Northfield to Southfields

After the warm Birkie trail marathon weekend the weather has taken a turn towards fall here in Minnesota. The leaves and temps are falling fast. There hasn't been a frost yet, but we're hovering close. I'm starting to relearn what amount of clothing is appropriate for what temperature ranges and activities and getting ready for snow to fall. This is great weather for being active outside, and I did a lot of that last weekend.

Saturday a number of Vakava skiers came down to Northfield for a long ski. Nine of us started out, but Jeff decided to turn back a bit early since he has been pretty run focused to get ready for his 100 miler this fall. The other eight of us ventured South to Cannon City, had a nice tail wind to push us on the long, flat, straight road to Nerstrand, and then took in the great scenery and big climbs along the Valley Grove section of road before dropping back into Northfield and over to the Porath's for french toast. My total for the ski came out to 56km, including 2x up the Ibson climb on the Valley Grove section, so I'm sure everyone who made the full loop was over 50k.

Sunday morning Nate and I headed out early for the cities to bike around and cheer at the Twin Cities Marathon. Twin Cities is the first marathon I ever ran, way back in 2008. I also helped pace a speedy gal named Brooke when she ran Twin Cities as her first marathon in 2012. It is a difficult course, mostly due to the long climb up Summit ave from miles 21 to 25 and the steep drop to the finish afterwards. We were there mostly to cheer for my friend Erik Teig. His goal was to run a 2:24, so to stay ahead of him we didn't have time to wait and cheer for other runners we knew. As is we had to ride pretty hard to get ahead of him, and failed to do so a couple of times. Even so we saw him at several points along the course. He was in a good pack and running very consistently. He came through the half at 1:11:56, about a close to perfect pacing as it gets, but started to fade on the long slog up Summit. He finished in 2:26:30, a 10 minute PR and good for 22nd in the race. He is an awesome guy and a great runner, I had a blast cruising around yelling at him. Afterwards I biked back and forth on Summit cheering on anyone I recognized before heading off to get a rollerski in and meet Erik and friends to hang out for the evening.

What I did not do all of last week is go running. I finally got out today after not putting on running shoes for 11 days. My longest stretch without running since March I'm sure. It was nice to have that down time after the Birkie Marathon, but now I better get my legs back under me before I head East to run the Columbus half in a week and a half.

I have made good use of my reduced training hours though, catching up on some house projects and yard work that had gone neglected for far too long. The leaves are starting to fall, so yard work will kick up in earnest when I get back from Columbus, but late October / early November is usually a good time for working outside and a nice place to cut back on training for a week or two before ski season kicks off.

On a blog related note I realize my posts have been less picture filled lately, I'll have to get back on the photographing band wagon going forward.

Birkie Champion

It has been a busy couple weeks. I tried and mostly failed to taper for my race last weekend. Rollerskiing intensity is ramping up as the ski season gets closer, and my friend Jallie is starting up a Tuesday night rollerski group, so now I'm skiing Sundays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. This has cut into my running a bit, so the Columbus half marathon in a few weeks might be rough.

Even if that race doesn't go well however, it has been a pretty good running season. I typically collect a win here and there at some races depending on who shows up, but this year either I've won a majority of the races I've entered. So even though I had never won a marathon before I went into the Birkie Trail Marathon last weekend with the intention of running for the win.

Start of the Birkie Trail Marathon - Photo: Bruce Adelsman, Skinnyski.com

I knew I wouldn't be ready for the hills, too much running on flat roads, but my tune up half marathon a few weeks ago went well, so I felt confident that I could handle the trails. There were two guys who took off fast, but since the first 3 miles of the race were almost entirely uphill I let them get a gap. I was hiking most of the climbs while they were running. I tried to keep as relaxed as possible while still keeping them in sight. Then the course left the wide open ski trails and turned on to the single track. Racing on singletrack is really wonderful. The trails were flowy with fun curves and lots of places where picking a good line and good footing can let you make up ground fast. So over the course of a couple miles I put in a surge of pace and passed both of the runners ahead of me, and the pace bike.

Holding my lead - Photo: Bruce Adelsman, Skinnyski.com

After I took the lead I felt like I had to keep the pace up to keep a gap on second place. I was confident in my ability to run hard, but wasn't sure how I would hold up in a close race. I tried to be fast on the flat sections and continued to hike the steep uphills. I was bombing the steep downhills, knowing it would take a toll on my legs and just hoping they would hold out until the finish. The high point of the course was about 4 miles from the finish, and then it was all downhill, both the course and my running. I struggled to make my legs work right. I was no longer racing down the hills, I was just trying to keep up with my feet. I wasn't thinking too well and in the last singletrack section there was a split in the trail around a tree. I couldn't decide which way to go, then decided to change directions at the last minute and my feet came out from under me. My hands were way too slow to even think about stopping my fall, so my chest and head hit the ground hard. Luckily it was sand and soft, loamy soil, so no damage was done, but I was shaken up a bit. My water bottle nozzle was entirely coated in sand after this incident, so drinking didn't seem like a great idea. Then I found a water bottle just laying there on the trail! I picked it up as I ran past, but finally my fuzzy brain decided that it probably wouldn't be a great idea to drink from a random water bottle that had been laying on the trail for who knows how long. 

The last 1k of the race goes around a big open field where you can see the finish the whole time but just keep turning away from it. At that point I was just hoping my legs didn't cramp. At last I struggled across the finish line and was so happy just to stop moving for a bit.

Crossing the finish line, with my bonus water bottle still in hand.

After I took the lead the guy in second had me in sight for quite a while. I carried my own water with me however, so I could breeze through aid stations where he had to stop and refuel, so eventually I got out of sight of him. The last I saw him was at the bottom of a large hill just as I was going over the top, but when we got to the open field I could see he was still not far behind me. I ended up winning by about a minute, my first marathon win ever. I'm going by Elspeth's marathon classification rules, since it was advertised as a marathon and run on the full course it counts as a marathon, even though my watch only recorded 40k. I figure that the short course is more than made up for by the hills, so I was pretty proud of my 2:54 finishing time. This is probably the only time I'll get to call myself a Birkie Champion, so I did my best to enjoy every minute of it.

First Marathon Win!

The fun didn't stop there however. Last time I ran the Birkie Marathon was my 28th birthday. Jeff and I decided to run 28 miles instead of just a marathon to celebrate the event. This was a big deal for us, as we had yet to run an ultra at that time. Long story short we missed the start of the race while doing our bonus miles and both had rough races as a result. This year I saved the bonus miles for after the race. Most of the cabin crew joined us for a couple miles when we got back.

Taking a photo for Buckeye on our bonus miles.

These two miles hurt. The very best parts were when Nichole called for walk breaks. After finishing the excursion I had no intention of finishing the 5 miles I had remaining to reach 32 (I just turned 32 last Thursday). We took a boat ride, made some fantastic pizzas and eventually everyone wandered off to bed. It was a gorgeous night out, and I knew I would regret it if I didn't get those last few miles. Jeff needed no prompting to come along for the fun. We wandered off into the darkness. I knew the roads close to the cabin well from running them at the TNC camp this spring, so we ran and picked out constellations with nothing but the stars and the occasional yard light to show the way. It took almost an hour to run those last five miles, but we got it done, and sleeping felt amazing afterwards, a successful weekend!