Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon

Grandma's marathon weekend is one of the best weekends in the summer. My wife was still recovering from giving birth to our beautiful daughter, Kaia. Angela kept her promise to her brother, Matt, that she would run the 5K race with him. This was Matt's first ever running race and the William A. Irvin 5K was the perfect place to do it. Matt is getting pretty excited about running, as he even has his own pair of running sunglasses. Well, I am proud of Matt to give this a try. Angela and Matt ran the race together during the 5K race, which was held the night before the half marathon. I did the half marathon the next day and loved it. I purchased a pair of green running shorts the night before the race at the runner's expo, and my family was glad I did. It made it so easy to spot me. They commented over and over how easy it was to see me from a distance. Angela finished in 40:23.5. Matt finished in 40:24.6. Way to go, Angela. Leave your brother out there hanging at the end and sprint for the finish. I thought they were going to finish together, but I guess there must have been some family pride at stake. My times were 1:28:35 (chip time) and 1:28:43 (gun time). I was about 15 seconds slower than last year, but not too bad considering my training has been down. I was 169 out of 5852 runners in the half marathon. My time at 6.9 miles was 44:59 and my time at 11.9 miles was 1:20:10. My 10K time was 40:24, which was faster than my 10K time from just a few days previous on the Tuscobia trail.

Rice Lake Aquafest 10K

This was a fantastic night. The Aquafest 10K is always one of the best runs of the year. It is held on the beautifully maintained Ice Age Trail and this year a little rain was part of the equation. It rained hard during the race. At times, the rain was 2-3 inches deep in spots. One friend of mine (Mark Bittner) slipped on the dip and got a bit muddy. I guess he was just going all out. The race was dominated by several younger college-age runners. I came in with a time of 41:14, good for fifth overall and first in my age group. The winning time was 39:35, which was won by a young runner from Shell Lake, Wisconsin. It was a great run as it was basically a reunion of many people I know from biking and running events in the area. In the picture above, are Brian Arnold and Danette Hellman up front, with the second row containing (left to right) Gary Crisler, Rob White, Jonathon Delf, Josh Moe, Ron Kay, Mark Bittner, and Dave Gerber.

Spring Fever 2 mile

I viewed today's race as my last race before our baby was born. More than likely I would not have any more races after today as a childless husband. Nevertheless, I kept my phone on me and checked often to make sure Angela was doing fine. As was my usual race distance of choice the last 2 years previous, I did the 2 mile race. I cooked through the first mile in 5:35, but slowed quite a bit to finish at 11:58 today which was good for 5th place (1st in my age group). The winner of the race set a new record with a time of 9:49. That's lower than 5 minutes per mile. The pictures taken were by a member from the Indian Head Track club. In the picture from the start of the race, I am the guy in the far right of the picture. In the second picture, I am the guy in the distance wearing the red shirt running on the trail behind the guy with the gray shirt).

National Snowshoe Race Team Relay

The final day of the United National Snowshoe Championship consisted of a team relay. With distances not exactly known, the event was held on some of the same trails as the day before. A team of mostly Wisconsinites was formed to comprise the group "Wisconsin Tornado." This name was chosen in honor of a great snowshoer at the event. Ryan Kann led the group off. Ryan Kann edged just ahead of his dad, John Kann, after the first leg. We were sitting 5th place out of 19 teams overall after the first leg of the 4-person relay. Minnesotan Kris Miller ran the second leg after an impressive 6th place finish in the Senior Women's National race yesterday, just missing a position on the U.S. Snowshoe team. Kristi Speer ran the third leg and I followed with the last leg. Gaining an opportunity to redo a miniaturized version of suicide hill from the day before, I was happy to finish and bring conclusion to the weekend of racing. After much confusion on the results due to problems in determining which teams belonged in which divisions, we were on the podium to collect medals for our third place finish. Then we had to get off the podium as they were taken away from us due to the error. Then the announcer realized he was right in the first place so we got back up on the podium to collect our medals once again. Our finishing time was 38:20.07, which doesn't really mean too much since we didn't know an accurate distance, but we were 9th overall out of 19 teams, and 3rd out of 12 in our division. Pictures were submitted by Ryan Kann.

United States National Snowshoe Race - Senior Men's 10K

The highlight of the snowshoeing season brought us to the mountains around Syracuse, NY. Going out with 10 people from Wisconsin and some friends from Minnesota, as we drove up and saw a hill that led up to a chalet, I made a joke to others saying that that huge hill was the last stretch up to the finish. I figured I would fool everyone and just kid around. As we arrive at the race site, we found out that the hill actually was the finishing stretch to the finish line and was appropriately named "Suicide Hill." I guess the joke was on me. Starting the race, the pace was faster than any other snowshoe race I had done before. I actually found that snow was flying so fast and people were jockeying for position elbowing each other so much that it was tough to stay on your feet the first minute of the race. I took the opening stretch faster than I should have and very quickly brought myself into the red zone. I think I got caught up in much of the racing excitement. I spent the next few kilometers recovering and getting back into the groove of the race. Perhaps a slow and easy start would have been better, but a lack of experience with a national snowshoe race made for a surprise as to what the start would be like. The course was also extremely difficult. In the midwest, we have such little snow that what snow we do have has been thoroughly packed down very well before a race. Trails are usually very flat (or with minor hills) and trails are usually fairly wide open with little technical difficulty. This course started out with the first couple of kilometers with a gradual uphill. The snow conditions were sugary, making for very difficult footing. Heavier racers had a definite disadvantage as a result. I sunk in 6-8 inches in many spots along the course which sucks the energy right out of you. In addition, the singletrack was not quite wide enough for a wide-stanced runner like myself. I found that some spots were so narrow (barely over 14-16" wide) that I had trouble maintaining footing and actually fell in a few spots. I am used to wide open trails. I also also was not used to the hills. Holy cow were the hills huge. I had not seen hills like these in my life. I can verify, however, that it was a course definitely worthy of being the site to host a nationals race. My finishing time of 1:02.58.87 was good for 49th out of 133. I was hoping to finish in the top half, not knowing what to expect. I think it sets a good standard for next year. Another friend of mine from Rice Lake, John Kann, finished in 1:03.44.36. This year's Championship race was the first time this Chrono Timing has been used to track a snowshoe race on the globe. Ken Auyer of Auyer Race Timing stated that this timing system had already been used on a small race known as "The New York Marathon." Race results are posted virtually as soon as the last racer crosses the finish line. This race goes down as one of the top 3 hardest races I have done. Next year Nationals will be in the midwest. It's very likely they will be in Wisconsin or Minnesota so it will be nice to be close to home. Pictures were taken by Ryan Kann.

Stomp the Swamp 12K snowshoe race

This year's race brought an interesting mix of competitors. Snowshoeing is so much fun. What I love about the races is you see the same group of people over and over again. Friendships develop as you see the same people over and over again. I am thankful that my John Kann introduced me to this wonderful sport several years ago. It was a perfect day and the pictures were courtesy of my wife. She only got pictures of the start because she was inside when I finished as she said "I thought it would have taken you longer." I guess that's a good problem to have. . .finishing earlier than expected. This year I finished the course in 56:42 for second overall out of 16 racers. This was considerably faster than the previous year. I was almost five minutes faster by accounts of time although the race director said it may have been a couple hundred meters short. The lead runner finished under 50 minutes. I'd never heard of the guy before or seen him anywhere prior. I did the 12K race. Many people chose the 6K event. Many people probably were trying to relax and save their energy for the United States National Snowshoe Competition which was the next week in Syracuse, New York. Many people from this race were headed there. Jay Punke does the race up well. The soup is excellent, the brownies are to die for, and every race should finish with Leine's 1888 Bock as the post race drink.

Book Across the Bay

My favorite snowshoe race of the year by far, I had looked forward to the Book Across the Bay race all year. The prerace festivities included the usual. We stayed at a cabin with some friends, at some wonderful food both at the Delta Diner and cooked by some friends. I had my picture taken with the elevation profile for the course and I took a picture of my wife wearing a Book Across the Bay hat that I thought was cute. Since Angela was pregnant, she couldn't race this year, but I convinced her to do some tubing instead for a few times down the hill. She really enjoyed that. The race itself was awesome. A fast pace was set by eventual winner Greg Hexum. I matched his pace for the first couple of minutes, but knew that I could never hold his pace off. I was fifth overall with a time of 50:41 (The picture shows an unadjusted time of 1:00:41, which is ten minutes high since the snowshoers started 10 minutes after the skiers. It is corrected in the final results, but was not for this race sign, but the picture was still cool.). A friend of mine snapped a quick picture of me right before the race began and I love the cool colors in the picture. Postrace was followed by some great food and my wife losing her cell phone so we battled traffic to go back to where she had lost her cell phone. We missed the fireworks, but I heard they were good. We'll look forward to seeing them next time.