My 1st Ever Blog

Hello to all! This is my first ever blog if you can believe it or not. Why did I decide to Blog? I am not sure. A runner co-worker of mine did a blog a few years back and still does but does not update as much as he used to and I liked reading that and seeing all of those who responded to him all over the world. Seems exciting! Then a week or so ago while just surfing around, I came upon a blog that goes by the name of "Life is a Marathon..." by a runner named Melanie from Tennessee. I do not know Melanie at all but after reading some of her blogs about running and about life, she seemed like a cool girl and had similar interests as me. Maybe someday she will see this blog and wonder what kind of weird guy from Wisconsin sees my blog and starts his own? All that made me decide to try out blogging and specifically a runner blog.

I am will have to try over the next few weeks to learn how to modify this page to show all the other cool stuff I see in other blogs like mileage reports and other stats. Time will tell if I can actually learn that stuff.

Well, if you want to know about me, here goes: I am 37 years old and live in Muskego, WI. I have a wife who sometimes runs half marathons (and did 1 full, NYC at that) and 3 little Princesses named Melissa, Megan, and Katelynn. they are currently 6, 4, and 3 respectively. They see Daddy running a lot or wake up on a Saturday morning a wonder where did Daddy go?!?!? Then later that morning, Daddy come through the door and they come running for a big hug. A sweaty hug that I try to decrease how wet they get, but a hug none the less. My wife on the other hand wants nothing to do with me when I first get home from a run. After a nice shower and that is a different story.

I have been running since about 5th grade. I still have my 2 awards I won in the 6th Grade Olympics my school ran many years ago. 1st in Cross Country and 2nd in the 600 Yard Run. I ran in High School and was pretty good but not great. I did win a conference title in the 800M as a Senior and the Region Title that year as well but missed out on the State Meet. I was pretty bummed about that!

I then ran on my college Track and Cross Country teams. The University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. I was an average D3 runner in Track by the time I was a senior. I competitively for the Cross Country team and we had a great team. We even won the National D3 title Championships 2 of the years I was there. No thanks to me as I was the slowest runner on the team. I think I was #26 on the team. I was so excited my second year when I finally beat someone from my own team in a cross country race. But in truth, I ran cross country to help train for track as I ran the half mile there. I had a great time in college on the team and my coach was a great guy and he still coaches there. His name is John Zupanc and I would recommend any kid wanting to run in college to check his program out. Year in and year out they are one of the best D3 teams in the country. He is the guy who inspired me to run my first marathon a half a year out of college. He was and still is a great Marathoner. He won the Milwaukee Marathon at least once and took 2nd a few times as well. i think his PR is about 2:20 or close to that. I am way off that time.

My first marathon was in was the 1993 Fox Cities Marathon in Appleton, WI. I was fresh out of college and is great half mile shape. Too bad you need to be in marathon shape to run a marathon. While it is still my PR marathon (3:40), I suffered bad after mile 18 when I strained some leg muscles who have never run further than 14 miles at a time before that. I lived and learned by not running another marathon for 11 years.

I have just completed my 13th marathon about 2 weeks ago and my 5th this year. It has been a down year for my marathons as I haven't been but 23 minutes off my best time from 2007. Oh well, I still train and am training for my next which is scheduled for January 17th in Milwaukee. WHAT! JANUARY IN MILWAUKEE?!?! ARE YOU CRAZY?!?! Well yes I am crazy, but not because of this race. It is the Icebreaker Marathon held INSIDE the Pettit National Ice Center on a 450M track. This is the place where lots of the US Olympic speedskaters train and race like Bonnie Blair, Dan Jansen, and Chris Witty. They have a 2 lace running track on the outside of the ice oval. Great for long runs during the winter to avoid icy street and crazy drivers in the dark. Th race will be 94 or so laps. I run there often for long runs during the winter so I am used to the monotony of the laps. My goal (as with all marathons) is Sub 4:00.

I do train with a group of friends that we all like to do marathons and we travel to them together as well.

There is Art (The guy who also has a blog), he has run 7 marathons so far.

There is Mike, another coworker of mine. He has run 28 marathons and this year PR'ed with his first Sub 3 Hour Marathon.

Paul is also a coworker of mine. He is a nut a likes to run marathons a lot and do all this crazy stuff like climb mountains and do IronMan competitions. He has run close to 20 so far. Including 9 last year and maybe 9 this year wile climbing part of the way up Mt. Everest.

Chaz is a friend of mine I met playing Volleyball. He ran his first marathon when I ran my 2nd in 2004. Is consistently runs Sub 3's now and is up to 14 or so marathons and Ultras.

Larry is also a coworker of mine who tags along sometimes but is more a Triathlete than a marathoner though he has goals of Boston like Paul and myself so. He does those crazy IronMans as well.

There are others that run with us occasionally and we have actually created a small running boom where I work with people doing fulls and half marathons. I think in the past 3 years, we have had 9 people where I work run a full marathon and we only have a little over 200 people work in the building. I have many running friends including Cherylynn (Chaz's wife), Laura, Angelo, Pat, and Ken & Wendy (from Church). We all share our experiences running a love to talk about running as well as all sorts of other stuff. I hope you enjoy this bog and please reply and let me know what you think. I hope to perfect this blog thing soon.

15 Miles tomorrow morning at Pettit! 54 laps! Will share more soon!