Off To Indianapolis

Last night, I went online to sign up for this weekend’s Indianapolis Monumental Marathon but when I got there, it showed that online registration was closed at 8PM and I was trying to sign up at 9PM. Crap! Did I miss it? Well, I made a few calls and got a hold of the race director and he told me there were about 400 spots still open and I could register at the Expo. Sounds good to me, then I thought, what if those spots are taken bu the time I get to the Expo (around 4ish?). I did not want to drive all the way to Indianapolis and find out the race is full. That is about a 5 hour drive from Milwaukee. He assured me that if they were full, that he would make sure I was able to get in. That is what I like about a lot of the race directors for these marathons. The race director for the Grand Rapids Marathon told me the same thing 2 years ago.

Why sign up so late you may ask? Well, there have been some issues with my family that I needed to make sure were is good standing before I left for a day and a half. My Dad had bone spur surgery on his foot about 3 weeks ago and is moving quite slow. Then my Mom had a biopsy done on her lungs on Monday and just got out of the hospital yesterday. Good news though, the spots are not cancer but instead are scars from a rare fever she had a few years ago. It was a scary few days for us with her, but the Lord answered our prayers!

Now all that is bad enough and they need help at home, obviously, and I do have brothers that can help, but the closest brother to where they live broke his leg about 3 weeks ago as well. Crappy few weeks for my family, huh. So he can’t help much. They my other brother close by who has been helping a lot, is having a party Saturday night and will need to prepare there. So with all that going on, I am going over to my parent’s house tonight with the Princesses to help out however I can until I return and can go back there Saturday night when I get back.

It is all good though. I will leave tomorrow morning right after 2 parent-teacher conferences and make the trek across Wisconsin, the tip of Illinois and down Indiana. I borrowed a few Comedy CD’s from a friend to help pass the time. Music for 5 hours just doesn’t cut it when you are by yourself sometimes. A little laughter always helps.

The weather looks pretty good for racing on Saturday. Sunny and a starting temp of 46ish. When I finish about 55ish. The winds are a bit high though. Close to 15 MPH from the SSW which means a tough last few miles as we go south. Maybe the building will block some. We can only hope!

Good Luck to the rest of you who may be running this weekend. I haven’t heard of anyone, but maybe someone will find this post who is running in Indy.