A Record Breaking Day in Indy

It was a crisp, but beautiful fall morning Saturday for the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon, Half, and 5k. Sitting just under 40 degrees and low winds is about as perfect of a forecast as most (at least us from the Midwest) can ask for after a unrelenting summer of heat and humidity. Prime conditions for club and personal records to go down.

Half Marathon

The highly anticipated half marathon debut for Natnael Weldemichael (@natnaelrunning on IG) would kick off the morning for Cincinnatus Elite. As expected, he would stick to a blistering pace in the front pack for the entirety of the course that wound through downtown Indianapolis. Ultimately, he would finish in 6th place, just 31 seconds off of the win, in 1:02:10! This time absolutely shattered the former club record that Nate Dunn set at this race 5 years ago in 1:04:17. Truly a remarkable result that has elevated Cincinnatus Elite to new heights. He is targeting the Houston Half in January as his next big race.

Natnael Weldemichael cruising with the front pack (photo credit: @addi.shots)

An additional change would be made to the men's half marathon top 10 board as Joey Schlich finished in 59th overall in 1:08:57. Josh Rossman would also finish not too far off the board in 80th with 1:10:39. Scott Sublett would round out the men in the half with 1:35:30 in 667th overall and 18th in the M50-54 age group!

On the women's side, Michelle Murray would put up one of the most stunning results of the year for CE! She would knock nearly 2 minutes off her PR to finish 39th amongst women in 1:17:12 - the 2nd fastest in Cincinnatus history! And incredible performance to achieve Apex status on CE after a narrow miss attempt back in August at Track Fest when she ran solo up front to win the 5k in 18:12.

Michelle on her way to a huge half PR (photo credit: stone.image)

Marathon

Now for the squad taking on the full 26.2... Noah Bunting would lead the way for CE with a 63rd place finish in a 3 minute PR of 2:25:51. This puts him at 7th all-time for the club. Chris Stallard would finish just outside the top 100 in 2:28:40, good for 102nd place. The rest of the men were as follows: Kyle Klingler (2:31:46, 141st), Patrick Johnson (2:33:34, 163rd), Grant Powers (2:35:47, 201st), Pat Witte (2:41:37, 322nd), Vedant Pingle (2:43:03, 362nd), Jimmy Chisholm (2:43:29, 370th), Ben Shafron (2:48:52, 571st), Christian Apel (2:54:12, 827th), Dylan Rusek (3:01:01, 1227th).

Patrick Johnson (left) and Kyle Klingler (right) working together mid race

On the women's side our dynamic duo of Katie Hallahan and Daniella Townsend both snagged PR's and top 50 finishes! Katie in 2:44:32 (40th female) and Daniella in 2:47:03 (46th female). Also, Claire Dillard made her CE and marathon debut with a 3:14:05 (333rd female).

5k

Krista Gustavsson-Bronzie would be the lone CE competitor for the team in the 5k. She finished in 34th overall and 10th female in 19:20!

Overall, it was a perfect day to run that brought record-breaking performances from CE and thousands of others on the streets of Indy! Cincinnatus looks forward to the Thanksgiving Day Race in downtown Cincy next (as well as plenty of other turkey trots in people's hometowns). See you there!

Vedant Pingle absolutely hyped to be running 26.2 miles with Ben Shafron