Jackson, MI
18:45 (6:02/mile)

Ok, so this is not a formal race (no t-shirts or anything like that, not even numbers) but I raced against a bunch of people and got an official place and time, so I am going to do a race report.

Lumen Christi is local Catholic High School with a long tradition of athletic excellence in this town. 31 years ago, the varisty cross country runners challenged the alumni (as a collective) to a race. The alumni accepted and proceeded to beat the varsity team by 3 points. The next year the varsity challenged them again, and they lost again, but by only 1 point. Interestingly, that year the Lumen Christi Cross Country team went on to win the state championship.

Granted, I am not an alumni of Lumen Chisti, but the rules are pretty lose, meaning anyone can show up and run as honorary alumni. Having some of my Cross Country students being alumni, I decided I would run it. Once I made my decision, of course, my head coach, Brian Olsen ran it as well. Sure enough he beat me. Again. For the 5th or 6th time, I lost to him in a head to head competition, and he is 47 years old.

It has been a while since I raced such a short distance and it was wierd. I went out pretty fast (first mile split 5:45) but I never train for this distance so I have no idea how to race it. I just go out strong and try to hang on.

Stef and Salacia came to cheer me on and instead of bringing a camera trying to take an action shot of me, Salacia had my little digital video camera and took short videos of me each of the 4 times I passed her by. It is cool because then I can extract still images, and (for the first time!) I have a very short (7 second) video.

It was a fun race, even if not a formal one. A nice little jaunt halfway in between two marathons

Since November of 2005 I have raced a few times at lots of different distances which include:

19 5Ks (3.1 mile)
2 4 milers
5 8K/5miles 
1 10K (6.2 mile)
1 12K (7.5 mile)
3 1/2 marathons (13.1 miles)
1 30K (18.6 miles)
19 marathons (26.2 miles) Two wins!
2  50K Ultra marahons

Green River, WY
3:05:36 (7:05/mile)
2^nd Overall (out of 79)
Blog entry of the race written by the 3rd place finisher (the guy on the left in the picture below)
Another runner’s blog entry of the race  
Yet another one     
Newspaper article from local paper

                Not my best effort, for sure, but hey, I had two things going against me, my bronchitis that I developed in the last few days and running at over 6500’ elevation for most of the race.
                As has happened to me too many times to count, I got sick within a week of a marathon, (Hey, I guess it is better than being injured!) and I went to my doctor 4 days before the race. Sure enough, it was bronchitis and I got some antibiotics to go with some cough pills. The day of the race I felt worse than I did when I went to see the doctor, which was annoying.
                The race begins at an elevation of ~6800’ and then climbs to a peak of 7500’ in the first 5 miles, then is level (with lots of little dips) until mile 20 and then drops off until the end at ~6000’. Oxygen? Who needs it. Oh wait, I do. The initial surge up to the top of White Mountain took its toll on my legs and breathing, but I still managed to negative split the race by almost 2 minutes. The aid stations were as consistent and consistent could be. Since the race is on a dirt road with little traffic and no civilization, the water stations were every 2 miles, exactly. You are running along and there, in the middle of nowhere is a nice volunteer with a table setup with water and Powerade on it.  It was nice. Had it not been for them, I would have seen nobody. You see, this is Wyoming, the least populous state in the nation. Very few people live here so the crowds just weren’t there.
               

 This is the only marathon I will ever run that I can treat as a ‘home course’ even though I don’t live here. I did live in Rock Springs (right nearby) for 3 years at my first teaching job and I drove this dirt road >100 times I bet so it was familiar. That made the view even better because it brought back good memories of this place. I miss only a few things from those 3 years, but this view was certainly one of them.
                3 steps into the race I was in second place and that is where I remained for the entire marathon. The leader took off up the hill quickly and I tried to stay with him. I got to within about 50’ of him at mile 6 and then he took off, beating me by more than a few minutes. After about mile 10 every time I looked behind me I could not see the 3^rd place finisher. We were all on our own, for sure.
               

This small town race has some great pride though. My award (which was actually for winning my age group, only the winner got an ‘overall’ award) was a painted horseshoe on a necklace. (see picture) which was pretty cool. I am not sure where I put that on my Murphy statue.

The trip was sure fun, even though short lived. I enjoyed being able to go back to this place, absorb the views and smells of the high plains desert that is Western Wyoming.  I even went down and visited red canyon lodge for lunch, even though it is 60 miles out of my way. I guess it just tradition. That and the views are great!