Crazy 8K Race, Naples, Florida

Before I went to Naples, Florida last week, I went online and looked to see if there were any road races going on that I might be able to jump into. I ended up making it to the Gulf Coast Runners Club and found out there was going to be an 8K race on Sunday, October 25th. It was called the Crazy 8K and was very similar to a race we have in Milwaukee called the Discovery Run. So I decided to go and run it.

The night before the race, I was at a party and met another guy from Milwaukee and we talked running. I said I was doing a race in the morning and he said he wanted to go as well. While he has done a lot of triathlons before, he has never done just a running race.

Steve and I before the race.

We met at 6 AM and drove in the darkness to where the race would begin. We signed up and did a mile and a half warm up and then headed to the start. This is kind of like a Halloween race so there were many people dressed up. Spiderman ran as well as a full grown adult baby clad in only a diaper and bonnet (quite disturbing). The race was mostly an out and back on a very flat course. The weather was warm, low to mid 70's at the 7:30 start but everyone there was glad it was cool. They have been having hot weather recently.


The gun goes off and I make sure I go out conservatively in the heat. Mile 1 was at 7:02, a little faster than I wanted but OK. The remainder of the race was very consistent for me. Every mile was between 7:00 and 7:08 and I ended in 35:19 good for near 32nd place overall out of about 200 or so runners. After checking the results, I found out that I took 3rd in my age group out of 16. COOL.

Someone took pictures during the race and posted them online including my finish.

During the awards, when they got to mentioning me, the guy announcing said my name and where I lived. When he got to Saying"Wisconsin", he said it in a questioning tone as if to say, "What the heck is someone from Wisconsin down here for?" There were runners from other states as well, Ohio, Colorado, Maryland, Indiana and even someone from Ontario, Canada. But I was the first non-Floridian to finish for whatever that is worth.

This was a nice little race and the Gulf Coast Runners put on a good event. The other runners were friendly (duh, they are runners after all) and I had a good time. If I happen to be in the Naples area again when this race it run, I would definitely go again.

The awards I received.

A close up of the nice Halloween Ornament I received.

A Nice Trip to Naples, Florida

I have been gone for a little while and I learned when I get there, I had no Internet access therefore, no posts.. So where did I go? I was in Naples, FL for a 1 week vacation and it was nice. Down there, they were having record high (or close to it) temperatures which was fine with me. It was sunny most days and in the lower 90's with high humidity. It was like the summer I never got in Wisconsin.

It was more of a relaxing vacation instead of the usual run around and get as much in as possible. I did splurge a little and rented a Sebring Convertible which ended up being a great decision based on the weather we had. Rentalcarmomma.com had a great price for a weeks rental. I was staying on a golf resort and didn't even do one round. What is my problem?

I did get 3 runs in while I was there, all in the morning as during the day would have been quite hot. It was hot enough in the morning with the humidity and all. I did get in a race as well. I found a nice 8K put on by the local running club, Gulf Coast Runners, called the Crazy 8 Halloween 8K. It was a nice race and I will tell you all about it in a race report in the next post or so.

I was able to get a few fun things in while I was there. I drove to Miami one day and spent some time on South Beach and saw some "interesting" sites while there. I won't go into detail as I want to keep it clean here. The water in Miami was very warm and was nice to swim in.

One day I went to Everglades City and took an Airboat Tour. This was pretty cool. We had a pelican land on the boat before we even started the tour. It was right next to me and when it flew from the side of the boat to the landing in front, it smacked its wing on my head. Very friendly bird but it was just waiting for the fish the driver had. The ride through the swamps and mangroves was a blast and we even got some good speed going at times. We stopped a few times and saw some alligators along the way.

Since the princesses were at Grandma's and Grandpa's for the week, I was able to do what ever I wanted to whenever I wanted to, a nice feeling. Some of you without kids don't know what you have! I missed them a lot on the trip but it was nice to get a break. I even saw 2 movies on the trip. "Couple's Retreat" was an OK movie. It had its funny parts but was a typical Vince Vaughn movie. I also went to see "This Is It", the Michael Jackson movie about the planning of his last concerts that never happened. While this was not like seeing his concert, it was pretty cool to see how it was going to be done. I can tell you it would have been one hell of a great concert if it happened. The behind the scenes stuff was neat to see.

I did not want to leave the Naples area, but it was time to go home. Now it is 4:15 and Trick or Treat begins in a little less than 2 hours. This is one of the fun things you get to do as a parent, trick or treat with your kids. I think we have a 50's Poodle Skirt girl, a Sleeping Beauty type princess, and another princess going out tonight. It is windy here today and about 40 out so there will be many layers underneath tonight.

By the way, I know I had mentioned that I was going to run the Indianapolis Marathon next Saturday. Well, I am still planning on running but there is a chance I may miss it. There are some issues with my family that I will need to deal with this week that may take me away from it. Also, my ankle got a real beating walking down the beach a lot. I know, poor me, walking down the beach along the Ocean, but the camber of the beach gave my ankle some pain so that might be an issue. Right now I would say I am going to be running, I hope to, but we will see.

Good Luck to Mark running tomorrow in his marathon.

Here are a few pictures from Florida:

Here is the friendly Pelican that came for a visit.

Nice alligator, nice CLOSE alligator.

The Naples Pier, lots of people fishing and dolphins swimming near by.

Me on the Naples Pier.

The resort was on a very nice looking golf course. I wish I could have played a round!

The view from the condo along the golf course.

Beautiful Fall Weather and Colors

It was a warmer day today. I think it got up to 70 which meant a warmer run today. Mike and I went on a 4 miler at an easy pace and that was good with me. My legs felt a little tired bit not too bad. I am having some more issues with the ankle but I hope to get through it.

I will be getting away for awhile so I am not sure I will be blogging during this time. I don't know if I will have Internet access. If I do, I will certainly try to get a race report in on the 8K I plan on running on Sunday morning. But what I really wanted to do is send out some luck to my friend Mark who will be running the Pro Bass Shops Marathon in Missouri next Sunday, November 1st. Run smart and have a great time, Mark, you have trained great not get to it!

Do you like fall colors? Right now, it is at its peak here in the Milwaukee area. It is a real treat to see these when the sun is shining wither in the morning or on my way back home from work. The first picture is of a tree in my front yard.

On Saturday, I went with my 2 oldest princess to a pumpkin farm and we picked out these 3 pumpkins which we (me) carved this week. Guess who had to carry all of them back from the field? It was all good though and the girls really like their pumpkins.

So if I don't get online before next weekend, have a happy and safe Halloween. And happy and safe running too!

Whistle Stop Pictures

It has been over a week since the Whistle Stop Marathon and after a slow start, I feel like I am back to normal and mostly recovered. My left quad is a little tight still but that didn't stop me from having a really good run today.

I wanted to go do a somewhat easy 5 miler. I started late as I needed to get some new tires for the van. So at about 6:10PM, I started out and I felt great from the start. I kept slowly increasing the pace and by the 5th mile, I decided to slow up some since I wasn't planning on a tempo run. I ended up running a little over 5 miles at 8:13 pace and feeling like it was relatively easy. I didn't want to go too fast as I am still planning on running an 8K race on Sunday. That will be my tempo run for the time between marathons. I am still planning on running the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon on November 7 (?) but not 100% sure yet. It is a nice flat course so I think I could run well there.

I thought I would share a couple pictures from the Whistle Stop Marathon. As you can see in t he first picture, it is cold out since I am wearing ear muffs and socks on my hands? Socks on my hands???? Yes, I do that instead of gloves for a few reasons. Keeping my fingers together keeps them warmer and early in the race, I was carrying AccelGel and that way i didn't have to worry about dropping them. OK, you can call me a cheap guy, but it works for me and why spend $$ on gloves when you don't have to?


This second picture is me coming down to the finish line. My last 2 miles were fairly good compared to 21, 22, & 23. A strong finish feels good.

3:55:47

Back To The Good

What a difference a few days make.

I took off Wednesday and Thursday to let the body recover a bit more. So after work today, I decided on another 4 miler. It was about 45F out and misting as I set out onto a trail near where I work for 2 loops. The first mile went very smooth and so did the second. I went onto the second loop and actually picked it up some as i felt really good. I did not wear the garmin so I do not know exactly how far I went but I am guessing a little over 4 miles and I am guessing at about 8:20 to 8:30 pace. On the second loop, the mist turned into light rain but I like running in the rain so it was all good.

Afterwards, my left quad was a bit tight but that is gone now. I am not as concerned about it as I was a few days ago. And now I am thinking more about running in Indianapolis in 3 weeks. Right now Paul is planning on going (let's hope he doesn't cancel this time, lol) and I am hoping to get Chaz to come as well. I would give it a 50/50 chance on him going.

Indianapolis is another Saturday marathon. I think I like these. Take the day off on Friday to travel, get up early on Saturday, run a marathon, and then drive home and be home by bed time. Then have all day Sunday to rest and relax. It is about a 5 hour drive to Indianapolis so it is actually 1 hour less than he drive to Whistle Stop.

Who is Your Harshest Critic?

Who is your harshest critic? I can certainly say that I am my own harshest critic. I have now run 18 marathons and in every one, except for maybe 1, I have come away feeling like I did my best. Now I am not saying that I didn't run well on Saturday, I did run a sub 4, something I haven't done since October 2007, but I look back and see that I need some improvement.

My quads were tired all week prior to the race and that was the thing toward the end of the race that slowed me down. So what do I have to do to make my quads less tired at race time while making sure they are strong enough to go the entire 26.2 miles? Longer taper? Better food for energy? Quad massage? I don't know. And I assume that this is an individual thing so what may work for others does not work for me.

One thing I worked on this year is putting in more miles in training and I think that I still didn't put in enough. I feel I need some longer slower runs as well as longer faster runs. I also missed out on a lot of speed work this summer. I really don't think this is the issue though. I need more stamina, more endurance but maybe the hard speed work will do that also.

So I go on now trying to figure this marathon thing out. And I try to recover from this last marathon which is taking longer than usual. I went on a 4 mile run yesterday and it was one of the worst runs in a looooooong time. The first mile went well but 2 and 3 were slow and wobbly. I even walked some as I felt a little dizzy (wonder what that was all about?) I still am having some issues with my left quad. It is still sore and I think I maybe strained it or pulled it a little in the race.

I am going to take some more time off and maybe run a short one on Friday. I do have another race on the horizon and I don't mean a marathon. I am going down to Florida next week for a bit and I found a little local 8K to run in. I checked results from past years and it looks like no one from outside Florida runs this one so it may be fun being the outsider. In any event, it will be nice to go somewhere warm since we have had some cold weather here the past week and this coming week. It is not like I built up a huge sweat at Whistle Stop but I am sure I will at this one.

So who is your biggest critic? Never stop trying to improve yourself!

Race Report - Whistle Stop Marathon

No suspense today. I did not run great but I ran good and finished in 3:55:47. A Sub 4!

I woke up at 5:00 AM to after a restless night. I get that a lot the night before a marathon. I guess I am just excited about the race all the time. Anyways, I looked outside and saw that the snow was flying. As you can see from the picture, it was blowing pretty good as well.

After a big bowl of oatmeal, I left at about 6 to drive to Ashland. The drive was a little nervous as the snow was blowing pretty good, it was still dark out so in the lights of the car, it made it a little difficult to see. Add to that the roads were not dry, a touch icy, and it made for a slower drive in. I get to Ashland safely and board the bus to go to the start line.

At the starting area, there is about an inch of snow on the ground and it was (I am guessing) 28F out. A bunch of us are in a lodge house waiting for the start and one guy really made the mood light by saying to another runner "So, are you running this race barefoot?" That cracked us all up.

Out at the start line, about 2 minutes before the start as everyone is lined up, a gust of wind blows a bunch of the snow from the trees down on us. That woke everyone else up who could possibly been sleepy still. The race started on time at 9:00AM and off we all went. The first 1.75 miles was on a road going to the trail we would run for most of the race. At times, it was icy and we all had to be cautious not to slip and fall. I didn't see anyone fall so that was good.

I get to the trail and discover that there is snow on it but at least a little packed down since there are a bunch of runners ahead of me. The trail is pretty soft though, it is like running on a soft cinder track. This caused a few problems during the race as the little pebbles were flying and quite a few got into my shoes while running. I saw many people stop to remove their shoes to get the pebbles out, but of all the pebbles I had in my shoes, it never quite got to the point of me stopping to do so.

My ultimate goal in this race was to run a time of 3:45 but after about 10 miles, I knew that 3:45 was not going to happen. I had a tendon in my leg that was a little sore but not bad. My quads were a little tired as well but not enough to slow down yet. I went through 10 at 1:26:55 and now it was time for the 13 miles of downhill. Let me tell you, it never seemed like we were ever going downhill. I think the soft surface took any advantage of a slight downhill away.

By mile 18, I was still going all miles sub 9 pace but now it when I usually have trouble. I was still relaxed but the pace went from sub 9's to 9:00 to 9:35 through mile 23. On my pace band I made, I also wrote down at what points all the aid stations were and this helped because I forced myself to NOT do any walk breaks when there wasn't an aid station. Just at the Garmin beeped Mile 23, there was an aid station, and there also was one at 23.9 so I had a very slow mile there with 2 breaks (10:32).

Now I was getting worried about not being able to break 4 hours if I had a meltdown. I really didn't want ANOTHER meltdown. I started to attempt to do some math in my head as to what pace I needed to run to still break 4. I knew it was a little over 10 minute miles and that my last mile was slow so I tried to focus more and pick up the pace and it started to work.

At 24.5 miles, we leave the cinder trail and start on a paved trail going into Ashland. All day it was quite windy out but even with the wind primarily going the direction the race was going, it didn't factor at all since the entire race up until here was all protected from the trees. But at 24.5, the trail opened up and the wind felt great on our backs. This helped even more and I started passing people. Mile 25 was back down to 9:03 and I decided to just skip the aid station at mile 25 and pour it on. While it hurt at this point, I knew the finish was minutes away. I continued passing people which helped a lot until the finish line.

After the race, it was cold, no, I take that back, it was @#$% cold. The winds were blowing hard and the temperature was in the low 30's so that combined with the sweat I built up made lots of shivering until I could warm up inside. After a warm shower and some hot chocolate, it was time for the long 6+ hour drive home. I was able to get home by 8:45.

Here are some of my thoughts about the race (not my race). This was a nice smaller marathon. I think there was just under 900 finishers. While I can't fault them at all for the weather and snow, it was a small factor in the race. The race is run for 22+ miles on a cinder trail that is quite wide but very soft and not ideal for a fast running time. It does drop 500 or so feet from miles 9 to 23, but I could not feel this at all. The soft cinder trail did cause issues with a lot of runner I saw and not just being slow. Lots of little pebbles made it into shoes and that was a problem. The course did prove to be quite beautiful running through all the trees and forests and over quite a few trestles. There were not many people cheering on the runners as there were not too many places they could get to. The trail is just too far off the roads. The last 1/4 mile of the course was a bit ridiculous though. I think there was 6 turns in the last 1/4 mile so you did not see the finish line until about 50 meters before it. I would prefer a longer straight away to the finish line. The participants in the race were fun to run with. Some were talkative and encouraging as we went along. The aid stations were nice for the size of the race and they really braved it out in the cold. Thanks for being there! It was so cold that at the first 2 water stops, my water cup had a very thin layer of ice. The volunteers were great!

The start area was small and because it was so cold, there wasn't much room to stay warm in the lodge. There was plenty of portolets at the start area, a line that looked long at first moved very fast before the race. If you are looking for a nice expo, this is not the race to come to. An area to buy some running apparel and one other marathon advertising. the pre-race pasta and fish boil dinner was good though. I had a nice sized plate of spaghetti which was quite tasty.

Overall I would say that this is a nice race but not a great race. I am not sure I will be coming back but it is possible. I do like trying new races though.

I am happy with my time. It would be hard to complain since I hadn't broken 4 hours in my last 9 marathons though I still believe I should be able to run about 3:40 to 3:45. Maybe the next one!

The race expo and pasta dinner was held in a hockey arena on the board covered ice rink. Now that is what northern Wisconsin is all about.

As you can see, the car had some snow on it before I left in the morning.