The Year in Review . . . Running Style

Well, here it is, the year in review for my running. There was the good and there was the bad and there was the OK all wrapped up into 365 days known as 2008.

The year started slowly. After 2 months I was only at 92 miles. Very slow I guess. I keep a running log in Excel so it is easy to look back and see what I did. March 1st though I did a 20.5 mile run so the mileage starts to grow. It is at this time I had decided to run the St. Louis Marathon in April. After a 1 week trip to Panama City Beach, Florida to stay on the beach with my parents, I came back home and left 5 days later for St. Louis with Mike, Chaz, and Paul. Unfortunately, the race came and I was under the weather but since I already signed up and was already down there, I decided to run with a fever and upset stomach. At half way and after 3 stops already, it is just a run to finish and not for time. I end up running 4:27:40 and feel nauseous the rest of the day and the entire 6 hour drive home. But it does count as a completed marathon. Chaz ended up taking 3rd place in the Masters division.

The next month is easy running as I was planning on running a 2 person relay in the Madison Marathon in late May with Paul but he ends up hurting himself so the relay is off. I decide to run the Madison Marathon in its entirety. The race was on May 25th and I was feeling good on this day, at least to start. I decided to join a pace group that was going for 3:45 marathon pace. I must not have been in this good of shape and the course was hilly so after about 9 miles, I drop off the group and run on my own. After 15 miles and a long uphill, I am beginning to slow down. After 18 miles I am, again, just there to finish. I finish in 4:14:16. Don't let the picture fool you, the clock showing is the Half Marathon clock that started 15 minutes after the Full Marathon. The course here is beautiful and I love running in Madison, but the course is also tough with lots of hills. Chaz, Mike, Art, and Laura also run this marathon and Sally and Cherylynn run the Half Marathon.

The next race I will end up doing is a 5K on the 4th of July in Fish Creek in Door County. I end up pushing the youngest Princess in the race, Katelynn. The race started up a big hill so I was lagging a lot until the top of the hill. About 1/2 mile into the race, my Garmin said I was at 10:30 pace but it was all faster from there. The pic is of Katelynn and I in a race a little over a year ago but I thought you may want to see what we look like pushing the Jog Stroller. The last mile I was able to drop the pace to about 6:45 as I pass lots of people. Let me tell you, people DO NOT like getting passed by someone pushing a stroller. It inspires some to go faster and some to make interesting comments, most good. Final Time: 22:44

I continue training over the summer as the next race is suppose to be the Twin Cities Marathon. I incorporate a new interval series called Yasso 800's. To me these are easy but I come from a middle distance background in college. Yasso 800's are an 800 on the track with equal time running as rest. The time you run is your target marathon time. IE, if you want to run a 3 Hr 45 Min Marathon, you run your 800's in 3 Min 45 seconds with the same rest between. Over a few weeks, you work you way up to 10 of these. I end up doing them at 3:20 or faster but that did not correspond to a 3:20 marathon for me.

August 30th, I end up running a local 15K race but I decide to run 10 miles before the race for 22 1/2 miles. I end up running the entire run at 8:35 pace with a 20 minute rest before the race.

September 25th comes and I decide to run the Fox Cities Marathon. This was my debut marathon in 1994 and my PR back then in 3:40:30. This year it is a warm up run before Twin Cities. I still wanted to break 4 hours though. At mile 20 and 3 hours into the race, the sun comes out and gets quite warm and my legs decide to stop working as well as they have the first 20 miles. Once again, I slow and finish disappointed in 4:15:57. And again, I feel nauseous after the race. I do not like this. 2 weeks rest now until Twin Cities. Mile, Paul, Chaz, and Laura also run the full here with Cherylynn running the half. Mike breaks 3 hours for the first time here and Cherylynn breaks 2 hours for the half. Both significant milestones for them.

October 5th is the Twin Cities Marathon. My first National Championship Marathon! Ok, not really, nut it is the USA Marathon Championships. Goal once again, Sub 4 (sensing a trend here?) This was a beautiful course and there is a reason they call it The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon. 3 miles into the race and it starts to drizzle. 4 miles into the race and it starts to rain. by mile 5 it is POURING rain and does not stop until I get to mile 17 or 18. I like running in the rain, but not THAT MUCH rain. It is fun though but very cold as it is windy as well. At mile 12, i meet up with some lady and we talk for a bit. We run together for the next 9 miles keeping a great pace until the hill at mile 21. My legs are getting tired so I slow and she goes on. By mile 25 I am shot and I end up walking a lot from mile 25 to mile 26. My slowest mile in a marathon ever. I see the finish so I pick it up as a I get that mental boost from seeing the finish line. I get to 20 meters from the finish line and my left calf muscle completely seizes up in a HUGE cramp. I end up looking like a big puddle in the road a mere 20 meters from the finish line. 2 medical guys come out to me but I refuse their help as I needed to finish this thing on my own. I end up standing and 1 leg hopping it over the finish line to the delight of the crowd. I did get a nice cheer from them. The 2 medical guys crunched out the muscle which hurt like hell, but I could walk without much problem 5 minutes later so they must have done something right. I end up in a time of 4:11:40. Paul, Mike, and Art also run in the rain.

4 weeks later and it is time for the Rails to Trails Marathon in Norwalk, WI. This is run on the Elroy-Sparta Bike trail so it is a soft surface the entire time. My goal is, well, you know! This is the first time they did this race and the organization was very poor. The only part they did well was the water stops. No chips for timing,very congested start (a bike trail for 400 runners) and more problems. I did enjoy the run though as the course was nice. 1 mile into the race and we hear cows "moo'ing" from a field near by. 3 or so miles into the race and we get to the signature part of the course, 1 3/4 mile old railroad tunnel. You can see the tunnel in the picture. It is pitch black in there so you bring along a flashlight to see. It is crowded in there and wet (it drips water year round), plus there are ditches on each side to filter water out so we had to watch for those. After the tunnel is a 7 mile railroad downhill section. The half marathoners turn around at 5 miles so it is very thin after this. I am on a great pace through the turn around at 11 1/2 miles and the half way point but then we go back up the 7 mile hill. It is not steep at all but 7 miles will wear out most people including me. At mile 19, I enter the tunnel again and i can't see anything even with the flashlight. By mile 20, I am already a little slower than pace but now the down hill section, 2 miles. I can't muster up the energy and 4 hours is out of the question once again. One bad thing about this race is that at mile 23, you pass right next to the finish line and have to run a 1.6 mile out and back to the finish. This SUCKS. I muster up the rest of my energy and finish in 4:11:10. But then another crappy thing, when everyone finishes, they DO NOT have medals for us. We have to wait about 2 weeks or so until the mail them to us. Who came up with this idea!?!?!? I don't think I will be doing this one again anytime soon. Cherylynn ends up running the half marathon after Chaz has a small injury and decides not to run.

The rest of the year is runs that I have talked about in this blog. I end up with a total of 1237 miles run this year. This is 33 more miles than in 2007 and only 8 miles more than 2006. I also run 5 marathon which is the most I have ever run in 1 calendar year. I start a blog and meet some new Runner Blog Friends who are really cool.

So hear is to 2008 and a better 2009! The Year in Preview coming soon . . . maybe.

Last run of the year?

I may have had my last run for the year tonight. I ran 7 1/2 miles at 8:04 pace on a combination of the Bridges Loop with the Hills Loop. The first 3 miles were flat and the last 4 1/2 were the hills. I took it a little faster but not quite to the pace of a tempo run but it felt good anyways.

I may not run tomorrow, I have not decided yet so this may be my last run for the year. No worries. I plan on starting up right away on the 1st or 2nd. It is only 18 days or so until the Icebreaker Marathon so I can't rest quite yet. Then only 4 weeks after that until the "Heart of Texas Challenge."

As the princesses are watching "The Little Mermaid II", I was trying to add a new gadget to my blog page. I signed up for Site Meter and not have to figure out a way to add it to this site. If you know how to do this, please drop me a note as I could use the help. If you see it somewhere on the site, I must have figured out a way to add it. I am interested to see where people come from who come to this site and how many people actually come here. So far I know of only 3 for sure based off of comments left, but I am guessing more show up. Only 3 viewers would be kind of pathetic but then again, I don't do everything right. In fact, very little. LOL

I am planning on going out tomorrow night for New Years Eve. The plan is to meet Chaz and his wife, Cherylynn at a local club to go see a cover band. Chaz is a friend of mine who runs marathons and has broken 3 hours quite a few times. Cherylynn runs a few half marathons herself. I am not sure if she is working her way up to a full marathon but I secretly hope she joins the club.

The band we are to see is called "Chery Pie". The do covers of 80's Hair Bands like Van Halen, REO, Bon Jovi, journey, etc. I have never seen them but Chaz and Cherylynn have half a dozen times and like them so I will give them a shot.

I leave all of you today with a toast to a great new year with lots of great running in your future.

All Signed Up

After work today I did a quick 5 miler on the Hills Loop. I ran it at about 8:20 pace. It was a good run that started out in the light of late afternoon and ended in the dark. Not too much ice and snow so that was good.

I did make it official on the "Heart of Texas Challenge". Life is a Marathon... gave me the idea for the name of this challenge Paul has given me. Melanie is from Tennessee and has become a good Runner Blog Friend of mine and she is also a great runner. The challenge is official because I signed up for both races today. Again, the challenge is to run the Surfside Marathon on Saturday, February 14th and the run the Austin Marathon the very next day! I do not know how I will do in this challenge, but once I start a marathon, I will finish it. "Death before DNF" is a slogan I saw on a shirt once.

I have never been signed up for 3 marathons at one time before. It is kinda weird but cool to think what I will be doing. I have run 13 marathons including the Disney Goofy Challenge once so far so I have a little idea of what I am getting myself into.

When I got home and after some Chinese food from "Chopsticks", I took 2 of the princesses (Mellisa and Megan) to the local budget theater to go see "High School Musical 3". Melissa had seen this once before but Megan hadn't yet. In fact, this was Megan's first time to a movie theater (she is 4). She did well for the first half of the movie sitting on my lap, then she sat in her own chair and lost some interest playing with the chair but she stayed quiet. Melissa (6 y/o) was into the movie the entire time though. I have seen all the other HSM movies way more than any man my age should as the princesses like to watch the DVD's but the movies are not all that bad. A little better than watching Disney Princesses all the time.

Coming soon: The Year In Review

East Troy Run

I did a medium length run yesterday morning with Mile and Paul. Paul picked me up at 6:30 and we were unsure what the weather was going to bring us. On Christmas morning, it was -3 F, on this morning it was already 45 F. When Paul was leaving his house, he called and said it was pouring rain and wanted to know if we were still on for the run. I told him it wasn't raining here and the radar on the Internet showed mixed stuff. We decided to go for the run anyways.

We got to East Troy where Mike lives and met at "The Square". Again it was warm so we were all in shorts and 2 t-shirts. I found out way early in the run I should have just put on 1 long sleeve t-shirt as it was too warm with 2.

We started out at a nice slow pace of about 9:00 and we stayed together for about 2 miles. After that, I was feeling very sluggish and let Paul and Mike go ahead of me. Not long after that, Mike left Paul and we were all on our own. I could see them off in the distance but stayed at my slow sluggish pace.

Once we turned onto Cty D (about 5 miles into the run) I was feeling better. Paul was about 2 minutes ahead of me and Mike was way up there. I decided to pick it up and see if I could catch Paul before the end of the next 6 1/2 miles. Little did I know Paul was picking it up to see if he could catch Mike. Mike was running now in the lower 7 minute pace. I had dropped my pace over the last 6 1/2 miles over the hills to 7:50 which I was very pleased with but I kept getting further and further away from Paul and he was dropping it to the lower 7's trying to catch Mike. No worries, I still enjoyed the run.

Mike and Paul are running in 2 weeks at Disney World doing the Goofy Challenge. The "Goof" is a half marathon on Saturday and a Full Marathon the next day on Sunday. I did this 2 years ago and it was fun, Mike did it for the 1st time last year and Paul has done it every year they have had it. This will be his 4th "Goof"

Now I told you before how much of a Nut Paul is, 1 week after he does the "Goof", he will be running in the Icebreaker Marathon with me. He is also the one who challenged (and somehow got) me to do the "Heart of Texas Challenge". This will be 2 marathons in 2 days in Texas in Mid February. I have no idea what I got myself into by being friends with him. Well, I did say before I was insane so I will chalk it up to that.

And now for a little fun.

I also mentioned before how I like to go driving looking at Christmas lights, well, we drove past the local house I have given the "Clark W. Griswold" Lifetime Achievement Award to. I had my camera along and while it was foggy out, here are 2 pics of the house: These pictures really do not do justice as to the magnitude of lights this guy has. These 2 pictures are of the same house and you can see that in one picture, the house has colored lights all over it and the other one it has white lights all over it. It changes back and forth every 30 seconds or so. That big thing in the front of center of the yard looks like a waterfall with the lights blinking making it look like flowing water. Something must have happened to his big rotating globe he used to have displayed. It was missing this year but was about 6 feet in diameter.

Slow Easy Run

I decided this afternoon to go on a short 5 mile run to try to burn off some of the calories I consumed yesterday and that was a lot of them. I was going to go on a short Christmas morning run but it was -3 F outside so it was cold. With 3 days off, I needed to get out there for a slow easy run and that is what I did.

I ran from home and went to a local park that has a road about 1 1/2 miles long. When I go there, it was plowed but icy but no worries. I went around the loop and returned back home. It was much warmer outside, so i was sweating a bit on the run. By the end, I was only holding my earmuffs and gloves instead of wearing them. It was 34 F outside today so it was shorts weather for running. I am sure I got some looks from the cars driving by but I really don't care what they think. I was able to use some new shorts I just bought at a big discount from a local running store. Only $15. If you ask me, that seems not like a discount to me but is you look at the prices these places charge, it is no wonder they can pay the professional athletes so much.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Icebreaker is only 3 weeks and 1 day away!

Merry Christmas ! ! !

I want to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas! And if you are one not to celebrate Christmas, then I wish you a Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Season, or whatever you choose to celebrate.

We will be celebrating at my parents today. We will have all my brothers there and their wives along with my 2 nieces, Grace and Mya. They are 4 and 2 now. More celebrations tomorrow and Friday. Having a big family with LOTS of cousins makes Christmas hectic but more fun since we get to see so many people. Seeing all their children is great as well as I don't get to see them often and it is fun to see how they have changed over the year. I will also get to see 2 of my cousins new babies who are 3 weeks old and the other is about 3 month old. It is amazing how small infants are and how fast they grow up. Babies are truly a miracle!

Hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas.

Another Cold One

It was cold yesterday. From reading other blogs, it sounded like it was cold running in lots of the country.


I went out on a 5 miles on the Hills Loop again after work yesterday. It was my last day of work this week as I am taking Tuesday off to get some chores done (Pay the property tax bill, cash some checks at the bank, go to the grocery store, clean the house, etc. Notice: I didn't say go shopping for Christmas, that was done over a week ago!) It was cold on the run, 2 F! I didn't even start the watch as I wanted to run easy and at whatever pace I went. It was an easy run and I had to tread easily quite a few times through peoples sidewalks who didn't shovel yet. Once in the neighborhood part of the run in the hills, it was just a relaxing run looking at all the decorated houses and enjoying the run as much as I could.


When it is this cold, I wear layers to stay warm. The problem is I do not wear sweatpants (I don't wear those to run, but I do wear running tights which help a lot up to a certain level. When it was this cold, my legs never really warmed up. My face is always cold and I am sure I get A LOT of funny looks by the cars driving by (if I could only see them or hear what they say.) It was also a Booger Freezer out there. Sounds Gross, huh. That is what we called in in college when I was at Oshkosh. If you had the sniffles and breathed in quickly through your nose and . . .well, you get the idea.


I get a lot of questions before and after these runs from people. The most common question is "Doesn't the cold air hurt your lungs?" Is there some urban myth out these that running in the cold makes your lungs hurt? My are just fine out there.

Here is a picture of one of my favorite ornaments on my Christmas tree.

Have a wonderful and joyous Christmas this year!. Remember to let Christ's Light Shine!