From the Back of the Pack
I might always be in the back of the running pack, but I'm addicted to it! When I miss more than a day it affects my energy, attitude, and the rest of life in general! I have had a lot of "character" building runs in the deep snow, extreme nose hair freezing cold, ankle high rain, and gale force winds over the past twenty five years and find some of those days to be the most peaceful rewarding outings of all! I'm one of those runners who is slow and steady, but goes forever and ever without ever getting tired.
June 7, 2009: Shelly and Eve's Excellent Adventure
Midweek last week Shelly and I decided to road trip to Blue Mounds Wisconsin, which is near Madison, to run a 15k trail race…the limit was 300 with only 25 spots left so we signed up….here’s our adventure!
We left town around 12:45 on Friday and headed to Milwaukee first to visit my wonderful grandmother before going back to Madison, which made for a VERY long day of driving! Luckily we avoided construction and traffic so it was mostly smooth driving.
Our free accommodations were very cushy at the Hilton Garden in Middleton where we arrived basically just in time to sleep! I learned that Shelly enjoys a beer in bed whilst perusing Trail Runner magazine prior to her slumber…is this a ritual or just something that was desperately needed after 8 hours in a car with me!??
After a somewhat good sleep that was just too short, we prepared for our new trail race with body glide, Gatorade and other morning rituals. Because we were using someone’s hotel points, we were able to eat the gourmet breakfast for free! I had a variety of things and Shelly had a gigantic custom-made waffle.
We arrived at the race around 8:00, 1/2 an hour prior to the start and found that the close lot was full so we had to hustle and get down to the race from the far lot which was about 1/2 mile or more away! We used that as our warm up…well kinda.
Packet pick up was very smooth, the shirts were blue, technical shirts with green and white writing and said national trails day on the front with a logo and on the back I loved the saying of ‘Eat, Run, Repeat’. They had some honey swag for each of us and some Hammer Gel. Our numbers were 978 and 987…being a math geek; I thought this was really cool!
After we hit the flush toilets and were waiting around for the race start, we noticed that all of the “trail runners” who were waiting for the 6k and 15k to start had very clean shoes. Shelly finally found one person with dirty shoes…that was it! The weather was our kinda weather…50’s and cloudy…it did start to sprinkle, however, the tree cover was thick enough that it kept us dry.
The race director,Willi, did an awesome job! He was great at communicating via email with me prior to the event, and the day of he continued communicating to the runners prior to the race which ended up starting a bit late due to parking being far away.
Once we started we were treated to a rather “posh” trail race course! The terrain was varied throughout the course with limestone, wide smooth single track with a few small roots and rocks thrown in from time to time, and grass that resembled a perfectly groomed smooth fairway on a golf course…! Nothing like what we are used to up here with constant rocks, roots, uneven grass, long grass, horse tracks, shoe sucking mud, sticks, downed trees to climb over, streams to go through, etc. When we started they told us to “go find the mud”…all Shelly and I could find was one very small patch that was easy to get around! We did find the stream crossings…they had very nice bridges to run across that were wide enough for a four-wheeler! I think one or two of them had a wide nice log to go over and the one that said bridge out actually had more of a bridge than we normally have when we do have one!
The other thing that made this a “posh” trail race were the markings…there was none of the survey tape hanging from the occasional branch that we are used to, nope, Willi marked this thing so it was completely idiot proof even if you were looking down! He put signs with arrows in the ground, many cones at corners, and he even had bright orange “wrong way” signs!!! I wanted to take some pictures of those!! There were people at many of the turns too! We felt spoiled on this cushy course!! Most of the hills were gradual uphill and then gradual downhill which made for some really fun downhill running! There was one kinda steeper uphill towards the end but it had stairs so it was pretty tame…nothing like the powerlines or bull run hills!
Willi had 4 aide stations with Gatorade and water…I was happy to have just plain old Gatorade that’s for sure!! They were at 4k, 8k (which was really 9k and killed me because I needed it), 10k and 13k. I was told at the 13k that “the rest is downhill”…NOT! Most of the next 1k was downhill but most of the final one was uphill! Oh well…
Shelly had some breathing difficulties and still pulled off a 1:42 despite her 3 hour run a few days before and her other ridiculously long run like a couple days before that! I had that dang heel injury from the Salomon shoes and had only gone 4 miles at the most in the last 2 months and my furthest trail race ever was 10k, so I took it easy and walked most of the uphill and flew on the downs and flat single track…I also stopped at the second aide station for awhile and drank 5 or glasses of Gatorade…it didn’t’ even “splash” around in me when I started running again because I was so in need of it! My time was 2:02…I had planned on 2:00 so I was just fine with that! I wore my new shoes for the first time and they did not get a speck of dirt on them!
Willi did a great job on the post race food with organic fruit, a great variety of breads; many home baked goodies, hot herbal tea, and more! We saw a few injuries from falls or ankle turns during the race…some ice on knees, ankles, a band aid on a cheek, and someone with a bloody mouth and a couple of teeth injured! I figured since this was such a user-friendly course for sure Shelly would take a digger…she only does that in easy places…not the treacherous tough ones! We both stayed upright with minimal ankle turns!
The first place finisher was 1:00 or so and the last was 2:15 or so. Both before and after the awards, Willi had a TON of outstanding door prizes!! Montrail was there and they had a bunch of shoes to give away, there were gift certificates, race entries, socks, candles, bread, shirts, and a TON more stuff! Everyone basically got a door prize! Shelly won a Birke race entry and I got a pair of nice running socks from Moving Shoes.
Willi was nice enough to let me promote the Voyager and many people seemed interested in the challenge of the northern tough trail run! He even put the links to the Voyager on his website! We are hoping that some of those who want to “go the extra mile” will come up here for the challenge of getting their shoes muddy and wet while jumping over many obstacles and following survey tape through the woods!
We highly recommend this event to all Duluthians next year!
Pictures should be posted soon!! http://wisconsintrailruns.com/
Comments
Interesting "adventure" report Eve.Sounds like you two had a blast!!! Although, I bet it was a long ride home with someone who beat you so convincingly ;-)
Do you think not running with Lambouix sp? handicapped you???
What race are you guys planning next??
Oh, my, that sounds like about the best event EVER!!!!
Long way to go but sounds worth it.
Glad you two had fun.
Even race planner Eve learned a few tricks from Willi.
It was a nice trip! The drive down was very long but Eve kept me entertained with tales of her dating experiences ;-) The side trip to Milwaukee was a surprise but it was very nice to meet her grandma...she's a real sweet lady and I'm glad I got to meet her! We stopped at a Burger King after the visit and they closed the lobby at 7...couldn't figure out why until we looked around and saw the 'clientele' in the drive thru line...OK! We locked the car doors and hit the freeway!!
Southern Wisconsin is about a month ahead of us so the phlox were in full bloom, as were the peonies and roses...
The race course itself was very nice, like Eve said. I found it more difficult than she did though. The first big hill was in the mowed 'fairway' part and my lungs were screaming before i even reached the top...but once we hit the woods and the single-track I was able to make up for lost time, passing all the people who whizzed past me on the uphill! The limestone ranged in diameter from gravel to baseball sized and was loose, making for difficult footing at times....and I did get tripped up in that area but caught myself before hitting the dirt!
The other runners were all very friendly, even after Eve told them that they needed to come to Duluth to run a 'real' trail race! Yep, that's our Eve! I'll bet you're wondering just how much time she spent tied to the top of my car during this trip... I'll never tell ;-)
Very funny, haha...I was in the trunk!
I didn't say it was the easiest in the world...just posh and not nearly as technical nor hilly as up here! Well manicured too! I didn't notice any big pieces of limestone! I must have taken a wrong turn!
I don't know... That "gee, it's been a while since I saw any survey tape" anxiety kind of adds to the experience of a good trail race.
Sounds like it was a great time anyway. Nice job!
Eve has gotten some negative feedback on her description of the race compared to mine so I'd just like to clear a few things up. Had I not run a 20 miler on Sunday and then a 16+ miler on Wednesday and then drove for 8 hours and had BK for both lunch and supper on Friday and then taken off at too fast a pace without a proper wam-up and had problems breathing during the race, then I too would have thought the race was easier than I found it to be.
Besides, everyone knows that Eve blows me away at all the NMTC races so it was obvious by my 20 minute victory that she took it easy and I pushed it way too hard! ;-)
Sorry if anyone overestimated the difficulty of this race course based on my description. Thanks for letting me clear this up....