Whether it’s your first half marathon or just your first Indy Mini, here’s a helpful glossary of terms to help you prepare for the OneAmerica 500 Festival Mini-Marathon!
Carbo-loading: A strategy used by endurance athletes, such as runners, to maximize the storage of glycogen (or energy) in the muscles and liver. Your dinner before the Indy Mini should be light but carb heavy.
Chip Time: Chip time will represent your personal finish time from when you cross the start and finish lines. Age group awards use chip times.
Corral: A sectioned area at the lineup of a race that separates participants into their different pace groups. There are 4-6 corrals in each wave and are labeled A-Z, with A being the fastest. Corral assignments will be sent with your participant guide in mid-April. Once you’ve been assigned a corral, you can only move back to a slower pace, you won’t be able to move forward to a faster pace.
Course entertainment: Bands, musicians and performers line the Indy Mini course to provide you with entertainment and motivation through the 13.1-mile course!
Gold Mile: The Gold Mile pays tribute to fallen service members and their surviving families (Gold Star Families). This motivational, mile-long segment of the Indy Mini course features patriotic décor and hundreds of volunteers lining Mile 6 at the backstretch of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, offering participants encouragement at the toughest peak of the course.
Gun time: Gun timing starts the race clock for everyone at the initial pistol shot. Regardless of when you actually crossed the starting line, the time from pistol shot to finish line will be your official time. Overall awards are based on gun time.
Kiss the bricks: The tradition of “kissing the bricks” was started by NASCAR champion Dale Jarrett. After his Brickyard 400 victory in 1996, Jarrett and crew chief Todd Parrott decided to walk out to the start-finish line, kneel and kiss the Yard of Bricks to pay tribute to the fabled history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Indy Mini participants often stop to take part in this tradition as they cross the yard of bricks inside IMS.
Long Run: The weekly mileage buildup, the most important run of the week consisting of 25-30% of your weekly mileage, which can range from 4-14 miles typically for an Indy Mini training program.
MPM: Minutes per mile
Pace: The speed you’re running which is determined by mile and/or by milestone for longer running events.
Pit Station: Our water stations with a little Indy 500 flair! There are 11 water and five Gatorade Endurance Formula stations along the course and at the start and finish lines.
Proof Time: Your official time from another running event 5K and over that proves you can run at a pace estimated for the Indy Mini. For our race, proof time must show you can complete it in 2 hours or less.
Runner Services: At the finish line you’ll receive bananas, cookies and water from our volunteers to immediately refuel after conquering the 13.1 miles of the Indy Mini!
Seeding: For the Indy Mini, you qualify for seeding (placement) in Wave 1 if you have proof that you can run the Indy Mini in 2 hours or less.
Timing Chip: A device on your bib that measures your time as you cross the electronic mat at the start and finish lines, as well as other places along the course.
Wave: A smaller group of runners starting at different times to stretch the field out. You’ll be assigned a wave based on A wave start helps eliminate a bottleneck at the beginning of the race (and traffic congestion throughout!) There are 5 waves for the Indy Mini.
Was wondering you said if it’s your first marathon which it will be then training running you should up till marathon you should only run between 4 to 14 miles a week and the rest walking and lifting weights is that right and if you do the kissing of the bricks do they take pictures of you doing that and pictures of you going around the oval track