Half-Assed Runner

Half marathon number 10 and state number 3 is in the books.  This week I spent some time in central Wisconsin with my family before running the Madison Mini Marathon.

Madison Mini Marathon Finish Line

I booked this run a few months ago and with it booked a night of camping at Devil’s Lake State Park.  My plan was to get in and out on the cheap.  After telling my wife about this, she decided to turn this into a mini-vacation and hit up Wisconsin Dells with the Monkey.  She signed off on camping and eventually decided to run the Madison Mini 5K with the Monkey while I ran the half.

Wisconsin Dells

We spent all of Thursday and half of Friday in Wisconsin Dells crushing a giant water park.  Then we drove a little over an hour south to pick up our packets in Madison.  The packet pick up was on campus.  The road construction made the drive slower than planned and finding parking was a pain.  Of course, after we parked and walked over to the packet pickup, we noticed parking about 100 yards from the building.

Packet pickup was quick and painless.  I love the race shirt.  Dark blue is my jam and the tech tee quality is very good.  My wife and son got white cotton shirts for the 5K.  We also each got “I ran this city” magnetic stickers, which my son plastered our car with.

Devil’s Lake

We did not stay long in Madison as it was getting towards 4 pm on a Friday and we did not want to find out if Madison has a rush hour.  We got back to Devil’s Lake and after spending some time at the beach, I persuaded my family to join me in a “quick hike” to see Balanced Rock.  This “quick hike” turned into an hour and a half with the last 30 minutes being in the dark.  This was also not the usual graded/paved trail “hiking” I am used to.  There were a ton of climbs (with great views of the lake) as well as steep declines.  Getting to the actual rock was confusing due to the signage.  You have to climb down what is basically a field of slippery boulders to reach the actual rock.  When I first saw it, it looks like a mini version of the photos I had seen on the Internet.  My wife was going to push both the rock and myself over the ledge at this point.  As we got closer, we found it to be about 12 feet high.  The worst bit of the whole trek was climbing back out of the boulders.  I got my hill work in for sure.

Balanced Rock with Monkey for scale

At 4:30 am, we got up and stumbled to the car in darkness to begin the drive to Madison.  Other than a bad patch of fog, the drive was fine.  We arrived at the start area well in advance of the 7 am start.  Parking was again an issue as we do not know the area.  There was a long line of backed up cars even as early as we arrived.  We spotted some really close street parking and nabbed the spot.  The meter cost nearly $2 per hour and only took coins.  Plus there was a 3 hour limit.  We fed the beast and my wife agreed to top it off again after she finished running so it would not run out while I was on the course.

Meat Mascots? It must be a WI thing

The 5K and the half marathon shared a starting time but had different starting areas (only a couple blocks apart).  I wished my family luck, then stood in line for a porta-pottie.  I generally don’t do this, but I didn’t want to run with a full bladder.  By the time I finally got to relieve myself, it was only a few minutes to start time.

Starting Line (notice the polar bear?)

The race is broken up into corals based on your estimated finish time.  I was in the back with coral G.  Getting to my coral was painless and I was soon lined up and had all my music and GPS tracking ready to go.  Directly in front of me, there was a runner donning a polar bear suit.  To run a half marathon in August in a full bear costume is dedication.  Luckily, the weather was absolutely perfect.  It was 46 degrees at 7 am (the coolest start temperature for me since April).  The only downside was there was little wind and 96% humidity.  I’m not sure why it was so humid.  That probably accounted for the fog on the drive to Madison.

The course was varied and beautiful.  As stated earlier, the weather was outstanding.  There were mile markers at each mile with a clock (set to gun start time obviously).  There were a ton of water stops (it seemed like almost every mile had a water stop on the back half of the race) which offered Gatorade and water.  The cups were filled completely (my mark of a great water stop) and the volunteers were plentiful and exuberant.  Outstanding race support.  The Madison Mini was staffed to support a mid-August half marathon – even though we ran in April temperatures.

Camp Randall

The course started on the UW campus and followed city streets past Camp Randall stadium (where the Gophers go to die) and then past the Wisconsin State Capital building.  From there we ran along a lake (Lake Wingra) then into a gorgeous, tree-covered area.  I loved this part of the course (of course I forgot to take any photos).  We were on a street still, but there were tall trees lining each side of that blocked out the early morning sun (looking at a map, this area is Arboretum Drive).  We then dipped back into the city, running through residential areas before finally running on a trail along the shoreline of Lake Mendota.  The trail ended shortly before the finish line, which was back on campus.

Capital

The course was somewhat hilly.  I remember only a couple of moderately difficult hills and there were plenty of flat areas.  There were some steep downhills as well.  GPS shows an elevation gain of 209.97 feet, which would mean it was as hilly as the Lake Waconia Half Marathon, but I don’t remember it being that hilly.

So it was a beautiful course with amazing weather and outstanding race support – that means I ran great, right?  Nope.  I wanted to finish this race around 2:07 and I was on track to do that for the first half of the race.  The wheels came off after that.  My hamstrings started barking on the back half.  I suppose it was from all of the climbing in Devil’s Lake as well as at the water park in Wisconsin Dells over the last two days.  The thing was, it was just slight tinges of pain on uphills – nothing drastic.  Around mile 9 my calf muscles joined in.  Again, nothing major, just a kind of electric shock feel that only lasted about .5 miles.  I think I used this as an excuse to start bombing the race.  I’m still running out of energy after the 10 mile mark.  I really need to build up my stamina.

Madison Mini Marathon

I averaged around 9:30/mile over the first 7 miles.  I averaged over 10/mile over the last 6.  Mile 13 was an embarrassing 11/mile.  I started walking the hills (all small from what I remember) to “save my hamstrings”.  The last mile was a buffet of fail.  In addition to walking the hills, I would run for a minute or so and then walk.  This meant that I was kept playing leapfrog with the same runners over the last mile.  There were signs that said “1/2 mile to go” and “1/4 mile to go”, but I could not even draw inspiration from them.  I did manage to suck it up for the last .1 miles and not walk across the finish line.

Mile 4 Marker

I was tired, disappointed, and completely drenched.  A local car dealership handed out small hand towels.  This was a god send as I could mop some of my sweaty mess.  The final indignity occurred as my calf muscles locked up while scaling a whole 3 stairs.  All I can do when that happens is grimace while trying not to scream obscenities at the top of my lungs and try to stretch them out.

Trail near the end

I am now officially worried about my upcoming marathon.  If I’m crashing this hard at half the distance, what hell awaits me at 26.2?

The finish area – the 14th Mile Party – was great.  Plenty of goodies.  I grabbed a banana, water, and chocolate milk (for the Monkey) then tracked down my family.  They had enjoyed the 5K run and even had cool medals to show for their efforts.  The Mini medal was shaped like beer stein and had an integrated bottle opener.  I hated it when I saw it online prior to the race, but it has grown on me.  It is heavy and looks like pewter, plus it has the outline of the state of Wisconsin as well as the Capital building on it, so it will serve well as my Wisconsin half marathon keepsake.

I did manage to beat the polar bear

We drove back to Devil’s Lake Park and spent a few hours relaxing on the beach before driving the 5 hours back to Minneapolis.

I would definitely recommend the Madison Mini Marathon for anyone wanting to run a Wisconsin half marathon.  The course is varied and beautiful, the race support is top-notch, and Madison is a beautiful, relaxed city.

Madison Mini Marathon medal and shirt

Madison Mini Marathon medal

Madison Mini Marathon course