Trail Race

I did my first "ever" trail race this morning.

The race was 3.8 mile run around Wolf Lake. The 6th year they've held this race. Well organized with 156 runners and some additional people hiking/walking. About 70 F and humid. A local high school marching band played the "Star Spangled Banner" prior to the start. The mood was very positive.

As the race started, the band played Ozzy Osbourne's "Ironman". I smiled.

We had to cruise around a softball field. Loop the outside of the whole field to start and then down onto the trail. The trail was down hill then up and then down and up and up and down and up. Ran in grass for about 1 mile before getting to the woods where the trail was dirt with roots, rocks, leaves and grass. I could see the erosion from rain. The footing was more difficult, but it wasn't mud.

I ran up and down all the hills until I came to a steeper downhill slope in the woods. This was around 2 miles into the race. I could hear a few runners behind me so I moved to one side and shuffled down the slope as a guy in a yellow shirt flew passed me, arms flailing. Since I had never run this course, I didn't want to take a slope on my back or my head. I was in my normal Asics running shoes.

Back out of the woods onto grass with a mile to go, I was breathing hard enough that I knew I couldn't go any faster. I wasn't catching the two guys in front of me, but I had some people on my tail!

At the 3 mile marker (the first marker I saw during the race) a couple of guys behind me push up even closer. In my mind, I slowed my pace by 5-10 secs per mile as they did that. I felt I could recover for 90 secs before making a final push for the finish. We had about 1/2 mile left.

One guy slowly slipped past me, but I could tell he was breathing hard. Then the other guy asked me if I had on a GPS watch. I wanted to say "Yes and it's going to help me beat you!", but I just said "Yep." I looked back toward the guy in front of me to see if he was in my age group. He looked a bit younger. Finally we could see the finish a 10th of a mile ahead. I took off sprinting passed the guy in front of me finishing 5 seconds in front of him. The "GPS asking guy" was a few seconds behind him. Woo!

I finished the 3.8 miles in 29:06. Very happy with my finish considering the hills and that it was on grass and dirt. It was below my target 8:00/mile pace for next weekend's marathon relay.

I was 15th overall. ...much better than 16th!

Saturday Slow Run

Met up with guys (Bill, Larry, Jeff) from work for a 6 AM long run this morning.

I hadn't been on a long run in 3-weeks because of traveling and lack of motivation afterwards. My miles have slipped the last three weeks. I could sure feel it today after running these 11 miles at a 9:22 minute/mile pace. My fitness conditioning has dropped off. My legs are tired. The last few miles on pavement were difficult on my legs. I've got to get my miles back up and continue to maintain that. We completed the 11 miles in 1:43:09. It was a slow enough pace that we could talk.

Note to self: It's now dark in the morning when I get up. I don't want to run on the highway in the dark. I need to come up with another option for my runs during the week. ...and the snow will be blowing before we know it. Well we will know it!

I worked in my iRun podcast near the end of our long run.

Five Mile Tuesday

Went running afterwork with Mike, Jeff and Bill. We hadn't planned to run together, but I decided on Monday night that I would pack my running stuff for Tuesday afterwork since I wasn't going to have time on Wednesday to run.

We ran north on the local bike trail. My GPS battery ran out about 10 minutes into the run. Forgot to charge it after Germany. Mike had his Garmin so I know we ran about 5 miles in about 43 minutes.

It was a warm 80 degree evening. We ran at 5 PM.

Darn, I forgot to do my iRun podcast. Next time folks!

Sunday non-Fuzzy Run

Oh it's nice to be back in the central time zone.

I know this zone. The clock in my head knows it, but when I come back from jumping through lots of time zones I become clueless to the time. The brain is fuzzy and just doesn't know. From experience, I know that running helps make the adjustment faster. For me it seems that running outside helps more than the treadmill, but both help more than doing nothing.

Today was mystery running partner day. We did a local bike trail. We planned for 10k, but did 6.4 miles in 71 minutes. Nice easy pace after yesterday's harder run by myself. It was fun. Nice weather about 70 in the sun.

I was back to during my iRun podcast again. Also got the Treo cam turned on me from a distance. Hey, I have a whole body! I even match my Jeep.

I'll be doing the Wolf Lake Trail Run next Sunday. It's a run around Wolf Lake. I've never done a true trail run. If you're interested let me know. I think it's 3.8 miles.

It's 8 pm in Germany. Did Angela Merkel win?

I'm Home!

Holy cow, I ran my 6.9 miles today in 55:39!

This is 21 seconds faster than my previous personal record for this loop.

I really needed to get in a good workout after the back & forth to Europe. I slept pretty well last night. Got up "early" to run, but it was only starting to get light and it was foggy...so I jumped back into bed. Got up about 15 minutes later.

It looked cool outside so I put on some running pants and gloves. Not enough to run with just that so I got on the short sleeve t-shirt, Nike cap, coolmax socks, Nike shoes, Fuelbelt and Garmin 201.

Had a really good run. It was cool! First run in a long time with gloves on, but it helps keep me feeling good on cooler mornings. Harder to take picture though with gloves on. ha!

Doin' a marathon relay next month. I'll be ready! Hmmm...think I'm doing my first trail run next weekend?

X Hours in Kopenhagen

A good early morning run about 3.75 miles in the city center of Berlin. I snapped a picture about 1k over the line from the old East German side. I'd run past these WWII tanks twice, but it was too dark the other mornings. The whole tank thing made me think about how quickly the world does change.

Took a flight to Copenhagen. Have some hours here which reminds me of a song my brother wrote. Hmmm...I need to link to an mp3 of it. Is there one anywhere?

Snapped a picture of my lunch or was it dinner or I guess breakfast depending upon what time zone you are in. If you've been to this airport, you see this being eaten/drank a lot. One of these beers and two of these weenies were enough.

Only airport that I know of that has all wooden floors. Can't quite see that in this picture.

Next up...9 hour flight to Chicago.

Schneller schneller

I remember the "Berlin Wall" being such a scary thing as I grew up. It had always been there during my lifetime, but a far away story.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre and the fall of the Berlin Wall happened in 1989. I remember both extremely well. It's amazing that I've been running this summer in both places. Both places for the first time too.

Ok, on with running. Last night I had the jetlag thing where I didn't sleep well until it was time to GET UP! Since I'm here to work, I couldn't just sleep. It was still dark out. I was slow getting up. I had 20 minutes in my schedule that I could run so I went out and ran fast before breakfast.

I snapped this picture RIGHT out front that hotel (Adlon) where Michael Jackson was dangling his kid. This is the east side of the wall in that other picture. The side people wanted to escape from!

There's a Starbucks to my left.

For for reference, from Tiananmen Square the Starbucks is 1/4 mile inside the Forbidden City.

Almost forgot, I ran a couple of miles in 17 minutes.

Sunday in Berlin

I'm in Berlin. I ran up around the Victory statue this morning. Took me 37:30 to make the loop. I'm guessing it's about 4 miles. My GPS was going in and out during the run. It didn't know what part of the world I was in because I forgot to tell it.

All in all a nice morning run in the rain on my first morning here in Germany. It's always good to get up for a workout when I'm traveling. Helps the jetlag go away. :)

Jetlag:Berlin

Rolling Stones

Went to see the Rolling Stones in Milwaukee. Fantastic concert! Only the second time I've seen them. Small venue with seating for around 12,000 (I'm guessing). Took a few pix with my Treo.

They had a motorized stage that moved from one end of the arena to the other end. It was cool and the band was excellent.

Naked Podcastless

Sorry folks, I'm podcastless today. I did my iRun podcast as I came around the 5 mile corner just past 43 minutes into my evening run. I described how I had just told myself it wasn't going to storm when the thunder started and I was still a couple miles out from home. Loving mobile phone technology, I apparently lost my signal in the depths of my podcast. It vanished. So you missed me giving the play by play about the lightning and me picking up my pace to get home. I said this is more dangerous than flying to Germany (which I'm doing in a few days).

All in all a good run. Much hotter than I recognized when I started. It was in the low 80's and fairly humid. I got hot as I ran. Still completed the 6.9 miles in under an hour -- 59:29 for an 8:39 pace. On a hot day, not bad though I was not happy about the slower pace as I was running. I just couldn't get myself moving faster. I am targeting 8:00 pace for the 7 mile section of the marathon relay I'm doing in early Oct.

Basement Cleaning on Labor Day

Here it is 12 hours later and I'm STILL cleaning. Lots of tax files, guitar chords, old business files, funny hats and junk.

At least I entertain myself no matter what I'm doing.

Styx Rocks

Took a little time to go check out the Styx concert. Considering this was taken while sitting on the hood of my Jeep, I didn't have bad seats. Maybe I knew somebody? That little tent was just the stage moni

Warm legs

Got in a nice 6.5 mile run this morning along the bike trail. Different trail than the one I drove to yesterday.

Temp was in the low 70's. My legs were a bit tired from the long run yesterday, but after 1/2 mile they warmed up.

I forgot my Garmin 201 at home. I was charging it back up. We completed the 6.5 miles in about 1:10 minutes. Just a really nice start to a Sunday.

As always here's the latest iRun Podcast with me, Arthur Vance

Oat Meal and Apple Sauce

The sun was just coming up when Bill, Jeff and I set out for a long Saturday morning run. We met at Bill's house in West Allis at 6:15 AM. A little bit of a drive, but not bad in an NSX with no traffic early in the morning.

It was 59 degrees. We were running by about 6:30 AM.

The plan was to run a mile to a bike trail that runs for 7 miles west. I was stocked up with my new mix of Gookinaid that Amber Antonia had recommended to me. I also had an Accel Gel and my trusty Treo 650 in my Fuel Belt.

I had already run 27 miles this week. I took yesterday off from running so my legs were feeling good.

We fell into a nice 9:20/mi pace. Maybe slightly slower. We hit 8 miles as the trail ran out. Took about a 60 second walk/turn around break before we were back on that pace.

Bill was nice enough to drop off two bottles of water in some ice earlier this morning. We nabbed those between 9-10 miles. I was out of my 16 oz of Gookinaid. I we feeling good! How about my iRun Podcast about here.

As we surpassed the 13.1 mile mark, I saw we'd averaged a 9:16/mi pace and clocked in at 2:01:09.

Bill wanted to run the last 3 miles of the run at a faster pace. I think he said 8:30 pace, but Bill & Jeff started going faster and faster and faster. My watch tracks the pace. When I saw it drop below 8:00/mi, I let them know. I was a bit amazed I was keeping up at all. The last mile they took off ahead as I slowed to something around 8:30/mi. My legs were tired, but doing well.

Arrived back to Bill's house in 2:26:21 for 16.1 miles. A 9:07/mi pace. Most excellent for me.

Bill went inside to offer a round of Gatoraids finding he arrived home in time to take his wife to the hospital to deliver their 3rd baby. Sally came outside and said she would have preferred to run the 16 miles and let Bill have the baby.

Why "oat meal and apple sauce" for the heading? That's what I had at 5:15 AM for breakfast. It worked great!

Note to myself (and world) -- I racked up 43.5 mile this week. No pains either!

With a Bow

August is wrapped up with a bow!

I completed 123 miles this month. My second 120+ month in a row. Never in my life have I completed even 100 miles in a month unless I was driving. This is really something cool.

Today I got in a "brief" 4.5 mile run after work with a couple of co-workers. It was warm outside at 5 PM. We ran a 9:28 min/mile pace. I'm smiling that 4.5 miles is now brief. What is this? Am I runner?

Saturday we're planning to do a long run together. Check back to see.