Running the Kettle Moraine

There are few places in the Upper Midwest where you can trail run for miles without seeing a road (at least one with cars); where the sounds of nature overcome those of mankind and the trails are well maintained.  The North Shore in Minnesota and Pictured Rocks in the UP come to mind.  It seems that to truly get away we need to travel to the bumpy lands where the food chain is in question.  Though I have not logged mountain running time, I expect this is true.  In the Midwest, we take what we can get.

Well I know a place where the getting is good.  I’d like to share with you a gem of a running location: the Kettle Moraine State Forest.  This singletrack wonderland in SE Wisconsin is broken into two regions: the Southern and Northern units.  You can’t go wrong with either section.

The best trail through both locations is the Ice Age Trail.  This is a 1000 mile route that traces the maximum extent of the most recent ice sheet to cover Wisconsin about 20,000 years ago.  Reminders of this event were left behind in the form of glacial features that left the land rugged, rocky and dramatic.  Here is a quick primer on those glacial features:

Kettles – The leading edge of the glacier acted as a bulldozer, creating a frontal till.  Blocks of ice were left buried in the till in the glacier’s retreat, which melted, leaving behind circular depressions in the land; some 200 feet deep.  Lakes typically form in these depressions.

Moraines – The glacier moved material in two main methods: material lifted and carried along, and material bulldozed in the frontal till.  This material left behind upon the glacier’s retreat created hills almost 350 feet in height.

Drumlins – As the glacier retreated, the land eroded into the vacated area, forming conical or parabolic hills.  These hills actually point in the direction of the retreating glacier.

Kames – Streams formed on top of the glacier, which sometime broke through to the land surface below.  Sand and gravel carried by the stream were deposited below, forming conical hills.

Eskers – Cracks formed in the glacier, allowing sand and gravel to drop to the land surface below.  Narrow ridges were formed at these locations.

The results are dramatic and beautiful.

The Northern Unit is located about 45 minutes north of Milwaukee and encompasses about 30 miles of the Ice Age trail, with 132 total trail miles.  The trails through this section are mostly wooded with very well-maintained singletrack.  My favorite trailhead is located on Cty Hwy H, just south of Kewaskum.  Heading north from this location we are treated with rolling hills and nice views.  The sounds of mankind recede along this section.

The Southern Unit is located about 35 miles southwest of Milwaukee and encompasses another 30 miles of the Ice Age Trail with 160 total trail miles.  There is significant prairie in this section, which the DNR is working to restore to its past extent.  This area will eventually be the largest prairie east of the Mississippi.   The scenery is beautiful and just a little flatter the Northern section.  My favorite trailhead is located along Hwy 67 and Road X.  Head north for the woods and hills, or south to the prairies.

Here are a few races held in the Kettle Moraine that take full advantage of the trails and scenery:

• North Face Endurance Challenge
• Kettle Moraine 100
• Lapham Peak Colorama 10k
• Ice Age Trail 50
• Glacial Trail 50
• Blog from those that live and run here:  Lapham Peak Trail Runners

I recently returned from a vacation with my family, staying at my sister’s place in the Southern Unit.  Morning after morning and mile after mile of the Ice Age Trail.  Sublime.  Good for the soul.  I also had the opportunity to introduce trail running to my 11 year-old son.  What kid doesn’t like to run in the woods?  (See previous post)  We had a blast together.

Which brings me to my next big step: my first 100 miler.  I’ve run the North Face 50 mile in the Southern Unit many times before.  The Kettle Moraine 100 looms next June!

Running a Family

The other day my 14 year-old daughter felt the need to pull me aside for a serious heart-to-heart before things got out of hand.  “Dad, I don’t want to run.”  She was trying to break it to me easy, afraid she would hurt my feelings.  I was taken aback.  Do I really put that much pressure on my family to take part in my personal addiction?

My wife Beth and I are raising four children between the ages of 11 and 20, and so far no one has shown a desire to try running as a sport.  Worthless Dog won’t even last to the mailbox.  I admit, I would be pleased as punch if one of my kids became a runner, but I sure hope I am not putting emotional pressure on them with the 5k registrations and invitations for a quick run; especially the younger, more impressionable ones.  How does one encourage children in running, in a healthy way?

If my children choose to read books and play, I am OK with that.  I am a firm believer though, in a life balance between the intellectual, spiritual and physical.  My children seem to have a firm grounding in the first two, but I worry about the third.  Is it because I take my sport to such extremes (in my children’s eyes) that I may actually be discouraging them?  If I were merely a jogger, would they be jogging with me?  Their equating anything physically uncomfortable as “bad” worries me.

What I do not want to encourage in my children is the mantra of discomfort avoidance.  How do I teach my children that great things in life can be accomplished if you are willing to suffer a bit?  I see kids with a lot of physical drive, accomplishing remarkable things in sports.  How were they motivated to gut out hill repeats?  What role did Taylor Phinney’s or Dakota Jones’ parents take in encouraging their children?

I can only hope that, by my example, I am planting seeds for later on in life; that they are not ready yet for a commitment to the physical.

Which brings me to my youngest.  My 11 year-old boy is a natural runner.  In play, I cannot catch him if he doesn’t want me to.  He can go from rest to 6:30 pace in nothing flat, with a smile on his face, on technical terrain, with beautiful form.  He also desperately wants to please me.  I am afraid that if he takes up running, it would be for the wrong reasons, and then hate it for the rest of his life.  But I so would love to encourage him in running a bit more competitively.  How young is too young for this?

So here is my plan:  Worthless Dog is within a few years of the great yummy bistro in the sky.  If I get Replacement Dog, of a breed conducive to distance running, and make my boy responsible for its upkeep and health...  A dog needs to run, right?  Wish me luck!

Afton Trail Run 2012 50k Race Report - Mary

Dave had a fabulous run. His report is just great. Sounds like he really got inspired after last year's debacle, which wasn't entirely due to his inadequate training. I was at the finish last year and it was a very hard course and it was very hot. They had lots of DNFs and even more folks complaining. Ask Dave M. too.

Dave, you did a great job of describing the course and the condition of the trails and the perfect day for the race. Since I'm the "historian" for that race-it's true that when we first started it, the weather was almost always coolish. And there was one year where we had exactly the same conditions as last week. Perhaps it only made it to 95 degrees rather than closer to 100, but it was bloody hot all week. We were scrambling to buy ice in Woodbury, etc. Anyway the day of the race, it was like a miracle. And that's what happened last weekend. It was actually cool at the start this year. I was almost wishing for a long sleeved shirt as we waited for the start.

My story is that I went in to the race thinking that I would only run 25K, but since I was registered for the 50K, I'd take the early start and get it over with. I started out with Wally and saw a few folks I know from the trail running community, although there aren't many anymore. Everyone is way younger than I am. The trails were in great shape and by the time I got to the first aid station things felt good and I decided that if I could make the cut-off for the first loop I'd stick it out for the second. I'll admit there was a woman who I kept leap frogging with, who appeared to be in my age group (50+). She is tall and really tackles the uphills. As Dave said, the volunteers at the aid stations were absolutely amazing. This younger trail running community is quite an inspiration and John Storkamp deserves a lot of credit for his leadership. It was fun to see Dave's wife, Beth at the major aid station.

So I made it with over 30 minutes to spare, where I had to make the decision to continue or drop. To be truthful, by then I had made the decision that I did not want to be listed as a DNF. Mike Reneau from Hudson, who some of you may know, told me he'd wait for me, so I figured "go for it". The "tall girl" wasted no time at the aid stations and was long gone by the time Mike reassured me.

As is always the case for me in the longer trail runs, it is usually a pretty solitary experience. But the aid stations are closer together at Afton, so that keeps a person going. And early in the second loop, Jan O'Brien, who became a fabulous trail runner and has of late worked the first aid station, introduced me as "the pioneer of trail ultras for women in MN". I'm not sure she's right, but it was a very nice compliment and really kept me going. I guess it was the weather and the trail conditions, but the second loop went really well too. The time seemed to not be an issue at this point and I even was looking at my watch to consider if I could break 8 hours, which is about my average for this course. 

It wasn't until I had about 4 miles left to go that I saw tall girl again. Since we hadn't leap frogged in the second loop I was leery to pass her again, but she was running with someone else and busy in conversation so I passed, figuring she'd pass me on the last hill. After a potty stop at the nice new bathrooms, the folks at the last aid station cheered me in up the hill and gave the best encouragement of the day. Dave's favorite section (not mine) was in much drier condition by this point and the last few miles seemed to fly by. I passed Jim Baillargeion, from Sommerset, with two miles to go. He was very encouraging. The finish line was a very welcome sight and my time was 7:26. And I beat the tall girl by 2 minutes. BTW, she has a name-it's Linda Frank and she's from Hudson. She's a newbie at the 50K, in her 50s, and has lots of potential. 

Next year is the 20th anniversary of ATR and if any of you are even thinking about doing a trail run, I would recommend this one. It's not easy-the hills are steep and seem unending, but there are points in between the hills that are very runnable. It's a nice introduction to trail running and the trail running community. And the design of the shirts is very unique. Thanks Dave, for an explanation of the design. I had no idea.

This weekend is the Voyageurs trail run, which has been modified and not even a full marathon, but they say harder. That's my last training run before I leave for Mongolia.  Is anyone interested in meeting for a beer at Whiteys' before I leave on July 25th?

Afton Trail Run 2012 50k Race Report

First of all, I’d like to thank the families of the 200 or so virgins who were sacrificed before the race, providing us with a respite in the recent Minnesota heat wave.  Your personal sacrifices are greatly appreciated!  The relatively low temperatures at race time allowed many runners the chance to really push the pace and go for personal bests on a tough and hilly Afton State Park course; myself included.  After a week of hot and humid weather in the 90’s and 100’s, we were all thrilled to see the forecast for the weekend:  race morning was to be in the 60’s, with later highs in the 80’s.  The Mayan gods were appeased!

The Afton Trail Run is a 25k and 50k event in Minnesota’s Afton State Park along the Mississippi River.  The river cut through this terrain a kabillion years ago creating a landscape of hills and coulees; a wonderful playland for the adventurous.  John Storkamp directs this race and does a great job making this a premier Midwest trail race.  The 25k loops the park once, and the 50k, twice.

I’ve had this race in my sights since the previous debacle on the Afton Ski Hill course, when medical personnel pulled my chip (RD John Storkamp kicked my ass last year with his diabolical course layout).  I was disappointed with myself for accepting that fate a bit too readily; I felt I had some race left in me, but evidently little fight.  This year was to be different.  My training for the 2012 season started the previous November, with core work at a local health club.  To deal with the hills in a more dignified manner, I included weekly lunge sessions at the Willow River State Park falls stairs.  In all, I trained like never before, and boy did that pay off at Afton.

This year included a more spiritual preparation as well.  Like many folks, I hesitate pushing too hard for fear of the suffering to follow.  In short, I listen to my lying brain.  My plan this year was to ask for prayers, and then hammer my pace; lifting my suffering and effort (and results) to God, in the hope that my suffering would be pleasing to Him.  I sound like a flagellant, I know, but work with me here.  As a friend explained: “This brings glory to God, as the motive of our heart says: You are more important to me than food, you are worth suffering with, and for.”  Truly humbling; my mantra was to “don’t be a wimp”.

Saturday morning packet pickup was like most others at Afton: a reunion of friends amidst the low-key Minnesota trail running atmosphere.  Lots of smiles amidst some serious introspection.  RD John Storkamp’s race shirts are still awesome; this year’s with a decidedly Mayan theme.  After taking care of last minute victuals and expendables, we made our way to the start line, where 200 or so runners prepared to do battle with the trails.  After a quick pep talk we were off at 6:30 sharp, down the cattle chute to the base of our first climb.  Honestly, why do we go down just to go back up?  Couldn’t they have just built a bridge?

Unlike previous Aftons, this year I decided to start near the front, which meant a bit of jockeying for space as the trail narrowed.  No problems though as everyone was respectful, causing no one to go orienteering.   Our first climb to the Africa Loop was the usual mix of running and walking.  Once on top, it was time to set a pace.  I maintained about an 8:00 pace; hopefully the right balance in the beginning.  The morning was gorgeous, highlighting the forest-surrounded golden grassland beauty of the Africa loop.  I kept expecting to see a lion peek above the grass to pick out a straggler.  I tried to look strong.

The Back-40 is a drop down from the savanna to a more lush, tropical loop; one of my favorite trails in the park.  Following a rocky decent, I ran past aid station 2, knowing I would see it again in 1.5 miles.  It was nice and cool as runners started to group a bit on the singletrack; a good time to meet new people and catch up with friends.  After water, a gel and my first S-cap, we followed a very runnable climb back up to Africa to finish the loop.  Fast (for me) and efficient.

Leaving Africa happens via an awesome drop down a rocky coulee trail; one you’d love to bomb when you don’t have 25 miles of race ahead of you.  Injecting a little prudence, I slowed my descent, but took full advantage of the free speed, past Steve Quick directing traffic at the bottom, to where we get our first sight of the Mississippi river at aid station 3.  It is great to see my wife and crew, Beth, at this station, but this early in the race we are all business:  gel, water, ice, vamoose.  She is awesome.

The climb out of aid-3 is a smooth and runnable crushed-gravel road back to the top of the park.  I like running this road because I actually feel energized once at the top.  It is at this point where I was completely warmed up and ready to pick up the pace to about 7:30.  After a bit of flat on top, we again drop to the river, and past the most gorgeous view in the park.  Rounding a bend, if you are not expecting it, it takes your breath away: a view from above, looking south along the river.  Enough of that, it was time for an easy descent back to the river, and short jog on a former rail trail.

The next climb up to the camp area is my least favorite in the race.  Rocky, steep and sandy.  When on training runs in the park, I tend to eliminate this section due to imagined time limitations that suddenly seem important.  I don’t tend to be a journey person on this hill.  I know this climb has a name (Kevin’s or Dean’s hill, or something like that).  Once on top, we waved to the campers as we ran though.  Being backpack campers, they understood what was going on and kindly wished us well.  Of course my least favorite descent should follow that climb.  It seems to follow a wide washout, where, if you are running, it is hard to check your speed without quads of steel.  The workers at aid station 4 (backside of aid-3) get a great view of runners on the edge of control (and sometimes tumblers having lost all control) as they try to navigate this slide.

After some ice, water, a gel, and S-cap (and a kiss from the crew), we are provided with a few miles of absolute flat.  I have learned, in the past, to avoid the temptation of the 5k pace here, knowing the hills and miles to come; but I did try to keep an effortless 7:00 pace along the river.  Don’t be a wimp.  Now rehydrated and refueled, it was time to climb back up via the Meatgrinder.  Despite its ominous name, this hill is not too bad, with the rocks creating a natural system of steps in the steepest section.  Plus, it is the last tough climb in the loop, and leads into aid station 5, where the nice folks will dump water on your head and ice down your back.  Thanks!

The next section is called the Snowshoe Loop, and provides the best singletrack and most remote running in the park.  While bombing through these trails, one almost forgets fatigue.  The flats, hills and descents in this section are so short and numerous, that my muscle groups seemed to get frequent breaks.  Though a bit more difficult to find, if you have only a short time for a run at this park, I’d recommend this section over most others.  Except for one short steep climb and one rocky descent, it is all runnable and fun.

Following the climb out of the Snowshoe Loop, there is about a mile of flat and fast to the start and aid station 1.  While the 25k race starts an hour after the 50k, it has been my goal in the past to start my second loop before the first 25k racer arrives.  Those guys fly!  I think I saw a 1:37:10 time and 6:16 average pace for the eventual 25k winner, Joe Moore.  Way to go for the course record Joe!  I did my first loop in a more pedestrian 2:16, faster than any of my previous attempts by 15 minutes.  I was pretty lit.  So now it was time for some plotting: hmmm, I didn’t think I had a negative split in me, though a course PR was definitely in my grasp.  In the past I’ve lost 30 minutes to the second loop, which would put me in at about 5:15.  I was feeling good. I would try to reduce that loss.  Don’t be a wimp.

The second loop looked surprisingly like the first, only without the fresh legs, so I’ll keep it to the highlights.  I tried to keep the pace fast (for me) and the breathing and heart rate down.  My first bad spot came after climbing out of the Back-40.  My brain was telling me to slow down so I didn’t become a lump on the trail.  In the past I’ve always heeded this message thinking I was being smart and listening to my body.  Listening to my brain is quite another thing, so I tried to ignore it.  Keeping my pace was surprisingly easy once I convinced myself that my brain is a liar, and this spell will pass.  And it did.  I was myself again and feeling strong at the bottom of the Africa Loop, waving to Steve Quick for a second time.

I felt good, running the stone road hill for the second time.  It felt good to reach and find I had reserves available.  It also felt good to have the hill up to the campground done for the day.  My wife Beth, in planning for 90 degree heat and humidity, created a secret pouch for holding ice, made from an old towel.  This pouch fit nicely under my hat and provided a slow drip of cold water on my head (Ahhh) as I started the rail road flat at about a 7:30 pace.  My mind was telling me I would blow up at this pace, but I ignored it.  After a bit I settled in and it felt right.

Following Meatgrinder part 2, my only thought was not to fall in the Snowshoe loop, and to keep the pace.  I was dying my second death here and there are so many ways to stumble on that trail.  The seemingly easy portions that wind through fields seem to have once been plowed, with the furrows hidden by tall grass, providing a nice tiptoe through the tulips.  While the forested sections wind so much that it is sometimes difficult to see the trail more than 5 feet in front.

Now out of the Snowshoe Loop I was as good as done.  I ran the last flat and fast section to the finish as hard as my legs would allow.  To the 25k runner I passed near the finish chute: sorry, I hope you weren’t too upset with me.

I crossed the line in 4:57.  The clock said 3:57 (for the 25k race), and in my delirium I believed it.  Wasn’t that a course record or something?  Once I came to my senses, I was floored that I had run the course so fast, losing less than 15 minutes in the second loop.  What joy after last year’s Catastrophe at Afton Alps.  After catching my breath I enjoyed some cool lemonade and some great burgers at the finish party.  I never seem to want to leave these events, wanting the Pink Floyd “Comfortably Numb” trip to stay with me forever.  Or maybe more like the Ramones: “I'll have to tell 'em that I got no cerebellum!”

Note to self: trust in your training, trust in God, and don’t be a wimp.  I can’t wait until next year!

The volunteers are always great at this race, but especially this year.  What a great group of people along the trail and at the aid stations!  Thanks for volunteering and helping make this race so awesome.

2500th Anniversary Athens Marathon Race Report - Mary

It's over a month since I got back from Greece and reality has certainly set in.

I ran Twin Cities marathon on Oct. 3rd and then the couple who Dave and I have travelled with many times left on Oct. 4th for Greece. I spent 4 days with them on Crete, then we joined up with a tour group of 40 people (way too many) to tour the mainland of Greece and two of the Greek isles.

We went to almost every archaeological sight there is to see, like Delphi, Olympia, Meteora, the Acropolis, the Parthenon, etc. The islands we went to were Mykonons and Santorini. Then I spent a week on my own in Athens and finally hooked up with the marathon tour group on the Thursday before the race. The group I went with is called Apostollos and the owner has been going there for more than 10 years and has family there. That seemed to be an advantage. After being in Greece for that length of time I think I finally have a bit of an idea of the history and how all the different important civilizations that are part of the Hellenic tradition fit in with the rest of that part of the world. 

 

I was getting a little concerned about the race the week I spent in Athens on my own. Nobody who I spoke with seemed to  know about the race, including staff at hotels and restaurants. Finally the weekend before the race some Greek flags went up but they were actually for the Greek holiday which is on Oct 28th. They all seemed kind of impressed that I had come from America to run it though.

By Thursday, after the parade for "No Day", things changed on the streets and you could tell that the city was gearing up for a marathon. More t-shirts in the kiosks, which are everywhere, that had marathon info. on them, flags about the marathon and probably lots of stuff on local TV which I couldn't understand. Keep in mind that they had an election on the 7th for all municipal leaders, so there were lots of posters out on poles, etc and the TV and newspapers were covering that.

By Friday things looked ready. The Expo was in this fabulous building, which is a convention center/exhibition hall, but really more another museum with lots of history about the marathon. They also had a symposium about "the environmental profile of the marathon movement" which the Greek minister of Environment attended. I had read about this in the program and kind of wondered who else attended that symposium when we were running on race day and they were handing us all water in regular sized plastic bottles and we were all tossing them on the ground after a couple sips. I hope they had some way of recycling all that plastic.

Jeff Galloway was the celebrity runner with our tour group and I was very surprised at the make-up of the 200 plus runners in the group. There were many Canadians,  Australians and other countries represented. It almost seemed Americans were least represented. I think perhaps most of the US folks went with Marathon Tours group out of Boston. Anyway, I was befriended by two Canadian women on the first day and we became a foursome-one of the women had her boyfriend. It was fun to finally have someone to talk running and English with, since I had been on my own that previous week and didn't find too many folks to carry on a full conversation with.

Jeff has been to the Athens marathon at least 5 times and during the orientation meeting he really played down how well he thought the race might turn out. In the past I guess it has been marginal in its race management. So we were all told to carry our own water, gels, etc. We got to tour the race start sight and the course two days before the race, so that managed to "put the fear of God" into most of us. This course is what the Boston marathon is patterned on, so there are significant hills. However the last 10K are truly a gradual downhill and the finish was in the marble Olympic stadium which was built for the first modern Olympics and was modeled after the original stadium in Olympia. It's beautiful-all marble.

Race day was a beautiful cool morning and we boarded the buses by 6:00 AM so that we would have plenty of time to get to the porta-potties and to our assigned "blocks" aka "wave" or corral. I've never seen so many port potties at the start of a marathon. There were about 12,000 runners for the marathon and the start area was very adequate for lining up for the start. The waves were abused a bit because runners wanted to run with their friends. They tried to control it, but it was fairly easy to step over the barriers. My two Canadian friends and I took the warning seriously that you could be disqualified, and we were all in different blocks, so we never saw each other after we went to our block.

The race started exactly at 9:00AM and each block started two minutes apart. I was in block 4 out of 7, and got to start @ 9:08 and I was very surprised that I was almost immediately able to get into a running pace. I had decided to do the walk/method which I normally do. Since the marathon markers were in km. I ended up taking a 30 sec. walk break at every K, which ended up being about every 6 min. It worked OK since I wasn't sure how my legs would feel after not doing too much running during the month of Oct., but lots of walking the week before the marathon, including the day before the race.

The aid stations were all extremely well supplied with water and volunteers, gels, bananas, etc at the proper locations. The people in the small villages as we progressed from the town of Marathon, past the mound where 192 soldiers were buried after the battle with the Persians, then past one of the major ports where ferries take folks to the many islands and then on into Athens were amazing. They all shouted Bravo, Bravo and children and adults were handing us small olive branches ( I brought one of mine home with me). As I said the course was quite hilly and the highest point was at the 32K point. Actually from 17K to 32 there was a gradual climb. But at 32K we started on a gradual downhill into the center of Athens. The road was closed to traffic in one direction and we ran past many of the Embassies and museums and then took a turn off the main thoroughfare, ran past the Presidential palace and garden-reminded me just a little bit of running by Central park- then turned into the stadium. At this point the spectators were really cheering us on. Finishing in that historic stadium was an experience like none I have ever had. We ran almost a lap around the stadium and then received our medal.

After we left the stadium it became a slightly different story from the rest of the race. The area was a bit small to handle all the runners and spectators. But I was still able to gradually get rid of my chip, get some food and drink and find my drop bag and get to the buses waiting to take us back to our hotel.

The Apostolos tour group had a very special post run dinner for all of us, with Greek dancers and singers. We were all presented with a replica of an ancient Greek vase painted for us especially by a member of the owner's family. Jeff Galloway and his wife hosted this party and it was a very nice culmination to a very special race.

2010 ING New York City Marathon--Candy

The size, spectators and logistics of this event lived up to the hype. It was a one-time event for me. Now I have a new perspective for when I watch future NY marathons on TV. From the top…

It took my daughter Amy and I about three hours to get to the start via subway, shuttle bus, ferry and a second shuttle bus. The weather was sunny, near freezing and a little windy. When we arrived at Fort Wadsworth, the staging area, we quickly put on all of our extra clothes, garbage bags and broke out the hand warmers. Amy and I were in Wave 3 with a 10:40 am start time (there were three waves plus wheelers with three different starting points in each wave and about 12 or so corrals in each starting point). We found a discarded blanket and piece of cardboard to sit on that had been left by someone.

The race itself was hard, mainly due to the number of runners and walkers to maneuver through. Plus the aid stations started at mile 3 and continued for every mile. There were almost solid cups and debris along the road at every aid station—sometimes it was a bit sticky from the GU wrappers and Gatorade, not to mention the banana peels at a few miles.

My brush with fame came near the end. As I saw the finish line, I heard the announcer say that the Chilean miner was ½ mile out. Edison Pena had started an hour ahead of me so I must have passed him along Central Park. I heard that he was running with ice packs on his knees. What a story. My time was 4:43 (about 30 minutes slower than TCM). My daughter Amy did a 4:06 for her first marathon and my son-in-law Hallvard a 3:28.

A few comments/encounters along the way: someone in our corral ate a “special” meal the night before and we quickly moved from his downwind side, Sinatra's "New York" playing during the start, “welcome to Brooklyn” from a spectator after we came off the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, almost taking out a lady pedestrian who walked across the street in the middle of the race in Brooklyn, shouts of “go Minnesota” along the route (I was wearing a Minnesota singlet) with one guy adding “South St. Paul baby,” and the many people on the street who offered their congrats afterwards.

Finally!! The Gateway Bridge over Manning Ave. is nearing completion

Posted by Tom.

The Manning Ave crossing has been one of the more treacherous hazards on the Gateway Trail.  You MUST be alert at the crossing since, with a 55 mph speed limit, traffic zips by in a flash.  So it was a wonderful announcement a couple of years ago that the State of Minnesota would erect a bridge for the Gateway over Manning.

Not only would it be a bridge, but it is a historic bridge, 130 years old.  It began its life in Sauk Centre, MN, was moved in 1937 to Silverdale, MN (somewhere south of International Falls) where it was recently replaced by a new structure.  Since it was designated in 1998 as a historical structure, there was a desire to move the bridge once again to a suitable location.

 


Here is the bridge in Silverdale

 On the Manning/Gateway site the preparations began over a year ago. 

·         Fencing went up to divert the Gateway Trail around the construction site.

·         Huge mounds of earth were piled up on either side of Manning for the approaches. 

·         Earlier this year big concrete pilings went up to support the ends of the bridge.  Here’s a Wikipedia link showing construction photos:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_No._5721

Then is sat – for months, and we speculated that the project had stalled due to funding issues related to the economy… Finally last month the steel showed up, neatly stacked in a big pile off to the side.  Each piece of iron appeared brand new in a fresh coat of paint.  Like an erector set, the pieces went together, and today the nearly completed bridge sits off to the side of the trail awaiting the final effort to lift it into place.

Here is the bridge partially assembled a couple of weeks ago on Manning Ave:

I have shifted my daily runs to this portion of the Gateway in order to watch the progress.  It appears that the major tasks remaining are lifting the bridge in place, installing a bridge deck, and fencing along the sides.  Realistically it is probably still several months until we will be jogging across, but it is fascinating to watch the progress in the meantime.

Here is a link to the Gateway Trail Association’s site with more construction photos: http://www.gatewaytrailmn.org/