These last couple of blogs about the Mini® will be a combination of memories of doing the Mini® and advice, based on those memories, of how to do it. Even today, the soles of my feet still are numb from the MS. The MS also has effected my ability to void my bladder. Others might view that as a problem. I say pish-posh. I have to use a catheter to void urine from its reservoir below my belt-line. That means that I am entitled to use the handicapped stall at major sporting events—for a couple of reasons. First, I have a legitimate handicap. Even as I describe how to do a Mini-Marathon®, there are other difficulties I have. It is not easy to use a catheter standing at a urinal.  Second—believe me on this if you are a female—guys do not like to see another guy stick a long, plastic tube into that appendage of a man’s body for which we take such pride on its capacity for being inserted. I put on a rubber glove, lube down the catheter, and start to thread it into the urethra—you know where that is—and most guys either scream and run, faint, or take on a look of depression. So if I am at a major league baseball game and the line in the can is long, I go to the handicap stall and say "Handicapped," and everyone allows me to the front. Only a couple of times have I had to provide explanation. In those instances, I quickly was allowed access to the stal.  

   I approached my first Mini® with little idea as to how to do it. Sure, I knew I had to walk 13.1 miles. But I’d had no formal training—I’d walked a lot—and had talked to no one about how to do the course itself. Steve Rowe was a reserve deputy Lieutenant with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department. He told me a couple of days before that, if I ran into trouble, just to tell a deputy on the course to page him and I would be out of there.

   I did not anticipate having any problems. Of course, this was my first Mini®. American soldiers who invaded Normandy had little idea what awaited them once the gates dropped on their landing craft in June, 1944, either. Then all these German bullets met them.

   All advice given in this, or any other column, is not given as a healthcare professional. I had more ethics than to go to medical school. But I do not have the formal training received by M.D.s, so check with your physician before the Mini®—and help to pay that doc’s monthly installment on the Lexus or whatever in his or her driveway. 

Before the start.

   I had heard the mantra: "carb up the night before." Really, eat what you feel like eating. You will need energy. The carb thing makes sense. Plus "Carb Day" is part of the month of May at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway®. So—go for spaghetti (but whole wheat or some other pasta with actual food value).

   You want to drink water the night before. Don’t over drink, as that can kill you. Also, I would advise against drinking a lot of beers the night before the Mini®. That makes the first mile or so tough, but once oxygen pumps through your body, you’re okay. (Not that I experienced doing the Mini® hungover. I never would have done something that silly. Right.)

   I have read that you should eat a breakfast of whole grains (carbs) about two hours before the start of the race. Also, time your consumption of water that morning. It is really inconvenient to stand ten back in line for a port-o-let only a couple of minutes before the start.

   You will be assigned a "stall" for the start. That means you have been seeded. The officials are serious about this and police it closely—up to the time when the ropes are lowered. If you register as a world-class distance runner with Olympic experience, I have no idea why you would be reading this blog. You will start up there at the starting line.

   For the rest of us, we are rather a long ways back from the starting line. We are so far back—remember, there are 35,000 ( think), of us registered this year. Given my gradually slowing times each year, I have started further back. One year (2003?) I was in stall K. Now I start in something like X-prime—the letters we used in trigonometry and advanced algebra. Last year, after the horn sounded, it took me about half an hour to get to the starting line.

   Get to the start at least half an hour before the scheduled time. In all likelihood, it will be chilly. Wear sweats that can be discarded easily. Find your stall. There will be big signs with the letter that is on your bib. Go there. Because I am going to state now...

A main dynamic of the Mini®.

   GET TO THE TRACK ASAP!

   Okay, you get there and it’s 48 degrees. You’re freezing. (Technically you’re not freezing. You would freeze if the temp was 32 degree Fahrenheit or less.) The people around you with experience in the race wear horribly cheap sweats. You think, "At least I won’t broil out there on the course."

   Don’t be silly. The longer the morning wears on, the more the sun (unless it rains, and it has not since I have participated in the Mini®; I don’t think even a supreme entity would screw with the Human family) beats down on the concrete and asphalt. Even a couple of degrees coming up off that pavement can wear a person down.

   The "stalls" are separated by ropes. About 20 minutes before the start of the race, the ropes are dropped. Take this opportunity to work your way as far toward the front as possible. Remember: the sooner you hit the track, the cooler the track will be.

   The Indianapolis Motor Speedway® is really neat. It has a lot of history. Where you will walk on it, it is comprised of asphalt and some concrete. Those materials absorb and radiate up heat from the sun. The heat is absorbed by your lower body. The track also has all those grandstands. Wind might be a valid concern for an Indy car traveling 220 or 230 mph, but for a walker in the Mini®, it does not exist. The walls, the grandstands—wind is blocked. That’s roughly 2 ½ miles you have to cover. It seems to take forever.

   So get to the start as quickly as possible. The sooner you start, the sooner you hit the track. The sooner you hit the track, the earlier the time. The earlier the time, the less heat has been absored by the surfaces.

Duck-walking to the start line.

   Sometimes the ceremony varies, but usually a guy sings three verses of "Moonlight on the Wabash" a/k/a "Back Home Again in Indiana, the Mayor announces the start, and the wheelchair athletes take off. Where you are starting, you will not see this. You will be shoulder-to-shoulder with people seeded as slow as you are. About five minutes later, the start for the other athletes sounds and—you are not moving. It takes a while for any effect to reach where you are sanding in your stall out there near Cumberland (just kidding).

   Once people around you start to move, take the opportunity to squirm between them. By now you (hopefully) have moved up a couple of stalls. You will reach a point, however, at which you no longer can advance you position.

   Look ahead. When you can see the archway of the start, you are close. The crowd of runners and walkers narrows to pass through the arch because inside that arch is electronic equipment that sets off the timing chip or whatever is being used. Once you are past the arch, the pace picks up.

   And you look to either side of the street and see clothes.

   Remember what I said about people wearing cheap sweats? They chuck those right at the start. You are moving at a decent pace now, but in the midst of a lot of traffic. You are in the first mile of the Mini®. And what is that ahead? The first of the garage bands you will hear on the course. Local musicians come out to entertain the walkers and runners. I heard four renditions of "Free Bird" one year. The music is not limited to rock and roll. You will hear country-western and even some Marilyn Manson-esque stuff. Cloggers also perform. But all that is to come.

   You pass the Indianapolis Zoo, turn right, and head up Riverside. You pass the first mile marker. You can tell it is the first-mile marker by the big numeral "1" on the sign. Also there is a digitized clock running. Don’t worry about that, sugar. That’s the time from the start of the race. The guys to whom that time is applicable already are leaving the track. You have only 12.1 miles to the finish line. The fun has just begun.