most of the race, though, so I did end up getting a little chafed by the end. I was running about 45 minutes slower than I usually run. Unfortunately, something I ate didn't agree with me, so I had to visit several of the porta potties along the way. I would sprint ahead to the porta potty, and then sprint up to the pace group. About a mile from the end, the pacers said they had banked about 45 seconds, so they were going to slow down. I went on ahead and finished in just under 4:30.
Travel/Tourism: We stayed at the race host hotel, the Galt House. The hotel was nice with a great view of the river and surrounding area, but the room had not been properly cleaned (poop was stuck in the back of the toilet bowl and a Bobby pin was on the counter). They did have a 24/7 coffee bar where I could buy a bagel, and there were toasters to toast them. There was a bar in the walkway between buildings that had a fish tank embedded in the counter of the bar, so you could watch the fish as you sat and drank.
There is a lot to do in Louisville during the week leading up to the Derby. The marathon sort of starts the celebration that lasts the rest of the week. There were a lot of people in town, and downtown was very crowded.
For dinner the night before the race, we went to Rocky's Italian restaurant just across the river in Indiana. There was a short wait, and the room was very noisy with a late-night, sports bar feel. They had TVs with sports on them lining the walls. The food was pretty good, and the company was even better. My cousin Robb and my husband's grandparents were there. Robb told us all about his job and experiences in Louisville, his family (who was out of town for the weekend), and other interesting stories. It was great to catch up!
I mentioned 4th Street Live earlier. We went there after the race. The Hard Rock Cafe was there, so I stopped to get a shirt. We ate lunch at Smashburger (delicious!). Robb manages the tallest building in Lousiville, so after lunch, we went there and he took us up to the very top of the building. We had a great view of the city. He told us about the various buildings we were looking at and a little more about the city. What a great experience!
Overall, I would recommend the Kentucky Derby Marathon as a race to run in Kentucky.
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