Lac Qui Parle 30K ... and more

Well, I guess I have to back all the way up to Thursday to catch up on things. Lionel Cheng has a very good post on the Ultramarathon Man movie. I'll not try to repeat everything here. Suffice it to say that I seemed to succumb to the motion sicknses that Lionel mentioned at the end of his post. Go figure. Felt better when I looked away from the screen, and when I got home. Also, after Dean finished the 50 in 50 in 50, he took off for 90 days and ran 1300 miles back to St. Louis, by himself. Just him and his credit card and Camel Pak. He has a super understanding family, apparently. He has a wife and two young children who life in CA. I don't know, but if I were his wife after the 50 in 50 I'd want hime to come home for a while, introvert or not. But I guess that's between them. Just my humble opinion.

I'm beginning work on the September issue of RTC News and I'm in need of articles from you, the readers. My rambling thoughts and running experiences aren't nearly vast or interesting enough to fill a newsletter, so I need your help! I have two articles and am hoping for a couple more, but would sure like to have more content than that. The articles do not have to be marathon race reports. Race reports on all distances are welcome, or anything else that's remotely running related. Being it's vacation season, I have to think that some of you have done some running out of town, race or no race! If you can send me something, please let me know ASAP. I need to get this to the printer the week before RAGNAR (August 22/23). Thanks!

Here's the link to the August Running Room eMagazine. Lots of interesting, informative articles, plus a raspberry muffin recipe from me on page 14, and a 20% off coupon on page 15.

From Mick King, massage therapist/Stress Solutions: Every Monday and Friday in August, or any other day if you ask, a massage, either therapeutic or relaxation will be $25.00. Yup, just $25, either an hour or half hour, your choice. I'll assume that everyone will want a hour and you can see the available times. (see below) Note: I don't really want to fill each time slot listed, but to be flexible I offer early and late times. I will only take 5-maybe-6 appointments each day, so that I can give everyone a good massage.8:00, 9:30, 11:00, 1:00, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30, 7:00. You can contact Mick (Stone Barn building on 16th St SW) at 951-0647 or email.

My husband, Ted, is in need of old, used adult-sized bikes. He volunteers at Hawthorne Education Center and there are clients there that do not have transportation and he fixes up bikes to give to them, and he has a waiting list right now, but no bikes 'in stock'. (I guess that's good and bad ... it's nice to have some free space in the garage/basement. But it is a very good cause and a use for bikes that would otherwise be trashed.) The bikes do not have to be in working order. He has quite an inventory of parts. If he can't fix it up, he'll use it for parts and scrap what's left. You can email me if you have a bike you'd like to get rid of. Thank you much.

BTW...Chris Koch and Rob Mitchell qualified for the Western States 100 miler with their sub-11 hour finish at Voyageur Trail, their first 50-miler. ;-)

RTC members celebrating birthdays in August: James Bennett, Haraldur Bjarnason (milestone), Alina Bridges, Pat Brown, Brandon Bungum, David DeLone, Dean Ferber, Alan Fritsche, Linda Gentling, Rosemary Harnly, Greg Heetland, Brad Kautz, Joey Keillor, Kathy Kenny, Sonja Kranz, Suzanne LaPalm, Kelly Lyndgaard, Gary Malat, Marilyn Monson (milestone), Laura Nelson, Steve Norton, Bill Oehler, Lora Powell, Pam Setera, Deb Thomford, Roger Vos, Francis Whalen, Fred Woolman. Happy Birthday one and all!

So. Yesterday was the Wild Goose Chase 30K near Milan, MN. Judy Weller, Betsy Baartman and I (Suzanne LaPalm wasn't able to go :-( took a little road trip to see what this second annual race was all about. We left Friday for Montevideo, where we stayed. After checking in the hotel, we went to the race headquarters at Lac Qui Parle State Park to check in and get our numbers. The storm that blew through here Thursday morning unleashed a lot of destruction in the Monte area. The park still had no electricity, and my relatives with whom we were going to stay, had no power or water on their farm as well. We then went to Milan for the "pasta feed" at the More Cafe. The smallest, and most charming, pasta feed ever. There were 3 tables of runners at any given moment in the little small-town cafe (the sign on the outside of the nondescript building was a neon green posterboard in the window). We all had the spaghetti plate, which included a salad, two slices of toast and a giant meatball on top of the pasta. All for $5.50 + tax. A local older lady was in the cafe with her steno pad and camera taking photos of everyone for the Appleton paper. So we might be in the Appleton Press couple of weeks. She thought next week's big story would be storm coverage. She was so cute. We then stopped in the grocery store (I wanted a bite of Dove dark chocolate). Great little store. The selection of imported Scandinavian foods was better than I'd seen anywhere. Even Byerly's. Pearl sugar, Fruktsuppe (fruit soup) mix, Rømmegrøt (sour cream pudding) mix (which I purchased), Swedish gooseberry preserves, Lingonberry preserves, ... We then drove the 18.6 mile course, which was around Lac Qui Parle lake which is a DNR wildlife refuge so there were no buildings on the lake. Very pretty site for fishing, kayaking, bird watching. We noticed that it wasn't completely flat, especially the first and last couple of miles, but the middle miles were very flat.

The forecast was for warm (96 degrees), breezy (SE 20-30 mph), sunny and humid weather. The race info contained very detailed info about what they'd do if the heat would cause shortening, stopping or cancellation of the event. The overnight low was 61 which was pretty pleasant but it was still humid, breezy and sunny. For some reason, on Friday night I just could not fall asleep, so the only sleep I got was from about 1:30 am to 4 am. Arggghhhh. Not the way to face an 18.6 mile training run.

I wanted to run this just as a long run, not race it as I've never raced anything as long as a 30K. The longest I've tried to race is a half marathon, and I'd always had cramping problems in that distance as well. Who else did I see from Rochester participating in the full 30K (there was a 3-person relay as well)? David Nagorney! Well, we got going, chasing the goose on the bike, and it didn't take long for me to get sweaty. ;-) Probably 2 miles. As we passed 7 miles, we were on the far side of the lake heading SE, right into a stiff wind. While I appreciated the cooling effect, it was also a drag running into it for about 9 miles. About mile 12, I saw a guy seemlingly struggling. I asked how he was doing. He said he was pretty tired and had never run that far before. I asked him if he wanted some calories and gave him my bag of Sport Beans.

When we turned NW again toward the finish, and it felt like we were running in an oven. I again had problems with leg cramps starting about 11 or 12 miles despite my slow long-run pace and 4 Endurolyte caps, a package of Clif Bloks, half a pack of Power Bursts, about 3 or 4 bottles of water (I carried a bottle) and probably 6-8 cups of Powerade. After all those fluids, I was in the port-a-potties, bathrooms more than 10 times before we left town. Overhydrated? Possibly. But I sweat a lot and was covered in salt at the finish. Dehydrated and that caused the cramps? Who knows. I just can't figure this cramping thing out and I have no idea what to do to prevent them. Tired, old story. My time wasn't what I thought it would be, even at long-run pace, but we all finished, and with medals. There were 40 or less runners who ran the whole 30K and 60 possible medals (and 6 overall cash prizes) so we had pretty good odds of bringing one home. Everyone did, unless you were unfortunate enough to be in an age group with more than 3 people. And some age groups weren't represented at all, like female 40-44. Go figure. The race was very well supported. Less than 100 total runners including relayers, yet he had 2 ambulances and many, many EMS folk on bikes/motorcycles patrolling the course, probably due to the heat. All in all? A very fun trip.



Today I picked another 5 gallons of green beans, more sugar snaps, jalapenos, cherry tomatoes and broccoli from the garden and we cleaned out the peas and pea fencing. Guess I'll be freezing more beans in the (very) near future!

Have a wonderful, runner-ful day!