Dropping Dew Points!

Yes! The dew point is dropping. And the low tonight is forecast to be 57. Wonderful weather for running. and it feels great to have the windows open on the house again.

Another county fair update:


I found out on Sunday evening that my chocolate dessert got the Best of Show ribbon, which meant an additional $25 premium for a total winnings of $60. Whoo hoo! RTC member Jim Postier's mother-in-law is involved in the Winona County fair and I guess she came over here to scope out our fair and she remembered my dessert. She said it's a big deal to win as there are so many entries and competition. That made my day, in what's been a stressful week. More on that later. In the photo above, my chocolate curls look more like spiders. They dropped in the heat and humidity.

The cookie monsters received their monthly cookie drop on Monday (the blue ribbon peanut butter cookie recipe, dipped in Ghirardelli chocolate):

Pictured, left to right: Dan Edwards, Jim Benike, Gary Malat, Jim Postier, Ross Hamernik, Jim Martinson, Don Gabrielson.

Congratulations to Mary Chestolowski for winning the Red Wing Ramble Half Marathon on Saturday. She's a very talented runner and is in terrific shape.

Here's an online version of the Rochester Half Marathon ad that's appeared in the Rochester magazine the last few issues. (Thank you Mike Schmitt for the link.) Hope you're all planning to run either the half or the 5K (or volunteer!) It's the premier event put on by the RTC and is a terrific race.

There's a full-time assistant manager position open at Running Room. If you're interested, send your resume to Running Room, 711 S. Broadway, Rochester, MN 55904. Lots of new clothes in the store:

Pictured clockwise from upper left: Women's Under Armour, women's Nike, women's asics, men's Nike. I'm going to have to go and try on the pink Nike. I like the nice wide neck. I don't like tight necklines.

Paul Thomford reports that the Peanut Butter Chocolate Bread recipe from a week or two ago is a keeper. I agree. Thanks for the feedback, Paul!

Spotted arriving at Running Room, RTC member Sandra Dalquist. ;-)

The movie Spirit of the Marathon will be shown in Des Moines on October 17/18 during their marathon events. Tickets available on active.com.

The attorney that I work for has been in Europe and I had to handle a real estate sale this week by myself. Normally a sale is pretty straightforward, not nearly as involved as a purchase. Well, just about everything that could go wrong, or could be complicated, was, and sometimes many times over. It closed this afternoon and I couldn't be happier to have that behind me. I also chipped a tooth yesterday and had the pleasure of a mouth full of novocaine for the afternoon today. Well, I suppose I better get something going for dinner. My mouth still doesn't feel ready for food. That's a GOOD thing. ;-)

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." --William Faulkner

Enjoy the beautiful day.

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!

Liquid libations

Anyone wishing to join fellow runners at Whistle Binkie's on the Lake at 6:00 pm on Thursday, whether or not you're going to Ultramarathon Man, is welcome!

Fair report

Chocolate chip cookies (the ones with oatmeal, pecans, dark chocolate chips): No ribbon. Zip. Nadda. Zilch.

Peanut butter cookies: Blue ribbon.

HyVee chocolate dessert baking contest: First place! And $35! (Photo in post below) Holly Ebel from the P-B emailed that there were 60 entries in the contest.

Run for Abby update: The group running from the cities to Mayo is gathering on Sunday morning at the Douglas Trailhead in Pine Island at 8:30 and will begin running toward Rochester at 9:00 am. The run will be supported (water, Powerade, GU). If you'd like to run with them (they'd greatly appreciate it), you could meet them in Pine Island and run all the way in, or start in Douglas or Rochester and run toward them and then back toward Rochester ... lots of options. They would like to see some Rochester runners out there in this effort to raise funds for and awareness of childhood cancer.

RASC Time Trial Championships For all of you thinking of doing the Treadman duathlon this year, here is a great opportunity to tune-up on the course. This year the RASC Time Trial Championships will be run on the 20 mile loop that will be used for the Treadman Duathlon in September. TT dates are Aug 5, Aug 12, Aug 19. In addition on Aug 26th there will be a 3.39 mile Hill TT which starts at the Douglas trail where it crosses in Douglas to the top of Genoa at CR 105. The way the results will be scored is as follows: everyone can race all three days for the 20 mile loop and one attempt at the Hill TT. Your two best times from the 20 miler added to your Hill TT will give your resulting time. Start times will be 6pm and go off in 30 second intervals. Vehicle parking in Douglas at the Douglas Trail lot on 75th. There will be prizes for the top TT finishers (gift certificates to Rochester Cycle and Fitness). Currently our plan is to have 3 divisions: Men's Aero, Men's Stock and Women's Open. If enough women ride the events we may subdivide the women into 2 divisions (either by age or bike type). In addition, there will be special prizes for any riders who can complete the 20-mile loop at an average speed of over 25 mph (for men) or 22 mpg (for women). Note: no one in the last 2 Treadman events achieved these speeds!

Ran with Lisa and Bruce, then decided to go to the garden.


Today's gleanings from the garden: beans, beans and more beans; sugar snaps (under the broccoli and tomatoes); a few shell peas (and that's it for them). Looks like I'm going to have to start putting up beans. I've got another bag full in the refrigerator. When I got home from the garden, I was sweaty and dirty so decided to quick mow the lawn. (Still hadn't showered since the run.) My oh my that shower felt great! But by 10:30 am, my legs were toast! Then the fair (with niece Kaleigh) ...

I'm so ready to sit down for a while.

Looks like a scorcher of an end to the week expected. Our 30K around Lac Qui Parle lake should be nice and warm. ;-)

Carry on.

Yes, I'm still alive ...

... and cooking. Pretty much literally. At least I'm not having to spend the days and nights sleeping in a 4-H animal barn at the fair. Could be worse, as they say. A couple of us gals are going out to the Montevideo area to run a 30K on Saturday. High is forecast for 90 degrees. Lovely. Good thing it starts at 7:30 AM.

So what have I been cooking?

This is my entry into the Hy-Vee chocolate dessert contest at the fair. I was sweating (literally!) the whipped cream all day long. I decided to bring everything down to the fairgrounds, unassembled, and put it all together there at the last minute (thank you Ted for driving me down the street with the food vendors, right up to the front door!) and then quickly slip it into the refrigerator case so the whipped cream wouldn't weep/melt/separate or whatever was bound to happen in the heat and humidity. As to how it looks today, I don't know. I can only hope it held up OK. I did stabilize the whipped cream. BTW: When I phoned someone about this, she told me that all the chocolate desserts are given away TODAY and this evening to the fair workers and the public. Stop by ... you just might get a bite. I also entered my Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk cookies and Peanut Butter Cookies. I have my fingers crossed.

Tomorrow after the 6:00 pm practice run at Running Room is an outdoor party with FOOD*FUN*MUSIC to be had by all. It's a farewell for staff going off to college. Also to be given away as prizes are passes to Ultramarathon Man which is showing at Galaxy Cine 14 at 7:30 pm on Thursday. I'm supposed to be getting passes as well. If you're interested in one or two, please email me. First come, first served. Assuming they actually do show up.

Today I was sitting at the Honda dealer having the 6-month check-up done on the Accord, stressing about this real estate sale which has complications and I have to handle by myself, fretting that I wouldn't be at home when the UPS guy is supposed to drop off the Ultramarathon Man tickets, and Matt calls and tells me that the battery on the van is dead. They were out camping ... he left the door open, he "guesses". When it rains it pours ... Lovely. Jump it.

Our Ragnar Relay team could use another volunteer or two. This is what I know about what is required: Volunteers must be at least 16 years old, be able to provide their own transportation, and be physically able to assist with course set-up, course direction, exchange point management, or time-keeping. We'd be so very much obliged. I'm sure some cookies could be in it for a volunteer. ;-) You can contact me or our captain if you're interested.

Congratulations to Chris Koch and Rob Mitchell who completed the Voyageur Trail 50-miler on Saturday in a time of 9:38 for 22nd and 23rd places. This was the first 50-miler for both of them. They reported perfect running conditions and no run-ins with trees. ;-)

From Mike Schmitt: Info on some demographics on a survey of runners. Separated into male and female responses.

From Chris O'Brien: A Hash House Harriers marathon, including a beer on every loop. Video clip

This Fri-Sun, some runners are running 75 miles from the cities to Mayo to raise funds for childhood cancer. The run is called 3 Days for Abby. They will be running from Pine Island down the Douglas Trail into Rochester and would like some company on their run. I'll post more info as to times, etc. when I have it.

I'll put in a shamless plug for RTC board member/race director Kevin Torgerson. He's performing in Beauty & The Beast in Stewartville (they do a great job by the way--I've been to several). Shows are Friday and Saturday, August 1 and 2 at 7:30 pm and Sunday August 3rd at 2 pm then the next weekend Friday and Saturday, August 8th and 9th at 7:30 pm and Sunday August 10th at 2pm. The costumes are very interesting and some great performances are awaiting you. You can save a buck for your gas mileage by calling to reserve tickets ahead of time at 533-1432.

Well, that's it! Stay cool.

Douglas Trail

Nice day for Douglas. I finished soaking with sweat, but this one can be, and has been, hotter than blazes so it was nice to have the more moderate temps. I ran 1:26:44 (on my watch) for 7:53 pace so that's halfway decent. I ran what felt comfortable to at times pushing it a bit. I actually won a watermelon! Congrats to Ron Giles, first overall in 1:04.24, and Mary Chestolowski, first female and third overall in 1:11.52. Thank you also to Sue Christian and Peg Arnold for taking finish line photos. This race also marked the debut of our new clock, which arrived this week. I like the nice big numbers.



Tom Woo photos (thank you Tom ... you're a great photographer):



Douglas Trail 2008

For some reason, they don't all show up in the slideshow. Click on the link below the slideshow to see all the thumbnails.

Ran/walked an extra 4 miles afterwards with Ron Giles. (Thank you for tolerating my slow pace and cramping legs!) The cookies seemed to be well-received. No passes to Ultramarathon Man materialized. Sorry about that. Only flyers. Passes will be available at the outdoor party after the 6:00 pm practice session at Running Room on Wednesday.

Congrats to Deb Thomford who placed 3rd out of 346 in her age division at the Bix 7 in Iowa today. That's a huge race. Kudos, kudos.

Congrats to RTC member Joann Johnson who has complete all 19 TRAM bike rides, raising money for MS.

Here's a pretty fabulous recipe that I discovered in the Rochester Methodist Hospital Auxiliary Cookbook and made yesterday. The whole family approves.

Chocolate Peanut Banana Bread
2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 c. chocolate chips
1/3 c. peanuts, chopped
1/3 c. peanut butter
1/3 c. milk
2 bananas, mashed
1 egg
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, mix bananas, milk, peanut butter, oil and egg. Add dry ingredients to banana mixture. Mix until moistened. Stir in chocolate chips 93/4 cup only). Pour in loaf pan that is greased on bottom. Sprinkle chopped peanuts and rest of chocolate chips over top. (Push them into the batter a bit, I discovered, or they'll fall out when you take it out of the pan.) Bake at 350 for 60 minutes. Cool 10 minutes, then loosen sides of bread and remove loaf. Cool.

Yesterday, Ted and I were getting ready to take a look at the oldest RTC clock which has ceased functioning and thus prompted the purchase of the new $3600 clock, which looked pretty wonderful this morning I must say. Ted went downstairs to get a drop light and reported that there was a problem in the basement. Water. Coming from the furnace/air conditioner unit. I took the cover off and we couldn't see anything wrong and didn't want to mess with the sealed unit. Eventually deduced this morning that the drain hose was clogged, after a warm night without air conditioning. Oh well, call to the repairman averted.

I've spent a fair amount of time looking at the inerds of the clock but it's slow going. The numerals are mechanical put there are lots of electronics inside. Hmmmm.... Don't know what to make of all that stuff...

Well, I'd best get down to the garden and pick more green beans.

Cheers!

Another week has come and gone

Summer seems to be flying by. Next week we bid adieu to July already. Unreal.

News from USATF: Sprinter and Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones has asked for pardon for her conviction on lying about taking performance enhancing drugs. Here's brand new USATF CEO Doug Logan's reponse.

Douglas Trail 11 mile (or 2 mile) is tomorrow. For those who aren't familiar with the Douglas trail, it's paved. It's not a true trail run. Also, if you're training for a marathon and are scheduled for more miles, lots of folks add on a few miles after they're done with the race. Come on out! More info on RTC website. The info page for that race appears to be down, but if you click on the Entry Form link, you can get all the information. Cookies are baked, so the poll at right is (un)officially over. The winner is/was: Oatmeal Super Chocolate Chunk with Pecans. Fresh out of the oven. Might make a second batch as this one made 34 cookies.

I was able to secure some free tickets to Ultramarathon Man, the movie, in return for promoting it. Since it's showing next Thursday, I will bring the tickets to Douglas tomorrow to be distributed there. I'll talk to race director Paul Anderson about giving some as prizes others as door prizes. Don't know how many tickets there are ... they'll arrive late this afternoon.

Mario Minelli has qualified for the World Championship Duathlon in Rimini, Italy which takes place on September 28. Congratulations, Mario! That's fantastic. Check out his blog to see how his training is going. So ... he won't be able to compete in TreadMan this year on September 27. ;-( Hoping that lots of you will! It's for all levels of ability ... beginner to experienced. Want to experiment with multisport training? Try TNT on Thursdays at Foster Arend. Except do a run-bike-run instead of swim-bike-run. There's a volunteer there every week to watch the bikes. We also need volunteers for TreadMan. Please contact me if you'd like to volunteer.

Spotted running Wednesday evening ... Tom Woo. Not a very good shot. It's shot by me, out the back of my car ... while driving. Yikes. I probably shouldn't do that.

That goofy Glamour stilletto run took place in Moscow this year. A photo and links to other photos on RunMinnesota blog.

I've spent some time looking through old RTC newsletters from Roger Spee. Just looking at the spring 1979 issue, a club member called Will Cloney, then race director of the Boston Marathon, to learn of the new qualifying times. Boy, the internet sure has changed things, hasn't it? Back then, the men's open class qualifying time was changed to 2:50. Age 40+, 3:10. Women: 3:20. Also in that issue, registration for "City of Lakes" marathon, which morphed into TCM, was $4.00 up until October 14th. After that, $15 until race day (note the late date) which was October 21. Looking at the results for what was then called the Sundance 11-Mile Trail Race (now Douglas Trail), some times for familiar names: Roger Spee (59:34), Jerry Goodrich (63:39), Al Gilman (63:40), Bruce Turlington (75:44 husband of Marie Boyd), Ed Creagan (81:09), Mary Fynbo (now Mary Wille): 86:23, Lin Gentling (94:36), Jeanne Block (115:37). Out of 141 finishers, there were only 20 women! Back then, it seems that a majority of the road races had an accompanying 2-mile jogger. Fetzer and Douglas seem to be the only ones that have hung on to that shorter distance event.

Well, suppose I should post this and get on with my day.

Thought for the day, from Pattisue Plummer, 1992 olympian: "Racing teaches us to challenge ourselves. It teaches us to push behyond where we thought we could go. It helps us find out what we are made of."

In the spirit of the currently wildly popular Batman movie ... "Tune in tomorrow. Same bat-time. Same bat-channel." (You might have had to watch the show in the 1960's to remember that one!)

Ha det bra.