Team Cross Runs

Foto Friday

Park Board Information Sign at West River Road and 36th St. January 2010

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Glad to Be Running

I am glad to have a few runs under my belt and not feeling too much worse for wear.  I ran a whole 9.7 miles this week!!

That’s three run each around 3 miles.  The conditions have been kind of crappy but I’m not going to complain. My foot actually feels pretty good.  I had my first Iontophoresis appointment this week and that helped tremendously.  Simply stated it is electrically putting steroids into my heel.

I only had a 3 day work week due to the MLK holiday and a record keeping day for teachers (my position doesn’t require me to work those days).  So I ran at Pike Island on Monday on the snowy/icy winter hiking trail.  It didn’t feel bad but I was a little sore the  next day.  I also ran on the West River Rd from 36th Street down to the Wabun Picnic Area and looped back.  Still fairly icy.  For both runs I wore my YakTrax.

I was planning to go skiing on Sunday, but the rain from Friday and Saturday didn’t leave a lot of good snow so instead went for a 3 mile run from my house.  It wasn’t too bad, but some of the sidewalks were solid sheets of ice. It was actually in the 30’s for this run, so I won’t complain.

Stretching and doing my physical therapy workouts have been helping me feel good. I’m excited and cautiously optimistic about the treatments and my running.  It is slowly creeping up on my Plantaverissary.

One Post: This might be a little late for this year, but Winter Running: Running at-21

2010 MDRA Annual Party Awards

The MDRA Annual Party is a great time to reconnect with friends you haven’t seen since the marathon!  It is also a great place to win gift certificates, race entries, and other running related stuff.  Not to mention the free pizza and ice cream! All in all a great event, especially since I won $20 to Marathon Sports, and some friends gave me their race entries to some local 5k’s. Here is a slideshow from the day taken by Wayne Kryduba.

State of the Club address by President, Kirk Walztoni:

2010 Awards:

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Volunteer of the Year Award this year went to Rob Lundquist.  Rob is an all around great guy who continues to provide invaluable service to MDRA and the running community.

MN Elite Athlete Development Program.  From Twin Cities in Motion (pdf):

MEADP is a collaboration of Grandma’s Marathon, Twin Cities Marathon, Inc., Austin-Jarrow Sports and the Minnesota Distance Running Association, and is designed to assist elite Minnesota distance runners who have completed their academic running careers in reaching their full athletic potential. In 2009, MEADP will provide

grants, in amounts up to $2,000 per recipient, to promising Minnesota elite distance runners, to

assist them in reaching their full athletic potential.

Masters road racing star and long-time MDRA officer Gloria Jansen will be presented with the Lanin Award for Distinguished Service. The award is MDRA’s most prestigious honor, given for years of service and contribution to the sport.

The award is named for the founder of MDRA, Pat Lanin.

Foto Friday

A robin hanging out on Minnehaha Creek January 2010

Minnesota Marathons

Want to complete 26.2 miles in Minnesota?  Below is a list of races throughout the state and surrounding states.  Some well known ones and some you’ve probably never heard of.  The list is compiled from the MarathonGuide.com.

The link on the name of the race points to the official homepage, the link on MG points to the Marathon Guide page so you can read past reviews, etc.

Minnesota

May 8 – Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon St. Joseph, MN MG

May 30 – Med-City Marathon & Half Marathon, Relay, 20 Mile Rochester, MN MG

May 30 – Stillwater Marathon & 20 Mile, Half Marathon, 12K Stillwater, MN MG

June 6 – Minneapolis Marathon & Half Marathon, 5K, 5K-9 Minneapolis, MN MG

June 19 – Grandma’s Marathon & Half Marathon, 5K, Kid’s Races Duluth, MN MG

July 11 – Half Voyageur Trail Marathon Carlton, MN MG

September 12 – Moose Mountain Marathon & 50 mile, 100 mile Lutsen, MN MG

September 19 – Walker/North Country Races & 2 Person Relay, 1/2 Marathon, 10K Walker, MN MG

October 3 – Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon & 10 Mile, 5K Minneapolis/St.Paul, MN MG

January 2011 – St. Olaf College Women’s Track & Field Team Zoom! Yah! Yah! Indoor Marathon Northfield, MN MG

Surrounding States

January 24 – InStep Running & Walking Centers InStep Icebreaker Indoor Marathon & Half Marathon

Milwaukee, WI  MG

April 4 (2009 date) – Re/Max, Children’s Miracle Network Trailbreaker Marathon & Half Marathon, 5K

Waukesha, WI MG

April 24 – Pine Line Trail Marathon & Half Marathon, 26.3 Mile Relay, 5K Run/Walk

Medford, WI MG

April 25 (2009 date) ING Trestle Valley Marathon & Marathon, Half Marathon, ND Distance Relay Championship

Minot, ND MG

May 1 – Wisconsin Marathon & Half Marathon Kenosha, WI MG

May 2 – Eau Claire Marathon & Half Marathon, 1 Mile Fun Run Eau Claire, WI MG

May 2 – La Crosse Fitness Festival & Half Marathon, Relay, 5K La Crosse, WI MG

May 8 – Journeys Marathon & Half Marathon, 5K, 13.1 mile Power Walk Eagle River, WI MG

May 8 – Lake Geneva Marathon & Half-Marathon, Relay, Walk, 10K, 5K, Adventure Race Lake Geneva, WI MG

May 10 (2009 date) – Central States Marathon & 50K, 11 Miler Ames, IA MG

May 16 – Cellcom Green Bay Marathon & Marathon, Relay, Half Marathon, 5K, WPS Kids’ Run Green Bay, WI MG

May 30 – Madison Marathon (Mad City Marathon) & Marathon, Half Marathon, Quarter Marathon Madison, WI MG

June 6 – Deadwood-Mickelson Trail Marathon & Half Marathon, Relay, 5K, 1K Deadwood, SD MG

June 12 – Marathon-to-Marathon & Half Marathon, Marathon Relay, 5K Marathon, IA MG

June 13 – Swan Lake Marathon & 1/2 marathon, Sunfish 5.3 Viborg, SD MG

July 18 – University of Okoboji Marathon & Half Marathon, Triathlon, 10K Okoboji, IA MG

August 8 – Paavo Nurmi Marathon Paavo Nurmi Marathon (USA) & Relay Hurley, WI MG

August 15 – LEADING LADIES’ MARATHON & Half Marathon Spearfish, SD MG

September 18 – Kroll’s Diner YMCA Bismarck Marathon/Half Marathon and Footfest 5k & Half Marathon, Marathon Relay Bismarck, ND MG

October 3 – Lakefront Marathon Milwaukee, WI MG

October 9 – WhistleStop Marathon & Half Marathon, 10K, 5K Ashland, WI MG

October 17 – Des Moines Marathon & Half Marathon, Marathon Relay, 5K Road Race, Kids Run Des Moines, IA MG

October 25 – On the Road for Education & Half-Marathon, 10K & 5K Mason City, IA MG

November 7 – Rails to Trails Marathon Norwalk, WI MG

That is quite a few choices.  Did I leave any out?

Snowshoeing at Pike Island

We got snow shoes for Christmas.  Here is a video from the Mississippi River taken a week or so ago starting at Pike Island.  It was fun to wander around the island and the rivers.

See the map here.

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Talked to the Doc

I didn’t do much this week and I’m not going to give you a laundry list of excuses.  Just that it is hard to get motivated to go to the gym, when you’d rather be running.  But on a good note, I had an appointment with a sports doctor this week at my local clinic.  She happens to be the sports doc for the University of Minnesota as well.

She concluded that I do have Plantar Fasciitis (duh!) and we are going to take a more aggressive approach to get rid of it.  She wants me to keep doing the physical therapy exercises (I haven’t been to the therapist since October) and wants me to start going back again.  With a different focus.  I was hoping just to get the cortisone shot and get it over with, but that has some  negative side effects (atrophy in the fat pad on the heel).  Her next thought was to give me dexamethasone via iontophoresis for awhile and switch to using a boot. She seemed to think the boot was a little more aggressive than the Strassburg Sock.  All I know for sure is that the boot is harder to sleep with!  She also indicated that it was ok for me to start running again.

So I did… not much.  The appointment was on Thursday and I wasn’t able to go out until Saturday morning and I just did a little 1.8 mile run from the house.  It was really nice to be out there! I couldn’t find all of my stuff, but the 21 degrees made it ok!  Yes it still hurt, but the doctor said that not running obviously wasn’t helping so she didn’t see a problem with me running again.

Sunday I went for a snow shoe again! I walked along the Minnehaha Creek toward the Mississippi River.  It only ended up being 1.5 miles but it was fun.  The recent warm-up actually made the creek unsafe to walk on for much of the trip, but that was fine.  It was still fun.

One Post This week’s one post to remember is the 10 Basic Building Bloks of a Blog.