Half-Assed Runner

Archive for the ‘Race Report’ Category

For the second year in a row I ran the Monster Dash 10 Mile race.  Last year this was probably my happiest running experience as I ran the entire 10 miles without walking which was my longest continuous run ever.  Since then I’ve run a bunch of half marathons and even managed to finish a marathon.  My longest continuous run now stands around 18.5 miles.  But the Monster Dash 10 Mile run remains a bright spot as I never thought I could run double-digit miles without stopping.

This year I debated either skipping the Monster Dash or running the half marathon instead.  I managed to meet my quota of 12 half marathons this year and I’m burned out on the distance.  My wife decided last year that she wanted to do the Monster Dash and I convinced her to try the 10 mile distance.  I finally decided to run it with her.  I offered to pace her, but she decided she didn’t need/want me helping her, so I was free to run my own race.  This worked out great as I needed a “win” after disappointing results in my last few races.

I got to skip the expo this year as my wife picked up our packets.  The jacket is pretty nice this year and I like it better than last year’s jacket.  It still has the “woman’s zipper”, but fits well and feels good.

Race morning rolled around and neither of us were too excited to run.  We’ve both been suffering from mild head colds.  Plus it was 24 degrees when we woke up.  I told my wife that it was the same last year as it was 26 degrees at the start of the race last year.  It was actually a bit warmer (30 degrees) this year, but did not warm up during the course of the race as much as last year.

We hit the road and instead of trying to use 94 to get to the start of the race, we decided to attack it from the south.  Great idea, except for the fact that 494 went to one lane around the airport.  I wasn’t panicking because were being driven by a friend of ours and would be dropped off with plenty of time to get the race.  In fact, that’s what happened: we got dropped off about 1.5 miles from the start.  I was wearing my manly tights with running shorts over them and a short-sleeved tech shirt.  I was wearing the Monster Dash jacket over the shirt.  I planned to leave the jacket, but I was too damn cold to do it.  I knew I would not be able to keep the jacket on the entire run, so I would have to tie it off around my waist.  My wife was in costume (I went as a “runner” again this year) with 4 layers.  She said later she got hot around mile 2, but was fine afterwards.  We obviously have different biological temperature regulation units. 

We got to the start line around 8:20.  I was shocked that there was plenty of room for runners to line up.  I decided to start with my wife so we lined up just in front of the 10 minute pacer.  The cumulative body heat of 10,000 runners warmed me up so that I probably could have done without the jacket.

Soon enough the race was underway.  We moved forward about 100 feet, then stopped dead.  I don’t know if Team Ortho did wave starts or not.  If so, we were in the first wave.  It took over 5 minutes of walking, but once we hit the starting mats we were able to start running immediately.

I stuck with my wife for the first half mile.  I figured that we were just under 10 minutes per mile as the pacers did not pass us.  I picked up the pace slightly to get past some large groups of runners.  I was surprised when Endomondo announced a 9:11 first mile.  It felt at least 30 seconds slower than that.  I was pretty happy to hear this pace as I wanted to run this race around a 9:20 pace.  A mile later, Endomondo told me that I clocked a 9:02 mile.

I felt like I was pushing just a tiny bit but felt fine.  The biggest issue was the jacket.  As I warmed up, I unzipped it more and more.  By mile 2, it was completely unzipped.  I would have to take it off and tie it around my waist.  Not a big deal, but it would kill time.  It didn’t really matter much as the first water stop was almost 3.5 miles into the race and I was getting pretty thirsty by that point.  I walked the entire stop and drank a cup of water and blue stuff.  This would be my slowest mile (9:29).

I was feeling great at this point and miles 5 and 6 were just under 9 minutes each.  I knew that the course was a gentle downhill, but last year I didn’t appreciate how beneficial that is.  After some hilly halfs this year, I was loving this course.

I went without music until mile 6.  The combination of the crowds and costumes kept my mind occupied.  I took a GU at the water stop around mile 6.5.  This was the only mistake I made.  I ate a flavor I hadn’t tried before: Mandarin Orange.  I figured that you can’t really mess up orange, but this thing tasted like medicine and ass.  Miles 6 through 9 were all run around a 9:15 pace.

I kept holding back a little bit as I wanted to make sure I had some energy left for the last mile.  There was only one hill of any significance and it was around mile 7.  I knew that the last half mile was downhill and fast, so I was saving my energy for that.  I felt great.  Nothing hurt, I was pushing the pace only slightly, and I was feeling much better after removing the jacket (hell, I was sweating in the 30 degree weather).

I didn’t see the mile marker for mile 9, but Endomondo announced it.  I toyed with really picking it up at this point, but I was feeling slightly tired and didn’t want to fizzle out prior to the end.  I told myself I would speed up after passing the giant inflatable rainbow bridge.  Unfortunately, that bridge was not on the course this year.  Rather unceremoniously, the 10 milers and half marathoners split and I could see the finish line.  I picked up my pace and finished with an 8:35 final mile.  The race clocked showed 1:37, so I wasn’t sure of my chip-time, but I was happy to see it as just south of 1:32.  I had shaved 10 minutes off of last year’s time and felt great.  It was nice to have a good race for the first time in quite some time.

I nabbed the standard Team Ortho food bag (banana, chips, mini salted nut roll).  I was a little disappointed that there was no bottled water (there were cups of water) and no foil blankets like last year.  Not a big deal as I had my jacket with me.  I saw the line for the buses to the half marathon finish area and was glad I didn’t have to wait in it this year.  I think that the bag check was at the half finish, so bag check would have been a waste (and a logistical nightmare) for me this year.

I walked back past the finish line and waited for my wife.  She had a great race as well and finish only a bit slower than I did last year.

We found our friends and our son and started walking back to the car.  Little did I know that this would be an almost 2 mile hike.  It was still just above freezing and I was cold as hell by the time we got to the car.  We did get to see the sweeper car and the last runner as she hit mile 8 [I would HATE to be the last runner as the sweeper was literally 15 feet behind her].

My wife wanted to head to the half marathon finish line to enjoy a beer.  I was shivering by this point even with the car’s heat cranked and I talked her out of it.  We decided to hit Coopers in Saint Louis Park as she could still get her free beer and I could avoid the crowds and hopefully warm up.  When we got to Coopers we were the only runners there.  By the time we left, there was a pretty long wait for tables as a bunch of Monster Dash runners (many from the 5K race in Minneapolis) had the same idea we did.  After three cups of coffee and some tomato basil soup, I was finally warm enough to drink my victory Guinness.

We had a great time at this race.  It’s a huge race (they announced 11,000 10 mile and half marathoners (but only 9400 finishers, so that might have been inflated/rounded up) and 3,000 5K runners (in Minneapolis)), but I feel it’s really well-organized.  The course is an absolute dream to run as it’s pretty and downhill or flat for 95% of the race (10 mile).  The swag is nice and so is the medal (I’m kind of burned out on the Team Ortho wedge medals though).  It’s a blast to see all of the crazy costumes and there is great crowd support as well.  I will probably do this race again next year.

Six days ago I struggled through my first marathon.  An intelligent runner would be enjoying a nice break from running and recovering.  I has not the smart.  Instead I was running my 11th half marathon.

The race begins and ends at Court Square Park, which is home to the nation’s only two-story outhouse.

Yup. 

I did not want to run today.  I woke up at 7 am to an overcast, chilly morning.  I was in no mood to run.  It was a one hour drive to Belle Plaine and I had to get there before the 9 am start in order to pickup my packet.  I dinked around until just before 8 am.  This meant I was going to need to haul ass to make it to the start on time.  Luckily, the drive is through farm country and I made it to the park in Belle Plaine and picked up my packet with enough time to jog back to my car and stow the t-shirt.

The sky was still overcast, but the promised rain never fell other than a slight on and off drizzle.  I decided to wear a long-sleeved black tech shirt and shorts.  I was pretty cold at the start.  This was a smaller event (about 180 half marathoners) but there were pacers, so I lined up with the 2:10 pacer at the start.  Soon enough the race started and my weary legs started to propel me forward.

I had no expectations other than to finish this race.  I still don’t have my legs back 100% from the marathon.  It felt pretty liberating to not worry about pace.  I was surprised when I finished the first mile (a circuitous jaunt through the town) in 9:06.  I felt like I was running much slower.  I started to wonder if maybe I had fast run in me.  I was right behind the 2:05 pacer…who was about 10 feet behind the 2:00 pacer.  That bewildered me.  I suppose that after 1 mile there is only about a 25 second difference between the two pacers, but they were much closer than that.  We left town and started on a downhill after the first mile.  This gave me a little bit of hope that I might be able to make a run at 2 hours.  The hills soon dashed that idea from my skull.I had peeped the elevation profile and there was a big hill around mile 7.  What I did not notice was that there were a number of other smaller hills on the course.  From mile 2 to mile 6, the course was basically one long 200 foot climb.  I dropped behind the 2:05 pacer (who was still within twenty feet of the 2:00 pacer) at mile 2 and settled into a slower pace.

The course ran on roads that were not fully closed off with a brief gravel stretch through a construction area.  There were only a few sections that ran right along the river, but there was enough variation to make it a very nice course.

I carried my big (24 ounce) bottle with me.  I had planned on just bringing the smaller (10 ounce) bottle, but could not find it in my gym bag.  I only had enough Gatorade to fill the bottle half way, so I was treated to the sloshing of the liquid.  This made me start listening to music very early on in this race.

After the water stop around four miles in, another runner pulled up on my right and we started chatting.  I never do this, but for the next few miles we ran together.  He was running this as his last long run before a marathon next week.  I was happy to chat away as it took my mind off the miles.  We reached the big hill around mile 7 – which turned out to be only the third steepest hill – and we powered over it.  I honestly would have walked that sucker if I had been alone.  On the downhill I inadvertently picked up the pace so were running 8:30/mile at the 8 mile water stop.  I walked through the water stop and he continued on ahead of me.  I dialed back my pace as I was starting to tire a bit.

I struggled a bit from miles 8 to 11.  I was thinking that after running a marathon last week, that a half marathon would feel like a 5K.  Not so much.  My pace was relaxed, but I was definitely losing steam.

At the 10.5 mile point, the course hits its lowest point, then starts uphill for the remainder of the race.  The water stop around this area was fun though.  I started seeing signs with questions like “What do you call a dog with no legs?” then a few hundred feet later another sign with the answer “It doesn’t matter.  He won’t come”.  There were a handful of these cheesy jokes and the signs kept me smiling and took me away from the hilly misery that was the end of this race.

I knew I was not in any position to PR on this course, but I was taking pride in the fact that I had not walked at all (other than through the water stops).  That ended 12.5 miles in.  At mile 12 there was a huge hill as we ran back into town.  I (slowly) ran the first half of it, but ended up taking two walk breaks on the second half.  After cresting the hill, I only had enough energy to make a half-hearted dash for the finish line.

My time was pretty crap, but I didn’t care.  I had a pretty good time, except for that last hill.  The course was challenging, yet it did live up to the “scenic” moniker.  It would have been more scenic had the weather been clearer.  The medal was crappy, but the race cost $40 and was part of the Explore Minnesota Challenge, so I had no complaints.  After the race you voted for the best water stop (I chose the one with the goofy signs) and then were given a ticket for a free beer.  There were plenty of treats afterwards as well.

Next week I run my 12th and final half marathon in Mankato.

This was the first “adventure” race I’ve run.  I signed up for this race months ago with a $29 entry via Groupon.  I was running this one with a friend and it would be my second 5K of that day.

The race has wave starts every 30 minutes.  When you sign up you choose the wave you want to be in.  We chose the 1:30 wave as it gave me time to finish my run in Saint Cloud, pick up my friend in Saint Paul, and get out to Taylor’s Falls (I ended up putting over 300 miles on my car that day).  Up until registration closed you could easily change your start time (as long as the time you wanted was not filled up) and even transfer your entry to another runner.  If you ran late on the day of the race, you could move to a later wave for $5.  There was an option for early packet pickup on Friday (in the Cities) or race day pickup (which we opted for).

I love that we live in an age where I can pull up a map and pinpoint my position via my phone at any time.  There was construction backing up traffic on the highway into Taylor’s Falls, but we were able to find an alternative route.  We arrived at the ski hill hosting the race right around 1 pm.  I was scared that parking would be a mess, but we were able to park about 200 yards from the starting area.  We did see a number of cars parked in a second lot about .5 miles away, but with runners from earlier waves leaving all the time plus I think the later waves were not as popular, we scored great parking.

Packet pickup was painless.  The race site advised that you needed to print out and bring a signed waiver.  I did this, but the volunteer seemed almost surprised to see it, so I doubt it was necessary.  You did print and sign your name after picking up your packet, so maybe that served the purpose of promising not to sue if you paralysed yourself in the course of the race.

The packet contained a blah cotton shirt.  The race was chip-timed so you had to tie a chip to your shoes with twist-ties.  We were able to get our packets and be ready to run by 1:10.  We walked around and killed time until about 1:20 and then joined some other runners at the starting area.  In a sign of things to come, you had to scale a mini-barrier to get into the starting area.

This was my friend’s first race of any type.  He has been running on the treadmill and doing 2 – 3 miles every couple of days.  I told him not to worry as we would just jog between barriers.  I did ask why the hell he was running the race in a cotton shirt, Rolex, gold bracelet, and $170 sunglasses.  It seemed to come as a shock to him that there would be a lot of water and mud on this course.  He told me that he would skip the water and mud obstacles.  WTF?  He thought that the barriers would be all of the climbing/monkey-bars type.  It’s not like there was a website describing the obstacles that he could have read over the last 5 months. ???

We started out running up a ski hill.  This was not how my buddy wanted to start his first race.  Soon he was winded and we began the first of many long, uphill walks.  We were far from alone in walking though.  The first obstacle was a series of sandy hills.  Next up were the first of several inverted v-shaped wooden barriers that you climbed up and down.  Then came the first mud obstacle.  You had to climb through a giant mud puddle while keeping under barbed wire.  I was having a blast getting my mud on until my right knee hit a big rock under the water.  Later in the race I would have the same thing happen to my left knee.  I finished and threw mud at my friend as he had skipped the obstacle.

There were probably three or four mud obstacles on the course.  One more crawling section that delivered the most mud coverage.  Otherwise, the vast majority of the obstacles were wooden barriers.  Most of the non-obstacle portion was going up or downhill.  I was a little disappointed that the obstacles did not match those listed on the website.  There were a number of minor obstacles like rope climbs, walls, tires, and cargo nets.  The major obstacles were the two mud crawls, a giant downhill slip and slide, a weird tube crawl into an underground mud puddle, and the final obstacle with a climb and a roll over a cargo net about 20 feet above the ground.

The most fun obstacle was the slide.  The most difficult was a 10 foot wall that you scaled via rope.  The wall was slippery and there were only two knots in the rope that were far apart.  Otherwise, none of the obstacles were anything that would pose too much of a challenge to anyone in reasonable shape.  There was a fire leap towards the end that was pretty trivial.  The most difficult part of the race was the uphill (and some of the steep downhill) sections of the race.  But since we (and many others) were not running those sections, it was a pretty easy course.

The weather was gorgeous.  It was sunny and the temps had risen to around 80 by the time we were done running.  There was a water stop in the middle of the course, but the low humidity, shade, and breeze made the race enjoyable.  Not to mention being covered in mud and walking. 

After we finished we removed our timing chips and I chucked my socks.  There were about 30 outside “showers” which were just garden hoses.  The water was not freezing which was a blessing.  You really could not get all the mud off, but you could rinse of a lot of it.  There was a free beer which I enjoyed along with bottled water and some orange slices.  We sat around for a bit to enjoy the day and listen to the live band.

All in all, it was a fun race.  Registration started at $48 and was $88 after September 7th.  I paid $29 with a Groupon.  At $29 I felt it was worth the cost.  I could not recommend it at $48 or above.  I would also suggest doing this race with a friend or group of friends.

 

Today was my first repeat race ever.  Last year I surprised myself by running 5 miles without stopping; something I never thought I would be able to do.  Since then I’ve run much further distances, but I still look back at that race as a huge accomplishment.

The race takes place in a nearby city during an annual Labor Day festival.  My wife and I were running again this year.  Race day packet pickup was painless and quick.  For the second year in a row I managed to miss out on getting some caffeine in my system.  The smell of hundreds of chickens cooking (there’s a huge chicken dinner later in the day) and the scent of mini donuts reminded me that I had not eaten either.

I knew the course well from running it last year plus running it a couple of times in the last few weeks as part of my 9 mile run.  The course starts on city streets then follows a paved trail before turning on to country roads.  Just before the 3 mile mark there is a huge hill followed by an equally huge descent.  Then comes the soul crushing ascent of Monster Hill.  Once you crest that sucker, there is no corresponding downhill.  You join another paved trail then finish up on city streets again.

My goal this year was to improve my speed.  I was very happy last year to finish under 10 minutes per mile.  This year I wanted to see if I could crack the 9 minute per mile barrier.  I had run a hilly 4 miler with 8:59/mile so I was hoping to get close to that on this race.

The weather was a sunny and pleasant 68 degrees, but the humidity was high (82%) so I was prepared for a sweaty run.

The field was about the same size a last year, between 150 – 200 runners.  I started out faster than normal.  I wanted to make sure I was well positioned when I hit the trail portion as it’s hard to pass people there if there are any groups of side-by-side runners.  I knew I could use the two block downhill section early on to blast past some runners.  Knowing the course really helped me to runner a faster race.

I hit the trail and felt well positioned.  I was pacing off of a group of runners about 20 feet ahead of me.  There was a volunteer at the 1 mile mark with a stopwatch reading off the times.  I heard her say “twenty” as I passed.  9:20?  That seemed a bit slow.  Then Endomondo announced that I had clocked an 8:24 for mile 1.  I was happy with that time, but decided to dial it back a bit as I did not want to run out of energy, especially with the hills still coming up.

I ran without music for most of the race.  I’ve started doing this more in races.  It lets me find a good rhythm and I can use music later on to give myself a boost.

There was a water stop around the 2 mile mark.  I probably could have skipped it, but did grab a cup.  Soon enough we were approaching the hills.  I took a couple of photos and a runner came up on my right.  He had run the race for the first time last year as well and we laughed about the crazy hills coming up.  I was going to pace off him, but he slowly kept pulling ahead of me.  He was the only person to pass me after the first water stop.

The first hill is actually more of a beast.  It climbs 120 feet, but does it over 1.2 miles.  Monster Hill “only” climbs 90 feet, but does so in .12 miles.  I powered through the first hill and felt fine.  I used the steep downhill to rest a bit.  There was a water stop at the bottom of the hill.  They were once again handing out ice-cold mini water bottles at this stop.  I planned to take one and carry it for the rest of the race.  Unfortunately, in an effort to help runners, they had removed the caps.  I drank as much as I could and poured the rest down my back to cool me off.

I started my music and began ascending Monster Hill.  Last year I crested this beast without stopping, but I was barely moving when I got to the stop.  I made it up 90% of the hill before I walked the last bit.  I still had plenty of legs, but my heart was pounding.  I decided to eat a 16 second walk and try to make it up on the flat last mile.  I was doubtful I would break the 9 minute mark as my last two miles were 9:33 and 9:43.

I got on the trail and decided to pick up the pace.  At this point there was a guy about 20 yards ahead of me and I quickly picked him off.  I saw a group of 3 women in the distance and concentrated on closing the distance.  I end up passing them with about a quarter of a mile to go.  I passed another woman soon after.  There was another guy ahead of me, but he was too far ahead to catch before the finish.  But then he took a walk break and I was able to pass him on my final sprint.  I looked up to see the clock just pass 44 minutes.  I figured that the clock was off by a minute or so as there was no way that I could have broken 9 minutes per mile by that much time.  I looked at my splits and my last split was a 7:35.  WTF?  That’s by far my fastest mile ever.  I didn’t start my sprint early enough to account for this fast of a finish.  I normally would suspect the GPS being off, but the mile announcements were really close to the mile markers on the course including the mile 4 marker.  Maybe the course was a bit short, but both my wife’s GPS and mine agreed that it was 5 miles.

I grabbed a bottle of water and waited for my wife to finish.  One of the women I passed near the end was approaching the finish line and she looked like she was in a bad way.  I had noticed when I passed her that she looked wobbly.  Now she looked like she was leaning back as far a possible.  She had slowed to a hobble and at one point looked like she was going to fall over.  Another runner was by her side and waiting to catch her if she fell.  She made it over the finish line without toppling.  It looked like she was having an issue with her lower back.

I cheered my wife to the finish.  She had a good race as well.  She improved on last year’s time and did not walk at all.  We left soon afterward to get started on BBQ and beer.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes… well, he eats you” – The Stranger to The Dude

I had been looking forward to the Run For Blood Quarter Marathon for some time now.  Not only would I tick off another race for the Explore Minnesota Challenge, but I would get a medal and finally get to run Lake Calhoun…twice.

I got up early and drove to the lakes.  The one thing I hate about this area is finding parking.  The streets were already blocked off for the run when I arrived, so I spent some time circling looking for parking.  I finally nabbed a street spot near the Lake Harriet band shell.  It wasn’t the closet spot, but it was free.  I would have to jog about a mile to the get to the starting area, but the race did not start until 8:30 so I had plenty of time.

I got to the starting area just before 8 am and went to pick up my packet.  I gave my name and the volunteer started searching for me on her list.  I noticed that this was the 5K list, and said “I’m in the quarter marathon”.  She then shouted excitedly to another volunteer who quickly nabbed a shirt and my packet and thrust it towards me excitedly.  While she was explaining (quickly) how to fasten my timing chip, I noticed that there were only about a half-dozen remaining quarter marathon packets left on the table.  I guessed that there was a pre-race pickup on Friday and/or most people got here early.  It was odd that I was one of the last to grab a packet when I was here 30 minutes early.

At this point I heard some announcements over the PA and a long line of runners streamed past.  I wondered if these were the 5K runners.  I saw a bunch of pacers with balloons tied to sticks and thought it odd that they had pacers for a 5K race.  Then I heard, “There go the quarter marathoners.  5K runners should start lining up as the 5K race will start in about 5 minutes.”

What. The. FUCK?!?!?

I looked at my phone one more time as a sanity check.  Here’s the email I had saved in my calendar:

Thank you for registering as a participant in the 2012 American Red Cross Run for Blood! Your support will make us successful in providing programs and services to help you, your family and your neighbors prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies.
…
The Red Cross Run for Blood is Saturday, July 28. Check-in begins at 7:00 a.m and the Walk and Run begins at 8:30 a.m. If you have any further questions or need assistance in any way, please contact us.

Good luck in your efforts!

They had started the race 30 minutes early?

As quickly as I could, I fastened my race bib and tied my timing chip to my shoe.  It was too hot to wear a shirt, let alone two, so I folded the shirt and stuffed it in my running shorts.  It barely fit.  So not only would I be starting the race late, but I would have to run it with a wobbly bulge in my shorts [I’m cringing as I write this].  I ran to the starting area, but I had to work my way through the gathering 5K runners to get to the starting line.  When I got there, the timing mat had been moved to the side of the road.  Oh well, I guess I would get my first DNS ever.

I took off at a brisk, but not sprinting, pace.  I was starting over 5 minutes after the starting gun.  My only goal was to somehow catch up to the back of the pack.  God bless the walkers, I was able to catch up to the last of them within the first .3 miles.  Soon after I saw the last of the runners and mixed in with them.  I actually ended up passing a pacer (I did not see the time on his sign) before long.  When Endomondo announced my mile split at 8:03, I knew I needed to slow down.  I think that’s the fastest mile I’ve ever run (since boot camp at least).  By this point I was in a thick grouping of runners and I paced off of them because I knew I would bonk long before the 6.5 mile finish if I continued at this pace.  My next mile was at a much more realistic 9:20 pace.

It was 75 degrees with 60% humidity and no wind.  Though cooler than much of the summer so far, I was sweating buckets almost immediately.  There was a water stop manned by some Boy Scouts around the 1.5 mile mark and another at the first pass of the finish line.  Since the race was two laps around Lake Calhoun, you ended up with 3 water stops during the quarter marathon.  On the second lap, I ended up drinking 4 cups of water at the 3rd water stop.  I walked briefly at the 2nd and 3rd stops.

I never really got into a rhythm during this run.  The nervous energy from the start of the race quickly burnt off and the sun beating down on me sapped much of my remaining mojo.  The last 4 miles were at a very consistent 9:30 pace.  I ended up passing quite a few more runners and was even passed a few times (were these runners late starters as well).  I did enjoy the scenery for the most part.  This was the first time I had ever run around Lake Calhoun (I had walked it many times in college).  Lake Street was partially closed off (right lane) but the parking lots on the north side of the lake were still open.  Since I was in back of the pack where there tended to be gaps between runners, I did see some cars zip through to get out of the parking lot.  One lady tried to pull out before I crossed.  I ran in front of her and slammed my fist on her hood.  I was in no mood to play “let’s ignore the runner”.

The could was pretty flat.  There was a minor incline on the north side and a minor decline on the west side.  There were a number of interesting characters to take your mind off of running.  I saw two bagpipers, an Elvis impersonator, and a number of Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders.

At some point on the second lap, my left ankle hurt a bit.  Nothing major, but every step felt like running on an old bruise.  I had played football a few days earlier and attributed this to the amount of stop and start sprinting I did that day.

I crossed the finish line with a sprint.  A volunteer stood in the middle of the course about 20 feet past the finishing mats and held his right hand up in the air.  I figured that he was motioning me to stop because my timing chip would not show a starting time.  I came to a dead stop about two feet in front of him.  He looked confused and mouthed some words.  I say “mouthed” because I was still blasting music in my ear buds and did not hear him.  I yanked out my ear buds, and said “What?” in what I too late realized was a shout (I had not yet adjusted from the thundering volume of the music).  Now he looked more confused and taken aback.  He still had his hand up like he was telling me to stop.  Actually, he was congratulating me and was trying to high-five me.  I felt like a fool.  I laughed and apologized.  I told him my mind goes to mush after a run.  I quickly collected my medal and looked for some water.

I sat down and finished off a banana and a bottle of Muscle Milk (love that stuff).  When I got up again, the slight pain in my left ankle had intensified.  By the time I finished walking back to my car, I was hobbling pretty badly.  I could not put any weight on my left foot.  I had suffered my first real running injury.  I could barely walk for the next three days and did not run for another six.  My wife filled me with horror stories about tendonitis and such.  I knew it was my Achilles tendon that was hurting.  I still think it stemmed from playing football and was due to repeated planting and quick sprints and movement changes.  I run a ton more than I ever did, but it’s not fast and I don’t make sharp turns.  I don’t know what prompted the injury during the quarter marathon nor why it manifested itself three days after playing football, but it was just another loss in a day full of fail.

I checked the race website for the starting time, and did not see it listed.  Of course, it was splashed all over the Facebook page and the race update emails I received.  I just never looked at them too closely and had used the initial email to schedule the race in my calendar.  Oh well, if I had been running as late as I usually do, I would have missed the start by nearly 25 minutes.  I did manage to check in at the Explore Minnesota booth after the race, so that was a minor victory.

I will definitely run this race again next year.  My time was a few seconds over one hour.  I really wanted to break an hour, but all things considered, I was happy with the time.  I did not end up with an official DNS, instead my time was simply recorded using gun start, so it shows up as about 6 minutes slower than my actual time.  The medal was very cool and the race shirt was very nice as well.  Next year I’ll triple check the start time and make sure to start on time. 

 

I signed up for the Cloquet Sawdust 5K to fulfill the Northern region requirement of the Explore Minnesota challenge.  There are only four options for Northern races and none of them worked well for me.  I ended up choosing this race as I had the day off (as well as the day prior) due to the 4th of July holiday.  It did mean that I had to scratch the Red, White, and Boom! half marathon off my list of races for this year.  It turns out that was a sort of blessing because that race got shortened to a five-mile race due to the high temperatures and humidity in Minneapolis.

Cloquet is about a 3 hour drive from my house.  I really didn’t want to get up around 4 am, drive 3 hours, run for half an hour, then turn around and drive back 3 hours…on a holiday.  I also did not want to drop a lot of money on a hotel room.  It turns out that Cloquet has a KOA, so I decided to camp overnight.  This meant I could break up the 6 hour round trip and only drop $30 on lodging.

About a week ago, my wife decided that she and the Monkey would like to go with me to camp and run.  We left Tuesday after she finished work.  The KOA was nice and the pool was a great escape from the 95 degree weather.  It was actually about 10 degrees cooler up north.  Aside from a crazy loud train that rolled through the area a couple of times during the night, camping was a success.

It was only about 10 minutes from the campground to the race.  We rolled in around 7:30 for the 8:00 start.  It was a pleasant 71 degrees at race time, but the humidity was 75% so it was going to be a sweaty mess.  Packet pickup was quick and easy and the volunteers pointed me to the timing desk to do the Explore Minnesota check in.  After getting the Monkey and myself pinned up and attaching our timing chips, I jogged back to drop off our race bags.  By the time I got back, the runners were lining up.

My son started with me and my wife started well towards the back of the pack.  There were about 300 runners.  I told the Monkey to take it easy due to the weather.  The Facebook page also mentioned that this race was hilly, so I told him not to burn out early.

An air horn sounded and we were off.  Shortly afterward we made a right turn and hit the first hill.  This course was the hilliest (non-trail) 5K I’ve run.  I should have expected as much when the t-shirts state “I survived the hills”.  There were three really big hills, but also a lot of smaller and longer ones throughout the course.

The course wound through residential areas before hitting a long, straight section that was an out and back.  The water stop was at the start of this section.  This was a great idea because was available on the way back as well.  So you got two water stops on this run.  The cups of water were full and cold.  Another mark of a well-managed race.

Endomondo has stopped announcing updates (I later found out that a setting must have been changed during an upgrade) so I was not sure of my pace.  I was fine with this as I had decided rather quickly that the challenging course and humidity made a PR unrealistic.  I ended up pacing off of a couple of runners (one until the first water stop, the other for the rest of the race).  I never pushed the pace because I didn’t want to burn out on one of the hills.  I did overestimate my progress as I thought I was around the 2.5 mile mark when I saw the 2 mile marker on the side of the road.

The race was not a true out and back.  Only the middle portion was an out and back.  I was mentally tracking the larger hills and figured that on the way back I would have two steep downhills and one steep hill when running the course in reverse.  That was dashed when we took a different route after the out and back.

Towards the end of the race we made a left turn and I could see the park and finish line to my right. I saw runners flying down a steep downhill to the finish area.  Unfortunately, that meant that we had big climb ahead.  Right around the 2.8 mile mark we hit the biggest hill of the course.  I ran the first third of this beast, then walked for about 20 seconds, then ran the rest of it.  I didn’t take full advantage of the downhill right away as I needed to catch my breath.  I was tapped at that point and just put my legs on auto pilot and leaned forward to get gravity do its magic.

I hadn’t planned to sprint the last bit as I was a sweaty, tired mess at this point, but I did pick up the pace and finished with a full sprint over the last 50 yards or so.  I was surprised to see 27:04 on the clock as I crossed the finish line as I though I was running a couple of minutes slower than that.  I was even more surprised to hear my wife’s name announced.  We must have switched timing chips.

I waited for the rest of my family to finish.  It’s funny how long a few minutes can seem after you finish a race.  My name was announced as my wife crossed the finish about five minutes after I had.  It felt like a much longer wait.  I had seen the Monkey at the out and back and he was walking.  I asked my wife when she passed him and she said it was shortly after the turn around point.  I figured he would be crossing in about five minutes.  I got a little worried and called him.  He was cresting the monster hill and cursing it.  I saw him and jogged him in to the finish line.

There was a pool (actually more of a man-made beach) in the park and we were allowed to use it.  Me and the Monkey grabbed some water, cookies, and bananas then hit the pool.  It was really nice to take a quick dip in the pool.  We stuck around for about 20 minutes and enjoyed the pool.  The weather was actually pretty nice.  It was still crazy humid, but the temperature was in around 75 degrees and there was a nice breeze.  It was much hotter and humid back in the Twin Cities.

After subtracting for chip start, the official results showed I had somehow scored a PR by 4 seconds – unfortunately it was under my wife’s name due to the timing chip mixup.  This was on a hilly course, in high humidity, with a 20 second walk break and two water stops, and without pushing my pace.  I should run (at least shorter races) without knowing my pace more often.

This was a great race.  It was well-managed.  The shirts were tech tees with kid’s sizes and women’s cuts.  You also received a mesh cinch bag.  There was plenty of water on the course and the pool was a great after-race perk.  All this for $20 ($25 race day).  Now if they could just do something about those damned hills. 

 

I’ll share a secret with you: I don’t like Duluth.  That’s not exactly correct.  I don’t get a boner for Duluth like many Twin Cities natives do,  so compared to the rest of my friends my lack of enthusiasm for the port city makes it seem like I don’t like the city.  My dislike is not completely irrational. I lived in Duluth when I first moved to Minnesota from California.  So while Twin Cities residents extol the virtues of the cool summer weather and “quaintness” of Duluth, I remember hating the lake effect and freezing Lake Superior waters for robbing me of beach days in the summer.  The winters were beyond brutal. And what some take for “quaintness” I felt was more akin to backwardness.  I could not wait to move to the Twin Cities.  Duluth may be nice to visit, but I sure as hell did not like living there.

My wife loves Duluth, so when I was looking at half marathons I put Grandma’s Half Marathon (officially it’s the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon) on the list because I knew she would be onboard to travel to Duluth with me.  The half marathon is so popular that it sells out every year and to you must enter a lottery in February.  I entered and was lucky enough to be among the 6,500 chosen to run this event.  This was by far most expensive half marathon ($86) I’ve entered so far.  After getting an entry, I started to look for lodging.  I knew that Grandma’s Marathon is the biggest event in Duluth, but I was unprepared for the hotel costs.  Even in February, it was hard to find rooms.  The few available rooms required that you book at least two days (many required three) in order to reserve a room.  This is on top of the jacked up room prices.  I could not justify the expense.  My mom lives in Bayfield, Wisconsin, so I decided that the 1.5 hour trip from there to Duluth would be better than dropping hundreds of dollars to stay in a hotel.

Me, the wife, and the Monkey all left Minneapolis around noon on Friday en route to Duluth.  I had to pick up my packet that day.  I had toyed with paying the $25 and having my packet mailed to me so I could avoid the expo, but it was on the way so we decided to attend.  We were warned that there was a 5K that night so we wanted to make it to the DECC (Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center) before 5 pm.  Of course, construction season in Minnesota meant that I-35 was beastly in spots, but we still managed to make it to the DECC before 5 pm.  We skipped the long ass parking line and parked on the other side of the lift bridge.  The walk was nice and we got to check out some of Canal Park on the way.

The expo was crowded, but I actually enjoyed it more than any other expo.  Most “expos” are just an excuse to move runners past a couple of vendor booths trying to sell you stuff.  I generally try to get in and out as quickly as possible.  There was some of that in Duluth – especially with the layout requiring you to walk past all of the vendors to get your packet in the back of the expo – but it felt more relaxed and (organically) festive than usual. We ended up actually buying some gear (visor for me and “shark” socks for my wife – I never found a race poster though) plus my son cleaned up on freebies (tons of food, a cowbell, and a t-shirt).  The cow bell was a bad idea as he nearly deafened me in the car with that damn thing.  I picked up a 2008 Des Moines Half Marathon finisher’s shirt (now you know what happens to the leftover shirts) just for asking about next year’s race (on my radar for 2013).  I saw (2004 10K Olympian) Carrie Tollefson walking on the floor.  I got a couple of pictures as she walked by (unfortunately only her back – she even walks quickly).  We managed to get out just before 5 pm and were at my mom’s by 6:30.

My mom made a metric ton of spaghetti, bread, and apple pie.  I carb-loaded to the point of discomfort.    I tried to get to sleep by 10 pm, but was unable to nod off until midnight.

The race day logistics were much different from any other race.  I woke up at 2:45 am and quickly showed and dressed.  I was on the way to Duluth by 3 am.  Since the race is a point-to-point and you can only reach the starting area via buses from Duluth that ran from 4:45 – 5:15 am, I had to make the 1.5 hour drive on only a couple of hours of sleep.  The drive was uneventful (other than one of the two bridges from WI to MN being shut down) and I reached the freeway exit for the DECC at 4:40 am.  It was there that I experienced the all-too-familiar “race day backup”.  I entertained trying to find a different route or trying to find one of the other locations with busing available, but I decided to wait it out for DECC parking.  I finally parked in a dirt lot at 5:20 am…5 minutes after the last half marathon bus was scheduled to leave for the starting area.

Normally I would be out of my mind with anxiety at this point.  I was pretty relaxed because a) I saw a bunch of people with half marathons bibs walking from the parking lot to the bus area so I figured that I would just be joining an angry mob if the buses had stopped running, and b) the race did not start until 6:45 am, so regardless of the parking situation at the starting area this kid was going to run this damn race.  I was surprised to have to pay for parking (only $5, but I still think this should have been included in the entry fee).  I made my final decision not to bring my hand-held water bottle on this run and then jogged to the bus area.

There were plenty of half marathoners waiting for buses at 5:30.  I spoke to a couple of repeat runners and they said that they basically run buses until a little after 6 am, but they post the 4:45 – 5:15 am time so that runners get to the buses well before the cut off.  There was an old skool train across from us filled with full marathoners.  What a cool way to make the trip to the starting line.

The bus rides took about 25 minutes to reach the starting area.  Once there, we walked another quarter-mile or so to get to the “corral”.  Along the way was the bag check and a row of porta-potties.  For whatever reason, the porta-potties here – and along the course – were rank as all hell.  The porta-stank was unbearable.  In the first of many nice touches, water was available to runners waiting for the start of the race.

The national anthem was sung shortly after 6 am and the elite men and women runners started well before the rest of us.  Even though I ended up standing in line for over a half hour, it went by quickly.  The only thing that pissed me off was runners trying to worm their way closer to the starting line.  I was in line by 6:15 am.  This meant that I was positioned about a hundred feet behind the 2:45 pacer.  I would have liked to have started near the 2:05 or 2:10 pacer, but there was a mass of running humanity wedged between me and those pacers so I did the reasonable thing and settled where I was.  Of course many other runners decided that they absolutely needed to move up…even though that was logistically next to impossible.  I had a flashback to my concert going days when with everyone crammed together like sardines and still people thought they could force their way to the stage.  NOTE: runners needn’t worry too much about positioning as the route encompasses a full street.  You’ll have about 40 feet of room to navigate around runners plus a good chunk of road shoulder (limited only by forest on one side and lake on the other).

The weather was a huge concern for this race.  I kept an eye on the forecast all week.  The temps were consistently being forecast in the low to mid 60s.  The humidity was a big concern though.  The humidity was forecast in the 90% range.  I figured that this was simply due to the high likelihood of showers.  I don’t mind running in the rain.  Hell, with the way I sweat, I was going to be drenched either way.  The day of the race, the skies were clear and there was a slight, cooling wind off the lake.  I was surprised to see the humidity was still very high (it was 59 degrees with 88% humidity at 6:10).  This did not seem right to me as it was cool and clear, but once I started running I believed the humidity reading.

We never even heard the starting announcement, we simply started to walk slowly towards the starting line.  As I hit the starting line, my phone locked up.  It has done this a couple of times lately when switching from camera to apps.  I tried to power cycle it, but it was unresponsive.  Fuck.  I would have to run this race sans music, GPS, pager, and emergency phone device.  About a minute later, it unceremoniously restored and I started Endomondo.  NOTE: while I cursed my phone getting jenky at the start, I am impressed with the battery on the RAZR Maxx.  I started the race with 40% battery and even with texting, one phone call, music, and GPS tracking…it only ate about of the battery over 2 hours.

My goals for this race were to finish without bonking/walking and to get back to my average time of around 2:05 after a couple of disappointing half marathons in the 2:15 range.  My energy level was good, but my knees have felt a bit “crunchy” since my 19 mile run on Wednesday.  Even with Friday off, I was feeling a bit out of sorts at the start of the race.  I purposely regulated my pace over the first few miles.  I’ve been going out way too fast in my last few races.  I wanted to make sure I had some juice at the end so I could finish strong, especially because my family would be seeing me during that time.

The course was closed and we had the entire road to ourselves.  There was plenty of room to maneuver.  I did end up passing a lot of people over the first 7 miles or so.  I have to say that the runners seemed to be very attentive during this race.  Walkers (I saw very few at the beginning of the race) stayed to the sides.  Runners seemed very aware of other runners.  Everyone seemed very happy and the run had a great vibe.

The race support was simply incredible.  There were water stops at miles 2, 4, and 6.  After mile 6, the water stops occurred at each mile marker (with the possible exception of mile 13).  This was the deciding factor in my decision not to run with my own water.  Actually, calling these “water stops” is like comparing a 7/11 to a huge grocery store.  Each stop had multiple tables – on BOTH sides of the course – with water, ice, cold sponges, and Power Aid.  The cups of water were full (personally, my mark of a great race) and the race volunteers were the best I’ve ever seen.  And that’s just the official stops.  Along the course, spectators offered everything from water to bacon to frozen grapes.  It would be impossible to dehydrate or starve along this course.

The spectators started in the first mile and got thicker and louder as we approached the finish line.  I honestly can’t convey in words how awesome the crowd support was for this race.  During the run I saw: a group of about 20 belly dancers, a dancing Obama and Romney (well, generic white dude who I assumed was the Mittster), a bizarre line of what had to be hundreds of troll dolls lining the street curb, people offering beer bong hits, BACON! (like it even needs to be said: AWE-FUCKING-SOME!!!), a walking Tiki doll, and all kinds of other fun weirdness.  A local grocery store offered strawberries and orange slices.  Best. Orange. Slice. Ever.

Another cool feature of the race was that they had timing mats at 5K, 10K, 10 mile, 11.9 (weird), and (obviously) the finish line.  You could have text messages or emails sent to recipients to at each timing mat.  It was fun to cross a timing mat and then shortly after get a text message with my time and distance.  This would have been great for my wife to keep track of my progress, but she left her phone at my mom’s house.  This resulted in me fielding my first phone call during a race.  My son called and I answered.  My wife was calling.  She just wanted to leave a message that she left her phone and to call my son’s number after I finished.

This race flew by.  I surprisingly kept a very steady pace.  Looking at my splits for the first ten miles, they were all within a few seconds of 9:47/mile.  I seriously ran 5 of those miles at exactly 9:47 and only one (9:58 at mile 4) that was not within 2 seconds of 9:47.  I stopped at every water stop (except mile 12).  I got a my first runner’s high for months around mile 9.  I fueled on Lifesavers and Gu Chomps plus a packet of Wintergreen Gu around mile 10. NOTE: don’t eat Gu without something to wash it down.  Nothing makes the already unpleasant experience worse than sticky fingers and a Gu filled throat (fighting hard NOT to make a sexual reference).

Around mile 10 I felt great.  My legs were pain-free.  I had plenty of energy.  I knew I could pick up the pace.  I was told that the course was mostly flat with only one big hill: Lemon Drop Hill.  I kept looking for that hill.  When I finally hit it, I almost laughed.  It wasn’t a big, scary hill at all.  Especially after my last two half marathons.  I powered up the hill, and then was treated to a downhill for the remainder of the course.  The elevation profile shows that there was 223 feet of gain over the entire course.  I suppose that there were some rolling hills, but they were so mild that I didn’t even notice them.

As I stated, the humidity was very high.  It was masked by the clear skies, slight wind, and cooling lake effect.  I sweat like a pig.  I know that this is the body’s cooling method.  Until today, I thought it a pretty poor implementation.  The breeze on my sweaty body kept me cool for the entire run.  My tank top was soaked by mile 5.  Around mile 7 I felt like I had sat in a puddle of water.  Why the hell did my butt feel wet?  The answer was easy: my butt WAS wet.  The tank top had passed its ability to hold water and wicked it to my shorts.  Slowly, my shorts turned from light to dark blue as the sweat line crept ever downward.  Though not entirely uncomfortable, until the effect was complete, this did make it look like I had pissed myself.

The course was all on paved roads with some brick roads for a brief stretch in the city of Duluth.  You could run along a grassy or dirt shoulder for portions of the race.  I did see a lot of runners (men and women) dart into the woods along the first part of the course to “take care of business”.  The views were nice, but having been up and down this area quite a bit, they weren’t nearly as amazing as they are further up north.  At one point (about mile 3) we could see the Duluth Lift Bridge in the distance and a runner commented, “We’re almost done.  I can see the finish.”  This made me giggle as well as put into visual context how far 13.1 miles really is.

After Lemon Drop Hill I picked up the pace.  This was easy as I had plenty of gas left in the tank and the remainder of the race was almost entirely downhill.  The crowds were thick and loud at this point.  I had a blast running those last few miles.  My last two miles were 9:08 and 8:48.  I felt great and if I could have accurately figured out where the finish line was I would have sped up even more.

I crossed the finish line just north of 2:07.  While slower than the 2:05 I was shooting for, I had a great race.  I expect a 2:05 because I ran that speed on two tough hilly courses and a PR of 2:02 on a flat one.  The problem is that I was completely gassed by mile 11 on all three of those races.  Today I felt awesome at that point.  I knew I was not going to PR, so I will happily take an enjoyable 2:07 finish over getting my ass kicked for something 3 minutes short of my PR.

I collected my medal (thick enough to brain a small wildebeest at 40 yards) and grabbed a bottle of water.  I called my wife and agreed to meet her at the bottom of the lift bridge.  They saw me around mile 12 and she ran into the course to get my attention, but I had my headphones on and did not hear or see her.  I skipped the free drink and after party.  I was completely drenched with sweat.  So much so that even my socks were drenched.  I didn’t even want to think about how that happened.  My feet sweat, but not to that extent.  I knew I would be dealing with a few blisters and that the toenail on my right foot that barely survived my 19 mile long run was now beyond saving.  I grabbed my finisher’s shirt (lime green – not my jam) and met my family.

My legs felt fine for the rest of the day.  I could not eat right away (I never can after a long race) so we headed back to my mom’s house.  I ate some more pie and then on the long drive back to the cities, I indulged and fucked up a bunch of Taco Bell tacos.  That’s one of the benefits of burning 2100 calories early in the morning   Between the early rising, running, and travel, I was asleep by 10 pm that night.

So do I still hate Duluth?  Nope.  I would never live there again, but they do throw a hell of a race.  I will definitely enter the lottery for the half marathon again next year.  If I don’t make the cut, I may even consider doing the full marathon.  If you’re a Minnesota (or even Midwest) runner, I would definitely make an effort to run Grandma’s.

We left our exurban chateau for the nearly 4 hour drive to Fargo right before 1 pm.  I was a bit stressed out on the way as the website stated that you needed to pick up your 5K packet prior to 5 pm.  If Google was telling the truth, then we would be arriving at the Fargodome with only about 10 minutes to spare…and that was not accounting for street closures, parking, crowds, dinosaurs, and earthquakes.  As it turned out, we made it to Fargo around 4:15 so we were able to check in to our hotel room then head over to the Fargodome.

Getting to the Fargodome was painless as well. The only obstacles were the design of the city streets (lots of one-way streets) and not any closures.  Traffic was mild, especially considering that they were expecting up to 10,000 5K runners that night.  Parking was plentiful and the Fargodome was roomy enough so that I felt less crowded than I have at many smaller expos.

Once inside, I expected a long wait for our packets.  The 5K packet pickup was on the main level (basically the concourse around the stadium) and the rest of the races held their packet pickup down on the stadium floor along with the expo.  I would pick up the 5K packets while my wife went down to the floor to pick up her 10K packet and – if necessary – my half marathon packet.

Packet pickup was quick and easy.  I grabbed my son’s packet and mine.  He received his in a bag and I was told that since I was registered for two races, my bag would be included with my half marathon packet.  I was in and out in about 10 minutes.  I went downstairs and had my half marathon packet in about 10 minutes as well.

We had a ton of time to kill at that point (a little after 5 pm) so we walked around the expo.  There were a ton of vendors pitching everything from other races to expensive fruit juice.  I grabbed a couple of packs of GU Chomps and was going to buy a poster but decided not to (I’ll explain why in another post).  During the expo they announced a number of times that there were no water stops on the 5K course so they recommended bringing your own water.  This was a good suggestion as it was ninety-freaking-five degrees outside.  I had brought my handheld bottle for this purpose, but had left it in the hotel room so we bought some bottled water at the expo.

We walked around the finish line area (the races end inside the Fargodome).  The race bibs have a large area for you to write in your name so we stopped at a table and my son wrote his name (not without appending “the Great” to it – egoist!)  Finally we decided to kill the remaining 30 minutes by sitting in stands.

We left the stadium around 6:15 so that we would minimize standing around in the 95 degree heat.  This meant that we ended up in the back of the huge pack.  There were two 5K starting areas: one for walkers and one for runners.  This was a great design.  The walkers lined up a block away and would not start until all of the runners had crossed the starting line.  Still, we were so far back in the pack that there was a sign denoting “Estimated Finish Time: 50 Minutes.”

The weather was a huge concern.  It honestly did not feel that bad.  Even though it was 95 degrees, there was a strong wind and the humidity was very low (19%) so it felt much cooler.  I was running this race as my son’s pacer/waterboy so I wasn’t going to be running very fast.

After both the Canadian and US anthem were sung and “Eye of the Tiger” blasted over the speakers, we were off.  I had told my son to run his race and I would follow behind him.  I also told him to start out slow and when he needed a walk break to get all the way over to the right before walking.  He surprised me by actually starting out slow as he usually bolts out at top speed.

The course itself was run completely on residential streets.  There were a ton of people cheering on the runners.  A number of residents had turned on their sprinklers so that runners could run through them to cool down.  My son hit as many of those as he could.  Near the end of the course there was a large misting station as well as an open fire hydrant.

I was not carrying my phone with me as I would not be listening to music and did not want to tie up both hands with a phone and a bottle of water.  This meant no pictures, which was fine.  It also meant no distance/pace information.  This would have been nice as my son kept asking “how much further?”.

The course was completely flat and had a fair number of turns.  I missed the first mile marker and my son told me when we passed the halfway mark.  It seemed to come up pretty fast.  It buoyed his spirits.  I told him “only about 15 minutes left”.  So it came as a bit of a shock when – about 10 minutes later – we saw the 2 mile marker.  “Umm, only about 11 minutes left” I said to my slightly deflated son.  Later we figured out that the “halfway point” he saw was the word “half” written in big letters on the street.  The next day I would decipher this as being part of the half marathon course and not the midpoint of the 5K.

Needless to say, the course was packed.  We were constantly picking holes to pass people.  Sometimes my son would pass someone on the right and I would pass on the left, then I would have to find him again.  It’s easy to lose sight of a smaller human in the mass of runners but we ended up staying together the whole race.

The walkers did make an appearance.  I’m talking about the folks walking the whole route.  The ones who were supposed to line up in a different area.  The ones who would have to have willfully ignored the dozens of announcements over the PA system for the entire half hour before the race.  The ones who somehow decided to not only line up with the runners but to also line up near the front of the pack.  The ones who also figured that walking four-abreast was a fine plan.  I am happy to report that at least two of those walkers received elbow blows.

Other than the jackass walkers, the crowd was nice.  Few runners – especially as far back in the pack as we were – were running very fast.  Most were smiling and taking in the scene.  We spotted a running Elvis as well as a Stormtrooper in full gear (he had to be boiling) and were high-fiving as many kids as possible along the route.  My son loved running through the sprinklers.

After hitting the 2 mile mark, I told my son that if he can hang tight he could complete this run with no walk breaks.  This became our new goal.  He would ask “how much further” and I would guesstimate times based on a 10 minute per mile pace.

Soon enough we could see the Fargodome on our right and the crowds were getting much thicker.  “We just have to run to that building and we’re done.”  He was saving his kick for the end.  Unfortunately he never got to use it.  The race ended near where it began, not in the Fargodome.  This was a bit of a surprise.

I was proud of my son as he completed the 5K with no walk breaks.  The vast majority of the 5K’ers must have walked as the average finishing time was around 45 minutes.  This meant that my PW 5K time was still in the top 25% and – more importantly – let my son brag that he ran faster than 6,000 other runners.

We collected our medals, grabbed some water, met up with my wife and were on our way back to the hotel in about 15 minutes.  I was impressed with how well this race was organized, especially with the brutal weather conditions.

Welcome to Maple Grove – hope you like hills.

For the third weekend in a row, I laced up my shoes and ran a half marathon.  This week’s event was the Maple Grove Half Marathon.  I had not planned on running this race as it does not offer a medal and if I’m going to pound out 13 miles I want a shiny chunk of medal to signify the event.  A few months ago they announced on Facebook that because it was the fifth annual event, they would be issuing finisher medals.  I was in.

This race had a fairly early start.  It’s not far from where I work, so I made the early morning commute pretty much on auto-pilot and arrived at the Maple Grove High School Stadium at 7:10 so I had 20 minutes to dink around before the start of the race.  Packet pickup was really easy as it was held in the Maple Grove REI store and I was able to shoot up there right after work on Friday and nab my packet.  We were told that the shirts would be issued after the race so the packet was bib, timing chip, and some promotional goodies.  I pinned on my bib and secured my timing chip to my shoe then entered the stadium.

It was a glorious day.  The sky was clear and the temperature was in the low 50’s.  There was a mild wind out of the west and the humidity level was low.  Perfect running weather.  After the freezing rain of the Get In Gear and the tropical humidity of the Lake Minnetonka Half, I was very grateful to the weather gods for the perfect day.

The race starts on the track that circles the football field.  By the time I entered the stadium the national anthem (a guitarist channeling his inner Hendrix) was playing.  I lined up just behind the 2:10 pacer.  I wanted to start this race slowly and then try to break 2:05 by picking up the pace over the last few miles.  I wanted to avoid the lack of energy I had on the last miles of the Lake Minnetonka Half.

As I lined up, I heard someone say my name and saw that the manager of the Running Room store that my marathon training class meets was running this race.  She lined up next to me and we chatted a bit.  She was going to try to run 10 minute miles the entire race.  I ran with her for the first couple of miles then slowly moved up.

We ran a half of a lap around the track then exited the stadium.  I loved this course.  It’s by far my favorite course so far.  The course was a mixture of paved trails and residential streets.  The trails circled lakes and the views were awesome.  There were about five small bridges and even a couple of underpasses and a tunnel.  The course started and finished on the track.  Great course…except for the hills. 

This race is known for being hilly.  I’ve run parts of the lake path before and knew there were a lot of smaller hills with a couple of steep buggers thrown in for good measure.  The path didn’t scare me much as I train on very similar paths.  There were about three major hills on the course, but there were a TON of smaller, shorter hills.  It was a rare stretch of running where you weren’t either climbing or descending a hill.

I had left the 2:10 pacer behind shortly after exiting the stadium.  The pacers were spaced pretty tightly at the start of the race (about 750 runners as opposed to the 2,500 and 9,000 runner fields at the start of my last two half marathons) and once we exited the stadium the pacers increased or decreased their pace to hit their split targets.  Against my better judgement, I did not fall back to match the 2:10 pace.

I caught up the 2:05 pacer around mile 3.  I decided that my strategy would be to stick with this pacer and then close strong to break 2:05.  I stuck with this group for a few miles, but by mile 5 I had pulled ahead.  This was okay as I was feeling good and figured that the pacer would catch up to me at the water stops.

Right around mile 3 there was a guy with a large dog tied to a traffic sign.  My eyes followed the long leash to a really ugly dog who looked to be chewing on some shrubs.  The man said something like “C’mon Jimmy, stop eating and cheer on the runners.”  It was only then that I noticed that the “ugly dog” was actually a large pig.

While not every spectator had a large farm animal in tow, the crowd support was awesome.  There were a lot of residents watching and cheering from their homes and many large groups of cheering spectators at the water stops and all along the route.

I ran without headphones for the first 8 miles of the race.  This is the furthest I’ve ever gone without music.  I was drinking in the day and the event.  I was oblivious to my pace and often forgot exactly how many miles I had already run.

After the water stop around mile 8 I pulled out my ear buds.  They were in a tangled clump, so my walking through the water stop was extended as I unknotted them.  This lead to my slowest mile of the race (10:28 yikes!).  Otherwise all of my splits were pretty close to 9:30, with a 9:13 (2nd mile, I gotta stop running mile 2 that fast), 9:18, and 9:56 as the outliers.  Endomondo was measuring the miles slightly short compared to the miles markers again (not as badly as the Minnetonka Half) so those splits were probably a few seconds shorter than the “official” splits.

The reason I mention the splits was because there was a timing mat and clock at the 10K point.  I crossed the mat with 58 something on the clock.  I figured I could take close to a minute off of that value as it took a little while for me to cross the start line, I was shocked to see myself at under one hour halfway through the race.  This meant I was on course for a sub 2 hour half marathon.  Of course, I was wrong.  While I was not aware of my split times as I had not put in my earbuds yet, this still did not cover up the fact that 10K (6.2 miles) is NOT the halfway mark of a half marathon (13.1 miles).  It’s still .7 miles short, which means adding about 6 – 7 more minutes at my pace.  Oh well, doing math while running is not my forte.

I chugged along from mile 8 – 10.  The hills started to wear on me by mile 11.  I was losing energy once again.  I was fueling with Lifesavers and Gu Chomps (watermelon – pretty good).  I hit all of the water stops (except the last one).  The water stops featured *gasp* full-sized cups of water.  Hydration was never a problem.

I overheard that there was a big hill before the end of the race.  I kept looking for it after mile 9.  Starting around the 10.5 mile mark we kept climbing and climbing slowly, then – as we exited the park trail – we had a hill that rose until we turned right, then rose again.  I made it all the way until the last 20 feet or so, then took my first walk break (other than the unplanned walk to untangle my earbuds).  I looked up and saw the Maple Grove water tower and remembered that the hill was called “Water Tower Hill”.  I walked for about 20 seconds to catch my breath and continued running.  By itself, this wasn’t a killer hill, but coming after a ton of other hills it was a beast.

I knew that I was slipping, but after hitting the next water stop I decided to just suck it up for the last 2 miles.  Nothing hurt, but I was battling tired legs and the desire to walk for the rest of the race.  I skipped the last water stop, but ended up walking briefly about a minute later.  I broke down and walked once more before the end of the race.  I kept the walk breaks to about 10 seconds.  I was getting Goldy’s Run flashback.

Finally I could see the stadium up ahead.  I would have liked to sprint at this point, but I had nothing left.  Still, I was ahead of the 2:05 pacer, so I was guaranteed a PR as long as I didn’t collapse.  There were tons of people cheering on the runners as you entered the stadium.  The soft track felt great on my feet.  I did not want to pass the guy ahead of me but I ended up picking up the pace a bit then sprinting the final 50 feet or so to the finish line.

I was surprised to see 2:06 on the clock.  Accounting for the minute or so before I crossed the starting line, I guess that I barely cracked 2:05.  I was a bit disappointed to see that Endomondo showed 2:06.  It turns out I only took about 30 seconds to cross the starting line.  This still confused me as I was sure that I was never passed by the 2:05 pacer.  Maybe she passed me while I was focusing on my stupid earbuds, but I swear I would have seen her and her sign on the big downhill portion right after that even if she did pass me.  Oh well, it wasn’t a PR, but I’ll take it as this was a pretty tough course.

A volunteer clipped off my timing chip and I collected my medal.  I grabbed some water and wandered around a bit and snapped some pictures.  Coming into the stadium I swear I heard my name announced as the winner of a door prize.  The announcer mentioned to check the door prize list after the race.  I looked all over for that list, but never found it.  I grabbed an orange slice and some Muscle Milk then set off to get my shirt.  The volunteer asked for the bottom part of my bib, but I had torn it off while putting on the bib before the race because I didn’t think it was needed since this was a chip timed event.  No problems, she scribbled an ‘X’ on my bib and I collected my shirt.  The shirt is very nice.  It’s a good-looking Brooks shirt.

I think that this is my favorite half marathon so far.  Even though it was hilly and I was a bit disappointed with my time, the course was beautiful.  The weather was perfect and I had a great time.  I can’t wait until the Fargo Half Marathon next week because that course is supposed to be flat as a pancake.  I’m going to shoot for a 2:03 there.