Sunburst Marathon (Indiana)

Once again, a themed type race. This one is all about college football and Notre Dame. I'm not a ND fan but I love college football so it balances out. The selling point of this race is that you get to run through the tunnel at ND Stadium and onto the field where you finish at the 50 yard line.

I arrived into South Bend at 11:30pm - race start is 6am. I'm gonna be working on 9 hours of sleep over the last two days (late hockey game on Thursday). Good thing the hotel was 50 yards from the packet pickup and 75 yards from the start line. So I get up at 5, shower, get my packet at the College Football Hall of Fame, go back to the room to drop off the t-shirt, etc and then get to the start line at 5:40. I guess I could have slept in for a few extra minutes.

5:55am roles around and the race director decides to become a weather man and tell us that the temperate is 70F! 70F with humidity that is probably over 90% (it is usually more humid in the morning before the sun rises). Great and the forecast calls for warming conditions until the cold air moves in behind the front. But at least we have overcast conditions through most of the race (the sun finally comes out about mile 19/20).

So off we go, at mile 3 this woman (forget her name - she called me Mark later in the race so I guess that make us even) asks me how my Garmin is doing - apparently she has the new one and wanted to see if it was on with the old one. Since we were on about the same pace we started to run together until mile 15 were she went for a bathroom break. After she dropped off and since we were already past mile 13 I made my move (the point in the race were I see how many people I can pass). By mile 19 I had passed 12 people and I was feeling good and was hoping to finish in about 3:23-3:25 but then by mile 20 I was zapped of energy.

At mile 20 I was up to 17 passed with only 5 repassers. After about a 1-minute walk break I got back to running. Around mile 22, there was a procession of geese with their goslings crossing the street/course in front of me. (most of the course was run along the St Joesph River). As I approach this procession, I'm thinking this is gonna be fun. After a little hissing and neck bobbing they clear the road and I pass them by.

By mile 24, I'm up to 21 people passed with still only 5 repassers. Not bad - I stopped counting because at mile 24 the 1/2 marathoners merged with us and I couldn't keep track of who was who but I know I wasn't passed.

At mile 25 we enter ND campus and there is the golden dome in front of us and the stadium to the right. I don't see Touchdown Jesus. We make the turn into the stadium and then into the tunnel (with the ND fight song playing) and exit the tunnel back into the sunlight and onto the field where you have probably about a thousand spectators (other runners (1/2 and 5K) and family members) cheering everyone on.

As I approach the finish line, I start doing the FSU tomahawk chop and the announcer notices and asks if that was a tomahawk chop over the PA system and then he sees my shirt (FSU) and says yes it was Michael Mills from Arlington, VA with a 3:27.