Category Archives: Race Review

Recap: Turkey Day 5k

First I’d like to say that the idea of running a “turkey trot” with thousands of people wasn’t my first choice when I asked my sister if she wanted to run a 5k on Thanksgiving morning. I really wanted to do the trail race in St. Paul, but since we would be pushing the kids in the stroller that wasn’t even an option. So I looked at the lower key race around one of the lakes that had a nice kiddo race too. Buried deep in the fine print it said, “no strollers”. Fortunately, I saw it just before we registered! So we signed up for the Lifetime Fitness Turkey Day 5k.

We got a discount for being REI members and some of the swag included a 20% off REI coupon! Registration was pretty easy online and packet pick-up at REI went pretty smoothly. They assigned our race number at pick-up so you could get them at a variety of stores around the metro and no chips. The event included a race village and kid’s carnival with a race. Unfortunately, due to the extreme cold we didn’t really get to partake in those activities.

CAM05920 Waking up on race morning the temp was -1. We probably should have bailed at that point. But we paid a decent chunk of change to participate and dressed in multiple layers. It took some time to get the kids dressed in multiple layers as well and we were finally out the door already sweating and running a little behind. The plan had been to save a few bucks and park at the church lot and take the LRT down to the starting area which was less than a block away. As we were buckling the kids into the stroller my sister made a random comment about our shirts and I realized we had left the race numbers at home!! I ran home while she took the kids to the LRT, fortunately I made it home and back before the next train came. We rode with a few other runners to the start and waited maybe 10 minutes for the proverbial gun to go off.

It was cold!! Even dressed in 2 layers it was cold. My toes (mesh shoes) and fingers (Saucony Utili-Mitt gloves) were the coldest. Once we got moving they warmed up. It did take almost a mile before I felt like we were really starting to warm up and feel like we were going at a decent pace. They had 3 waves of runners and I figured with the stroller we’d line up at the back of the first wave in the 10 minute per mile range. I’m glad we did, but man we passed a lot of people! It was super congested for pretty much the whole race. My sister and I didn’t necessarily run side-by-side, but trying to keep track of each other and the stroller meant we had to slow way down at times to get around into a clear spot to pass someone. And I know this was a fun run and a family event more about the getting out and exercising together, but come on – if you are going to walk within the first half mile you need to line up farther back! I can’t tell you how many people we passed or were walking down the middle of the street in the first half mile. Ugh. I did need to stop for a second in the first half mile, I can’t remember why now, but we made our way to the edge and stopped.

After the first turn I realized that we needed to be further out on the outside for turning. We actually found some nice breathing room and was able to pick up the pace a little before getting super congested again. At one point I needed to tie my shoe, so Meg pushed the kids and I got stopped. Catching back up was easy as I could weave my way through the crowd. The course made a few turns downtown and ended up on the Riverfront from Gold Medal Park until 4th Ave. The kids had done pretty well in the stroller until we made that turn. Then Caleb began crying and shortly after Nadia started in.

So for the last 1/2 mile or so I got lots of judgmental looks. I thought, if these people’d just get out of my way I’d finish faster and we’d all get the chance to warm up! We did finish in 32:53. With no chips my Strava report will be the closest we get to an official time. Not very fast but considering the conditions and the congestion I’ll take it. At some point in the last mile my sister stopped to tie her shoe. I didn’t realize it and she wasn’t able to catch back up, oops. As soon as I crossed the finish line and walked the requisite block that the announcer kept talking about I stopped and picked up Caleb. As soon as I held him he calmed down. Meg picked up Nadia and we all started walking towards Target Center so we could warm up. Nadia’s feet were pretty cold. Caleb couldn’t communicate and was just super fussy – pointing down but when I set him down he’d cry. Then crying for a bit while I held him. We decided to head back to the car, Nadia was cold enough that she didn’t want to find the kid’s carnival.

At this point I kind of regretted that we had parked so far away. We re-bundled up and headed back out into the arctic air. We swung through and got some Aspire and hot chocolate before getting on the LRT and heading home. Once we got home we all cuddled under some blankets to warm up! As we were boarding the LRT I saw a bunch of people with strollers coming through the finish area. I felt a little vindicated in the fact that at least my kids weren’t out there as long as others!! Just that in the first part of the race there wasn’t any strollers. I don’t think we could have done much more to keep the kids warm. They were both wearing warms clothes and socks under their full winter gear, under a fleece blanket in the Chariot with the wind/rain shield zipped up and a hand warmer stuffed in there. Before we started running they actually had fogged up the rain shield quite nicely!

All in all it was a good morning. Way colder than it needed to be! I probably wouldn’t do it again just based on the congestion factor alone.

Here is my Strava data:

From my Instagram feed:

IMG_20141127_104012

Powderhorn 24: A Story of Bikes

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This past weekend was the 4th annual Powderhorn 24 race which starts about a 1/2 mile from my house! This was my 3rd year riding in the 24 hour event. This year our group consisted of 2 teams of 4 and 2 solo riders all being based from the same house directly on the “official” course. It was setting up to be a hot and humid weekend for a 24 hour bike ride. It was a little chilly over night, but the humidity was a strong presence.

We setup the same plan as previous years. Each rider would do 2-3 laps (10-15 miles) or ride about an hour before switching riders. This would allow us to stay fairly fresh and would provide a nice chunk of “off” time. Unfortunately, one of our riders had to go home around 2 am due to sick kids. He rode a few extra laps before heading out, but this hurt a little later in the day – can’t blame him though!

Our volunteer time was 4am – 7am at Checkpoint #1 where we would punch rider manifests. This meant that none of us would really get a break during this chunk of time. It was a fun way to volunteer as you get to see a lot of the riders and actually the 4am shift isn’t too busy as a lot of solo riders and even teams are taking a break at that point. I met some interesting people, like a guy who was trying to help but could barely stand up and wasn’t super effective at punching manifests.

They had bonus laps again this year. One of mine was stopping at a retirement village and having a conversation with one of the residents. The building was cold, which felt nice. I talked with a woman (can’t remember her name) who was nice at first and then started talking badly about her family, so I found a graceful time and way to exit. Eric, was in line ahead of me and ended up talking for quite a while with his guy! Another stop we played ping-pong – they did a horrible job at scoring and following rules. One stop was almost impossible to find, I found it, and then they still didn’t give me credit for doing it.

One cool thing they did this year was to actually track each rider, instead of just the team. So we are able to get some great data. This helped verify some of my data about number of laps ridden, etc. The data isn’t 100% accurate as we swapped riders out on the course, while most did it right after the checkpoint, but it should be pretty dang close.

One quibble with the results… we beat the other team at our house by 1 lap ridden, but lost by 1 lap since PH24 missed our check-in for 2 bonus laps. Our riders do both of them – I did the one and the other was Crossfit and I remember talking to our rider about it afterwards. The other team knew they missed one and that was all they missed. This means that we both lost out on the extra 5 points which would have put both of us in the top 10! Oh well. This year we did beat all the solo riders!! For the last 2 years that wasn’t the case. 4 solo riders beat or tied us overall (with bonus) due to the bonus laps! Another quibble with the overall race was the fact that the first lap was an uncounted, “community” lap which meant that it was super slow. It also wasn’t a true community lap as by the end it was quite spread out. My thought is that if you want to do a community lap it should start at 6 for those who want to do it. Keep the mandatory meeting at 6:40 and roll out at 7pm for official laps. Our first rider didn’t finish his first lap until 7:45 and came through on his next one 17 minutes later. So a lot of time was wasted – plus no one knew that this was going to happen beforehand.

A major frustration for me this year was that my phone didn’t work for all my rides. The first time I thought it was a fluke, so didn’t change anything. After the second time I thought it was a bug in Strava, so I downloaded Map My Ride. I could hear it talking to me for awhile, but at the end of the ride it had quit too. Finally, I decided to put my phone in a ziploc to see if my sweat was impacting it. Sure enough, it worked. I was disappointed that such an easy fix could have helped early on. It was extra frustrating as my bike computer wasn’t syncing (it is wireless). I think it is probably just a battery issue, but need to do something about it!

Here is the data that I was able to collect:

http://www.mapmyride.com/workout/702390271

Here is the data collected by the organizers about our team.

Team World Vision

Category	Laps	Bonuses	Total
Male Team	63	34	97

Riders

Rider (Gender)	Laps	Bonuses
Nick Cross (m)	16	4
Brad Hoffbauer (m)	20	3
Steve Paclicek (m)	6	3
Todd Bratulich (m)	21	7

Laps

Rider	Time
Nick Cross	20:50:29
Nick Cross	21:11:04
Nick Cross	00:27:26
Nick Cross	00:46:44
Nick Cross	05:34:45
Nick Cross	05:55:58
Nick Cross	06:19:37
Nick Cross	09:11:00
Nick Cross	09:31:33
Nick Cross	09:52:42
Nick Cross	12:25:08
Nick Cross	12:45:33
Nick Cross	13:05:56
Nick Cross	15:37:24
Nick Cross	16:07:22
Nick Cross	16:27:26
Brad Hoffbauer	20:07:28
Brad Hoffbauer	23:40:38
Brad Hoffbauer	00:05:29
Brad Hoffbauer	04:03:03
Brad Hoffbauer	04:19:56
Brad Hoffbauer	04:37:47
Brad Hoffbauer	04:55:59
Brad Hoffbauer	05:13:20
Brad Hoffbauer	08:08:02
Brad Hoffbauer	08:29:35
Brad Hoffbauer	08:47:07
Brad Hoffbauer	11:18:45
Brad Hoffbauer	11:43:07
Brad Hoffbauer	12:02:08
Brad Hoffbauer	14:36:16
Brad Hoffbauer	15:00:51
Brad Hoffbauer	15:18:49
Brad Hoffbauer	18:22:20
Brad Hoffbauer	18:40:20
Brad Hoffbauer	18:57:10
Steve Paclicek	21:31:55
Steve Paclicek	21:52:57
Steve Paclicek	01:08:39
Steve Paclicek	01:28:41
Steve Paclicek	01:58:45
Steve Paclicek	02:24:13
Todd Bratulich	19:46:07
Todd Bratulich	19:53:38
Todd Bratulich	22:58:01
Todd Bratulich	23:20:54
Todd Bratulich	02:45:14
Todd Bratulich	03:04:28
Todd Bratulich	03:23:35
Todd Bratulich	03:42:38
Todd Bratulich	06:42:14
Todd Bratulich	07:28:45
Todd Bratulich	07:48:00
Todd Bratulich	10:13:43
Todd Bratulich	10:35:54
Todd Bratulich	10:54:58
Todd Bratulich	13:27:20
Todd Bratulich	13:55:29
Todd Bratulich	14:15:26
Todd Bratulich	16:53:31
Todd Bratulich	17:13:53
Todd Bratulich	17:42:35
Todd Bratulich	18:02:06

Bonuses

Rider	Stop	ID
Nick Cross	I get by with a little help from my friends	1
Nick Cross	Me so hungry!	10
Nick Cross	Spit Truth	14
Nick Cross	Listen to your elders	17
Brad Hoffbauer	TRVE KVLT	4
Brad Hoffbauer	Mookalokakiki	9
Brad Hoffbauer	You Reap What You Sow	16
Steve Paclicek	How sweet it is!	2
Steve Paclicek	Zombie Apocalypse	5
Steve Paclicek	LumiNite Bike Flight	6
Todd Bratulich	Love/Hate Relationship	3
Todd Bratulich	Zumga	8
Todd Bratulich	Keep it local	11
Todd Bratulich	I’ve always wanted to…	12
Todd Bratulich	Humans of Minneapolis	15
Todd Bratulich	Wassily Bikeinsky	18
Todd Bratulich	Refresh and Reflect	19

Race Review: MN Half Marathon

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This was probably one of my best executed races that I’ve ever run. Probably in large part because I wasn’t concerned about my time. My training wasn’t consistent or really at any level where I could set expectations. I decided I wanted to finish under 2 hours and run a negative split.

The MN Half Marathon was the official race for Team World Vision this year. I wasn’t 100% sure if I was going to race it, even though I’m our team captain, as the date fell during the few weeks my wife had scheduled vacation. We decided on a staycation and I signed up a few weeks before. I had been training as if I was racing it so that wasn’t a big deal. There were over 200 Team World Vision runners participating raising money for clean water in Africa. The final stats have been released, but you can bet that a lot of people got will receive access to clean water thanks to the fundraising efforts. You can donate to me here.

The event was a good size, not huge but not super tiny. Packet pickup went smoothly at Union Depot the night before. I arrived in plenty of time to park, relax, get our team picture, take a dump and race! This event had a roller blade race, duathlon (roller blade and running), and several running distances. I’ve never participated in an event with roller bladers before and I’m pleased to say that I beat some!!

The start was along Shepherd Road in St. Paul. After taking my dump, I walked up and was at the very back of the pack. I wanted to start out slow, but I didn’t want 11:30 pace slow and knew that it would be a lot of work to run through the crowd from the back. As I was walking, I saw one of my teammates and told him he needed to move up with me. I wasn’t sure what he could for the half, but knew from the times we had trained together that he needed to start further up. I did worry later that I might have ruined his race, but even at the end he was happy that I did that!!

I started with the 9:30 pace group and we took off heading East. It was flat for most of this 3 mile leg, with one decent hill that you climbed two times maybe a mile or so apart. As long as you didn’t blaze up it, there shouldn’t have been a problem. This stretch was super sunny as there was not a single tree. Running along the more “industrial” part of the river was interesting.

By the time we passed the starting area I was already between the 9:15-9:00 pace groups. I was feeling pretty good and happy with my race so far! The second out and back portion of the race was a little more scenic and had 2 hills that we ran up on the way out and of course on the way back! I passed the half way mark right around an hour and knew that I was either going to hit both goals or neither goal!

By mile 8 I was starting to see Team World Vision runners that I knew from training and would wish them well as I passed. Oh, I haven’t mentioned that the temp for the race start was in the 60’s but the humidity was pretty high and by the end of the race it was almost 80. So it wasn’t a stellar day and many people were suffering from the heat. There weren’t a ton of aid stations, but I think there was a good amount. They had trouble keeping the supply of cups ready, but I was able to get water and Gatorade as I needed it. I was also taking a shot blok every 3 miles. We passed a runner down as we slipped under 35E and that’s where I ran into Scott and Erin.

We exchanged pleasantries and luck and I continued on my way. A few minutes later Erin caught up with me. We ran together chit-chatting for the next few miles. I think having someone to chat with helped distract through some of the middle miles. We were both trying to stay in the shade (what little was available) and finish strong. I would say that we separated around mile 10, she really needed salt, but the aid stations nor medical stops had any salt. Medical stops also didn’t have vaseline (I didn’t need it but a guy near me kept asking them for it).

At one point in mile 11 as we were coming upon the hill, I realized that everyone was following the curve of the road to stay in the shade, but that created a much longer way to travel. I knew it was a little bit of a gamble to choose the shorter course over the shade, but I took the chance. I think I ended up doing that twice. I was still feeling pretty good and knew that if I kept pushing myself I’d finish well. At a couple points I mentally checked myself so that I wouldn’t get over excited or ahead of myself before I actually finished. In the last set of hills my glute and foot started hurting, but not in a way that impacted me too much.

Most World Vision runners wore the bright orange jersey (t-shirt, a few of us wear the singlet). During the picture time I had seen a guy wearing a t-shirt with the World Vision logo and pictures of kids on the back of his shirt. I assumed the kids were kids he sponsored and thought it was great that he improvised a way to honor them in the race. At some point in these later miles I saw the pictures of the kids laying on the ground and scooped them up and handed them back to him as I ran past. He was super amazed and appreciative. I didn’t realize it but he was really struggling to finish and that really motivated him and helped him remember his purpose in running. After the race this random guy comes up to me in the World Vision tent and said I want to give you a sweaty man hug. Awkward! Then I saw the pictures in his hand and realized who he was. We talked a bit about the race, etc. And he was wearing a crossfit shirt so we of course talked about that! We exchanged info and he e-mailed me a story that he hope his box will publish. I couldn’t find it posted yet. It is a powerful story of an ex-runner, but someone engaged in fitness who felt compelled by the need for clean water to run again!

In the last mile I knew that if nothing major happened I would be successful in my goals and kept pushing myself to finish strong. There was an ambulance near the finish line picking up a runner which was a little freaky and not something you want to see. As I crossed the finish line I was relieved to see that the clock and my watch both read 1:5x:xx YES!! I had done it. I had executed the perfect race! My tweet post race summed up my feelings:

Probably one of my best executed half marathon race plans, only if it was a few minutes per mile faster. #teamworldvision #mnhalf

— Nick Cross (@crossn81) August 2, 2014

Here is the data from Strava:

Final Official Results:

A Spanish Triathlon

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I started working on making a photo book from my recent trip to Spain with a group of 8th graders. It has already been over a month since we’ve been back and I’m trying to get a 50% coupon, so the clock is on! It brought back some fun memories and many reasons to want to be back!! I went running 2 different times, one while we were in Madrid and once while we were Benalmadina along the coast. I’ll get around to posting some pictures eventually! On my run along the beach I went West as far as the boardwalk would take me and then ran as far East as it went. It ended in a marina. As I was running I noticed a lot of markers and signs. So I grabbed a quick picture of one and even with my limited Spanish knew what it was… a triathlon! It started later in the day and I was doubtful that we’d get to see any of it. It was actually a free day, so if I had known about it and had been training, I might have been able to compete. Nevertheless, I did some research and found it online. It was the II TRIATLON DE BENALMADENA, a 750 meter swim, 20 kilometer bike, and 5 kilometer run event. As we left our hotel to begin our events for the day, I noticed policia up and down the main road and they were beginning to block off the course. I was hopeful we’d get to see the bikers as they came past. We weren’t able to find a cambio to exchange our dollars so we ended up wasting a lot of time, which turned out to be a good thing. Just as we reached the turn around point the lead motorcycle went zooming by. I was fretting the decision of trying to get the kids to stop and stand around a bit to watch, but they all seemed happy to do so. We waited and watched for 10-15 minutes as the riders came by. We probably left before the mid-pack triathletes came by, but it was fun to watch and cheer them on! It definitely made me want to compete and think about getting back into swimming.