Thanksgiving Day Gobble Gallop

My wife and I were in the Duluth's 1st annual Gobble Gallop 5K race. It's a nice course, but to be honest, one should run a whole lot more than 5K to justify all the food that you actually eat later on Thanksgiving Day. My overall time was 19:21, which was 30th overall out of 525. I am the guy in the green shirt and black gloves to the upper right of the right most guy with the bird beak on. It was good to see so many runners out for this cold run.

Ashland Whistlestop Marathon

By far the slowest marathon I have done. I had the opportunity to switch to the half marathon earlier and should have. After Thunder Bay's Marathon, I ran one time for the Did Ya' Run Yet Relay (6-7 miles) and did not even put on my running shoes once beyond that. Well, my half marathon time was 90 minutes, but I sufferred immediately after mile 15. From there, I walked the rest of the way and could not do anything more than walk. Very frustrating, but a lack of adequate preparation led to an extremely slow time for me. I finished in 4:05:12.6. I was 321st overall out of 608 runners and 235th out of the 386 males. I was 23rd in my age group.

Get Runnin' Relay 2006

This was a fun, relaxed event. It was put on to support the PLAY foundation. Teams of 6 alternated by running 12 segments of a 40 mile loop. I joined up with Jon Gargulak, Stephanie Fleming, and Dave Putnam, along with two other runners to form a team which took first overall in the event by several minutes. Total running time was recorded, but I was unable to find the overall time of the event. This was the first annual race, and surely it will continue to be a nice community event.

Northshore Inline Marathon

My wife was kind to me this year. Instead of letting me fend for myself and not knowing when I would finish, she decided to do the event with me. We skated side-by-side, although she could have easily finished far ahead of me. Maybe she felt guilty for my getting hurt the previous year. I finished in 2:16:11. Not burning up the competition, but considerably better than last year. I was just happy I finished on my roller blades this year. I was 1,691th place out of 2,275 inline skaters. Not bad for not much practice.

Pride of Canada Marathon

My second attempt at a marathon was staged in Thunder Bay, Ontario. A beautiful park was the location for the run. I led the pack until about mile 12, which was fun because the course director was riding a bicycle and showing us the path on the two loop route. Eventually, I was passed up by Doug Scott of Thunder Bay, ON (shown in the yellow shirt above). I ran with him for a few miles, but eventually he outpaced me and he went on to win in 3:02:51. I finished second in 3:10:48. This was 11 seconds ahead of the 3:10:59 cutoff to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I had a blast and Doug was kind enough to treat me to a pasta dinner with his family after the race. I was definitely the ringer in the race, for the top ten finishing times were all from people from Thunder Bay, with the exception of my second place finish.

2006 Brewhouse Triathlon

Angela, Joe, and I participated in the 2006 Duluth Brewhouse Triathlon. We broke up the events with each person doing one event. Angela started with the 0.8 mile swim in 32:46. Joe followed up with the 20.6 mile bike. He mentioned he had problems with his bike during the event, and this slowed his time to 1:24:30. I did the final leg, the 5 mile run. I ran it in 32:43, which was 2nd out of 10 in the mixed relay for the event. Overall we finished 9th out of 10 teams. We finished in 2:29:39.

Two Harbors Kayak Festival

Angela and Doreen came to watch me do this race. Luckily, there were no problems this year. It was a pretty clean race. No nasty weather to deal with. I stayed afloat in the kayak without problems. I sprinted toward the end and edged out some other kayaker by 3 seconds. The route is beautiful and goes around an island at the midway point before circling back. It also was a beautiful day for a ride. I finished in 3:24:12 in the male 20-39 composite, even though the website for this event is completely off base and put me in the female 40-54 plastic category.