Party Time

After a few busy weekends of racing it was time to take a weekend just to relax and catch up with some friends. Plus we are in to the heart of summer, so there are plenty of outdoor opportunities for relaxing and socializing (plus plenty of daylight for working out besides).

Adam and Audrey were having a get together, and my friend Sarah's parents are selling their amazing house and were having a party to say goodbye to it. Both events gave me a chance to catch up to people I hadn't seen in quite a while, some since I was in highschool.

Saying goodbye to Sarah's family house was a great nostalgic experience, just getting to wander around and remember all the fun I had there, all the cookies baked, study sessions for various classes, many games of Foosball, movie watching, time hanging out and talking, and lots more fun besides.

Goodbye House!

Aside from the walk down memory lane it was really interesting to look at the layout and architecture of the house now that I am also a home owner. Everything in the house is gorgeous and designed just the way the family wanted, but there are definitely things I would do differently if I were designing my own house, mostly because I have different hobbies and interests than this family. Some things, like the hidden door behind the bookcase leading to the master bath, the greenhouse built as part of the south side of the house, the multiple patios, and the fire pole between their sons office and bedroom are really, really cool!

Tri Tri again

The weekend after Grandma's was the Tri-loppet. There were some big changes to the race this year, with prize money being added and racing canoes disqualified from the prize money category. This meant all the fast racers would be in stock boats, which I have always done this race in. I end up with a huge time deficit coming out of the water every year and then see how much I can make up on the bike and run. I've only been beat by one person in the run in the 7 or so years I've been doing this race, so my goal is always to throw down the fastest run time. When the rule about stock boats was announced I debated finding a fast paddle partner and trying to contest for the win, but I have always had my most fun in this race running up from behind and not worrying about finishing place.

When spring came around focus went to marathons and I didn't get out paddling at all. This continued through most of the spring; for whatever reason I really wasn't looking forward to paddling. Erik finally lit a fire under me to get some boat time in so I would be ready for the Chippewa Triathlon. My first paddle of the year was out on the Mississippi with my friend Emily, and she gave me some good technique pointers that have made my paddling feel much more solid this year. That and even from the first time on the water I felt like I had some amount of technique and muscle memory in place, which is encouraging. Because of the late start to paddling though, my scheme of racing for the win at Tri-loppet kind of evaporated. Instead I decided to paddle with one of the Loppet kids and then see what I could do from there. My partner was a high school Sophomore named Quinlan. He had at least been in a boat several times and actually didn't have too bad of a paddle stroke. My steering is slowly improving, so we also ran a somewhat straighter line than I have in years past, so I was only a couple minutes slower out of the water than I have been the last few years.

Working on my steering

A group of EMVC folks decided to put together a relay team, so my goal was to give them a run for their money. Paul and his daughter Kathryn did the paddle leg. I figured if I were near them coming out of the boat I would have a chance to beat their relay team. I ended up beating them out of the water by 1:30 or so, and hammered the run to build up as big of a gap over Mike "The Moose" knowing Galen would be faster than me on the bike leg. Alex Reich also got out of the water a bit before me and I wanted to chase him down. I passed many people for it only being a 5k. I was 62nd out of the water, and by the end of the run I was probably in the top 25. My streak of posting the fastest run time was ended however, with a young fella named Patrick crushing the rest of the field on the run leg.

Finishing up the bike leg

I didn't catch Alex on the run leg, but I did catch him on the bike leg and moved into the top 20. At one point I saw Galen at another point of the course behind me and figured I was safe from getting caught by the EMVC team. I managed to work my way up to 17th place, just under 15 minutes behind the winner. Quinlan went on to win his age group, he was a hard worker, and I really enjoyed paddling with him. My run time was my fastest ever, by a good margin too, and my overall finishing time was 1 second slower than last year. Pretty good consistency for a nearly 2 hour race under varying conditions.

EMVC Triloppet Crew, great racing everyone!

After the race I stuck around to visit with folks and help tear down the course, drinking over a liter of Gatorade in the process I'm sure. I was feeling pretty tired, but Caitlin and Brian Gregg were talking about heading out for a rollerski that afternoon, so I would have felt lazy just calling it a day. Instead I met up with Jeff and Rob for a couple hours of running on the Mendota river bottom trails. It is nice and shaded down there, but I still went through an entire water bottle in the 2 hours we were out running.

Keep on Keepin' on

I'm catching up on my last month or so of adventures, so hopefully I'll get a few posts up this week. The weekend after the Chippewa Triathlon I was up in Duluth for the Gary Bjorkland half marathon. I knew after B2B this spring I wouldn't be in the mood to train for another marathon this summer, so I threw in the lottery for the Grandma's half marathon instead, and convinced Nate to do the same (it didn't take much convincing). We figured that way we could run the race, hop on bicycles, and head back out to cheer for people running the full marathon. When the weekend started to look very likely to be wet we bailed on the biking idea and decided to cheer by car instead. I haven't been doing a lot of running, but I've been keeping in shape, so I figured a 1:15 was a reasonable goal for the race.

I picked up my sister and her boyfriend at the airport Friday afternoon and we headed up to the Expo for bib pickup. I also signed up for the Birkie and got a free shirt for doing so. I decided to give the skate race another go this year, since the elites are getting their bib numbers based on finishing place again, and because I was so close to breaking in to the top 30 and really want to take another stab at it. We headed to my brothers Girlfriend Jackie's parents for pasta supper and sleeping. They were very generous to cook and provide sleeping places for a bunch of folks they had never met before, and they have a bunch of fun pets running around that kept all of us amused.

Race morning was chilly and rain was threatening. Nate and I wandered around a bit just taking in the sights. Neither of us really had a great idea how the day would turn out. I lined up near the front and chatted a bit with my friend Kim Robinson and with a couple River Falls Alums who I have finished close to in other races. They were hoping to run in the 1:13 range, so I didn't figure I would be racing with them today. I did get pulled out a bit fast in the excitement, then forced myself to settle in and let people past me. I kept things under control for the first 5 miles or so, until the River Falls boys Shad and Philly passed me. I tucked on with them for a while but was not confident enough in my fitness to stick with them.

Soon after that I passed one of the top women and she latched on behind me. I made it my mission to help pull her up to the next gal visible about 50 meters ahead of us. This is my kind of racing, doing work for someone else helps me forget how much pain I'm putting myself in. This was at about mile 8, still a long 5 miles to go and the pace was creeping into uncomfortable range, and continuing to increase. I made it my goal to pull the gal with me as far up as possible and just kept slowly ramping things up to see how well she would hold on. She stuck right with me and at about mile 11 made a big move by me and got a bit of a gap. The prospect of 10 extra pushups at the finish didn't sit well with me though, so I redoubled my efforts and tagged back on.

I let her do the work for a bit until I started to hear many people cheering for Adam Swank. He is a super fast Duluth skier who in my mind is most famous for breaking his pelvis before the Vasaloppet one year so he couldn't skate it, so instead he switched to the classic race, double poled the entire race, and won it. I haven't even been close to beating him in a ski race I don't think, but the chance to beat him in any kind of race was good motivation to crank the pace even faster for the last mile. I dropped him and the girl I had been running with and managed to finish in 1:15:29. A minute slower than my PR, but with only one speed workout since April I felt pretty happy with how things turned out.

I stuck around to cheer Nate in, then we headed back to the car to go cheer for Jeff, who was running the full marathon. We met Meghan McGree at the bus loading spot and she tagged along to cheer with us too. Jeff was hurting when we saw him at mile 18, but still running strong and on pace for a sub 2:40, super impressive! He set a huge PR, running 2:40:05. After getting to his finish Meghan and I headed back out to cheer for my sister. She was moving well and running all the times I saw her. She was running with her friend Emily, both of their first marathons. They ran way smarter than I did for my first one and were clicking off pretty steady miles until Emily started to have bad stomach troubles. My sister finally left her around mile 21 and finished on her own. Emily sat for about a 1/2 hour then got back up and also finished! I'm really impressed with them sticking out what turned out to be a long and wet race. They are both already talking about another one, so I'm excited to see how running treats them in the future.

I stayed with Casey, Emily, and the rest of their crew that night up by Two Harbors. We stayed in the same group of Condo's that I stayed in with my friend Dave and his family the first time I ran Grandma's so that brought back a bunch of very fun memories. I took a dip in the frigid Lake Superior, and the next morning we headed up to Gooseberry Falls before making the trek back to the cities to get Casey and Shane on their flight back to Colorado.