Team Cross Runs

Foto Friday

Stillwater Lift Bridge
Ragnar Exchange 24
August 2010

30 Day of Biking

30 Days of Biking is an idea started here in the Twin Cities to get people out on their bikes.  September marks round 2 of this attempt.  The initial 30 Days of Biking was in April of this year and had high turnout both locally and around the world.  Part of the success was using social media tools like Twitter and the #30daysofbiking hashtag, Dailymile and of course Facebook.

There is only one rule to 30 Days of Biking:

… you bike every day for 30 days—around the block, 20 miles to work, whatever suits you—then share your adventures online. We believe biking enriches life, builds community, and preserves the Earth.

Pretty simple eh? It should be fairly simple to get on your bike and pedal somewhere each day – work, grocery, friends house, down the street and back…

I wanted to participate in April’s event, but I wasn’t able to bike thanks to Lyme Disease! I’m excited to do it this time around.  Even though I already bike pretty much everywhere I think it will be a good challenge to actually make myself ride somewhere each day.

While you don’t need to, the organizers are encouraging everyone to register.  It is painless to register and you still have time to ride today!

As August Ends, So Does Summer

Today marks the first day back to work with kids at school.  As school begins, that means that summer is pretty much over.  It has gone by fairly fast.  August was a great month though of relaxing and transitioning back to work. We took an extended vacation, celebrating our anniversary in Rhode Island, seeing family and having baby showers!!  It was a great month!  It also meant that the big race of 2010 – the Ragnar Relay is over!! That was quite an accomplishment, especially given the amount of training I’d done.  Ragnar was great motivation to keep trying to run and August was my highest month of mileage since last September!! A total of 42 running miles!

It feels sad that 42 miles is my highest month, but I’m glad to be running virtually pain free.  August was about 50% lower biking mileage than July, but we were travelling for almost half the month and since I wasn’t bike commuting that really cut down on my mileage.  The same with swimming.  Though the group is getting going again until the water get too cold.

Last year at this time I’d run the Rochester Half-Marathon and set a PR.

Here is a look at the goals I set at the beginning of the year:

Run Around All Named Bodies of Water in Minneapolis

Being gone didn’t add any new lakes. My Ragnar group run was at Lake Calhoun so I did it again, though most of my running has been from home still.

Read the Entire Bible in a Year

I got really far behind, my bag for Rhode Island didn’t have room for my Bible, the whole paying to check luggage thing made us pack very carefully.  But I was able to finish up, using the “extra” days that are built into the schedule.

Read a Book a Month

I finally finished In A Sunburned Country and wouldn’t recommend it.  I didn’t look forward to picking it up, but vacation was a great time to finish it off.  It is more or less a travel diary with random factoids that may or may not be interesting.  At the Cleveland Airport I picked up John Grisham’s  The Associate and had it finished by the end of the week. I find Grisham very captivating and easy to read.  I also started The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-to-Be so I can find out how to be the best father ever, or something…
Blog Regularly

I continue to do well here and on my Project 365 blog.  My personal blog has fallen way behind and I’m not please with my hyperlocal blog.  Such is life though.

There is still time visit my fundraising page for Team World Vision providing clean water to a village in Kenya.

I got $100 from Google AdWords so I promoted my  Curing Plantar Fasciitis post, so it was no surprise to see it the most viewed one in August.  Treatments for Plantar Fasciitis was in second and my review of the Strassburg Sock was right behind.

How was your August? Are your kids starting back to school?

Foto Friday

Runner on the Cliff Walk in Newport, Rhode Island
August 2010

Ragnar Great River – My Running Legs

This will be the first in at least two posts about Ragnar.

The basics of a relay race is that you split up the 193 mile race into more doable segments.  Ragnar’s Great River Relay is broken into 36 legs which get split up between 12 runners (or 6 in the Ultra division). The average runner ran 16 miles over 3 runs.  I personally ran 13 miles.  At least one person ran in the 20′s.   Several people in my van were in marathon training and this is good timing for “long runs.” The 12 runners are split into 2 vans of who leap frog each other throughout the overnight relay.

I was in Van 1 which was “on” first.  I was runner number 3 which meant I ran leg 3, 15, and 27.

Leg 3 was fairly flat and on wide-open road. I ran on the shoulder as much as possible. The route took a turn off WI-35 (which the runners saw, but many vans missed) onto a country road in corn fields! I had seen a bank sign that said 85 degrees and there was no doubt that the humidity was quite high, but it was very cloudy. This leg had non-supported sections, which meant that in places my van could give me water. I misunderstood the wording of the Race Bible -- legs that were “non-supported” would have water stops if they were over 4 miles. I assumed I’d have a water stop, so I was disappointed after the half-way mark when there weren’t any. With about 1.5 miles to go my van caught up to me (they missed the turn) and gave me some water! I finished the 5.3 miles in 46:56 or 8:52 pace.

The great thing about Ragnar is that you run through the night! Any runner on the road after 7:30pm had to have a reflective vest, a head light, and a tail light on. Any member of the team outside the van after 7:30pm had to wear a reflective vest. After relaxing at Major Exchange 12 in Stockholm, WI our van took back over for our night leg. I didn’t end up running until after 11pm. I woke up at 5am on Friday to finish getting ready and to pick up the van, etc. I was surprised that I didn’t feel too bad -- though there was lots of adrenaline. It was in the mid 70′s and still quite humid, though there was no sun since it was dark!

All geared up I ran Leg 15′s 5.22 miles in 45 minutes for an 8:38 pace. This route ended up being hillier than I had expected it to be. I knew there was one hill towards the beginning, but it seemed like there were more noticeable hills. I could have also just been getting tired! Running in the dark was quite interesting. You couldn’t see very far ahead, behind, or around you and all you could see in the distance was little red flashing lights of runners and Ragnar signs. I did have a water stop this time! The dark also made it quite hard for vans to figure out if you were their runner or not, but mine did find me and cheer me on. As I got closer to the exchange area, I started to see lots of headlights and a glow so I knew I was getting close. On each leg Ragnar posts a sign that says “One Mile to Go” but on this particular leg it seemed to take forever for that last mile. I got 8 “road kills” on this section. In Ragnar language a road kill is a person that you pass from another team. I only got passed by one guy. For whatever reason, the headlamp I was wearing gave the weird sensation of wearing sunglasses. It was something to do with how the light was shaped. It was fun running in the dark!

We were able to shower and eat spaghetti sauce (they ran out of noodles) at Prescott High School (Major Exchange 18) before driving through some very dense fog to get to Stillwater, MN. It was 2 or 3am and I was driving. It was a little nerve racking because there were runners and lots of vans on the road, though fortunately, not many other cars. We decided to stop in Hudson for breakfast at Denny’s. I’m pretty sure I was the only person awake in the van (don’t tell Ragnar that my Safety Officer fell asleep!) After Denny’s we drove to Major Exchange 24 in Stillwater, just North of the Liftbridge. I had to sleep in the driver’s seat of the van and maybe got 30 minutes of real sleep. We had miscalculated our timing and I started waking up the van around 5:45 to get ready. After 6:30am runners and support people were no longer required to be illuminated.

My last leg was 27. Now in Minnesota we switched to more suburban areas for most of the run. Just an FYI that this exchange didn’t have port-a-potties, good thing I didn’t need one. This leg started out on the road and went under I-94 before running on a paved trail next to the roads. This felt like a long steady uphill, but I’m sure my legs were completely exhausted at this point. I’m not sure of the temperature, but it was very overcast and very humid. The fog actually almost felt like a mist at points. I got at least 8 more road kills on this leg. Some guy passed me, which made me mad, then I realized he wasn’t wearing the Ragnar Wrist Band (the baton) so I didn’t feel quite as bad! I got a couple of road kills at the very end and set Mike up to get a few himself! I did the 3.38 miles in 27:15 or 8:04 pace. (Note: each leg was faster than the last!) It felt really good to be done. We didn’t have a lot of time to sit around though, because most of these legs were fairly short. So I stretched a little and off we went.

You can kind of see an exchange in this video.  This is me running into my final exchange handing off to Mike:

After my final leg I was triumphant, as seen in this short video:

After arriving at Major Exchange 30 at Lifetime in Woodbury our team started to break apart.  Our van was done with running and a few people needed to head out so we sorted out the van, drove some people to their cars, and ended up with only 2 of us waiting around at the Boom Island finish area.  We got massages, ate some pizza, and tried to relax.  My body was so worn out that it didn’t like the idea of laying down on the grass.  Several hours later I got the call -- we are dropping off the last runner.  A 3rd teammate rejoined us and 7 of us waited anxiously for the final runner to come down the trail.  We joined her about 100 yards from the finish and ran triumphantly across the finish line!! We had done it!

Team Hodge Podge finished 169th out of 286 teams for a total time of 29:46:15 which is an average 9:19 pace! Well done ! (full results)

13.1 Minneapolis Supported World Vision

World Vision Runners - provided by DVA

Sunday was the inaugural 13.1 Minneapolis Half Marathon. Part of the event proceeds support World Vision‘s work with clean water in Kenya (the same as my fundraising).

The Inaugural 13.1® Minneapolis took more than 2,500 runners and walkers on a course filled with festivities, beautiful scenery and live entertainment. Kicking off near St. Anthony Main and ending at Nokomis Park, the half marathon and Karhu 5K, proved to truly be where the party met the pavement.

Coming in first was Chad Ernst, 22, a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, with a time of 1:13:50. “I was pleased with

everything about the race, especially finishing first,” said Ernst, who has been running since he was ten years old

but had never won a race this large. Other top male runners included Christian Mihelich, coming in second at

1:16:32, followed closely by Jonathon Balabuck who finished the race at 1:17:38.

The first female to cross the finish line was Leah Thorvilson, 31, with a time of 1:26:11. Thorvilson recently

qualified for the Olympic trials marathon team and has run over 150 races in the past 3 years. “I’ve competed

in a lot of races and was really impressed with this one, particularly the turn out for an inaugural race,” said

Thorvilson.

Charity partner Team WorldVision has raised more than $150,000 and expects to top the $200,000 mark overall

for the race. The money will go towards providing clean water for more than 68,000 children and families and

90,000 livestock in Kenya, Africa.

Taken from the official release.  Full results can be found here.

Ragnar Done!!

What a fun experience!! I’m going to be posting more about Ragnar as time permits, but it was an experience of a lifetime! I’m definitely sore and tired but it was a great adventure.   We finished in just under 30 hours for the 193 mile journey!

I ran 3 legs.  At 12:03pm on Friday I ran 5.3 miles in about 47 minutes.  Mostly flat, but lots of humidity and near 85.  At 11:19pm I ran 5.25 miles in 45 minutes on a dark and hillier road, still humid but cooler.  And at 8:08am I ran almost 3.4 miles in 28 minutes on a trail next to the road on an overcast and humid morning.

Those three runs plus an easy 3 miler in Ohio earlier in the week equaled my highest mileage week of the fall for 17 miles of running!!

There is still time to support my efforts to raise money for Team World Vision’s Clean Water projects in Kenya.

Like I said, it was a lot of fun and I’ll do a longer post later!  I’m still tired and catching up on sleep and eating!! Plus I go back to work this week part-time and then full-time next week.

A hard choice for One Post so here are three:

Product Review of the Strassburg Sock, a Book Review of Once a Runner, and an idea about Twitter Tagging.