Rice Lake Aquafest Run

 Valerie Leiar snapped this wonderful picture at the start of the Aquafest Run.  She always does a wonderful job of covering running events in Rice Lake and the surrounding communities.  She was gracious enough to allow me to use this photo showing the start of the race.  I have decided to try using a GPS watch during my runs and obviously from the picture it is apparent I don't know what I am doing.
This year I was not only a financial sponsor of the run, but I also became a member of the Aquafest Committee.  This year the head of the committee shifted to a new person, Jon Gargulak, which meant that there was opportunity to change the event.  Many different logistics needed to be worked out in order for this race to happen.  I learned first-hand how much is involved with holding a race.  I have always enjoyed the Tuesday night runs on the Tuscobia Trail during previous Aquafests.  However, this year there were many reasons to hold the race at a different venue.  Pressures from competing Aquafest events and a desire to try something new led to the development of a Saturday Aquafest race which was held in Rice Lake.  Briefly stated, there would now be a 6 K and a 10 K race with a route that starts at the Rice Lake High School and headed north on Wisconsin Avenue and cut across toward Rainbow and then toward the Lake for a running course which I am familar with.  Runners from both distances then cut over on Messenger Street toward the high school.  Six kilometer runners finished at the school while 10 K runners continued on Augusta Street to Arrowhead Family Dental, cut south on 19th Avenue, and then back east again on Allen Street before arriving at the high school.  The route was nice in its inclusion of a peaceful run past the lake which I do often.  The Augusta Street hill was the tough part of the course to include in a race.
Angela ran the 6K pushing Kaia in 38:04.3.  She also did not like how hot the race day temperature was.  Upon the completion of the event, my daughter Kaia cheered on the finishers using a cowbell.

With a warm day for the event, I was tired by the time I arrived at this hill and was passed by Dave Gerber on the hill during the 10 K. I held the position of fourth overall with a time of 41:46.9 to finish first in my age group. The heat must have affected me big time since I finished a few seconds slower than running the same distance in Chetek a few weeks before while I pushed Kaia in the stroller. Today, the only slowing factors I had to deal with were the heat and the big hill on August Street.

The winners of the varioues age-groups in the race posed for a picture following the race.  Congratulations to all runners.

I met up with a cross country runner from my past at this event, Curtis Matton.  I was happy to see him out running for fun.  He told me he hadn't been doing a lot of training, but was thinking about doing the Rice Lake Triathlon.  Curtis was one of the key runners who brought the Rice Lake Cross Country team to state in 2008.  He is a gutsy runner that has proven to me he can run through tremendous pain to put his team first.  He had a nice run and I wish him luck with the triathlon.