Panther Pant 5K

The Panther Pant occured at the Cathedral School in Superior, Wisconsin. It was a 5K race. I took off fast at the beginning and tried to stay with the lead guy. One of the guys who finished just ahead of me at the end of the race yelled out to his teammate who actually won the race a quote which I love. He was trying to pump up his fellow teammate and he yelled out "Mike, don't worry about that guy. You've got him. He's nothing." What great sportsmanship. Well, Mike did win the race and my early start to the race spelled a slow finish for me and I ended up finishing 6th overall. My time was 19:36. Perhaps if I would have slowed the pace initially, the overall time would have been better, as I was over a minute slower than the Osceola Healthy Heart 5K I did in April.

Kishwaukee Sunrise Rotary 8K

When your wife is a bridesmaid in a wedding and you have nothing else to do with your time while you wait for her, what is the next best thing to do? Run a race of course. I have not run an 8K competitively before, although I did run one for fun with my brother Dan last year. Boy, this is a tough distance. Not quite a 10K but more distance than a 5K. It takes some getting used to. I had a blast and finished 6th overall out of 87 runners with a time of 32:20. I was second in my age group. . .7 seconds behind the guy who placed first in my age group. Certainly I could have pushed more, but boy was it a windy day during the race. Also, two athletes who had tried out for the Olympics showed up for this small-town race in rural Illinois. They dominated the field.

BACC Triathlon

My wife and I participated in the BACC triathlon today which included a 1/4 mile swim, a 12 mile bike ride and a 5K run. The swim went well, but the bike and run sections were the held in snowy conditions. The winds were so powerful that they could bring a bike to a stop if you didn't pedal on a downhill. Bob Peterson was last year's winner and finished first again by a small margin. Mark Bittner nearly edged him out. I finished about 8 minutes back for third. This shows how much a lack of winter training really hurts early season. . .especially on the bike. It was my first real triathlon and went well. I wonder if snow is part of the forecast for next year's race? My time was 1:17:19. My swim time was 7:30. The bike time was 46:51. The 5K run time was 22:58.

Osceola Healthy Heart 5K

The Osceola Healthy Heart 5K was a great run. I took off fast and finished the first mile at about 5:50, which was about where I wanted to be. I held the lead for the first mile, and then was caught by Joel Ailts of Deer Park. He was a good competitor as he pushed me and we kept pace for a while, but he eventually gapped me going up a hill. He maintained a lead, but I was able to stick it out and finish about 13 seconds behind him. I finished second overall, but had my best 5k time ever with a time of 18:32. I ran a cool down run with Joel. I guess Joel does quite a few runs as well. I was real happy with my run. Luckily, the weather held off. It was cloudy and looked like rain, but nothing turned up with the weather.

Spring Fever 2 mile

My first race of the year was in Altoona. I just decided to try a race the day before. I had only been running for about 3 weeks. Since I wasn't doing Grandma's marathon this year, I decided to take winter off and focus on biking. It was pretty rough going. I went down with a friend of mine to the race. He did the 6 mile. I ran the 2 mile. By the one mile point, the guy who won the 6 mile race (Corey Stelljes) was already about 30 seconds ahead of me and I was only running a 1/3 his distance. Well, he did just run the Olympic trials for the marathon last November. . .he isn't too bad a runner. I finished easily ahead of the next place guy with a 40 second lead. My time was 12:15. I got done and thought, gee. . .that was a short run. I am not used to running only a couple of miles. Usually I am slugging out long distance runs.

2008 American Birkebeiner

This was a tough race from start to finish. I went out and did one 8K skiing session prior to the Birkie and then attempted the race. It was more just to do it than anything, but I was amazed at how hard the race was. My waxless skis proved almost useless in the snow and the 50+ kilometer race was one I was so happy to be done with. My wife and some friends were manning the water station at about the 30 kilometer mark and I stopped there for about a half hour to load up on food. My total time was 6:26:13.7. I was 837 out of 986 classic skiers and 686 out of 798 men classical skiers. I was 44th out of 50 in the 30-34 age category of all men classical skiers.

Book Across the Bay

Probably one of the most unique winter events I have come across is Ashland's Book Across the Bay. When the waters of the bay between Ashland and Washburn (Wisconsin) freeze over, a 10K path is made over the ice marked by hundreds to thousands of luminaries made of ice. These are regularly placed across the whole distance of the race. Although it is a race, many people like my wife and I did this for fun. We walked it together on snowshoes. It was a great event. Out of the snowshoers, I finished 44th out of 344 competitors in a time of 1:44:50.0, or 10.1 min/K. The beauty of this event is that it is at night. So few sporting events of this type occur during the evening hours.