Lake Geneva, WI

Two weeks ago I had an off-site meeting for work at The Abbey Resort on Geneva Lake, WI. This was only 19 miles south from the start/finish line of the Kettle Moraine race that I did a month ago. Our goal was to officially welcome our new president to the company, announce a restructuring of the management team, and make sure that we are moving forward with a new found team unity. We accomplished our goals over the two-day summit. (Pics over there on the right--------->)

In the days leading up to the meeting, I scoped out possible routes to run in my free time, as usual. I just can’t resist running somewhere that I haven’t been to before. It’s a great way to see, smell, and sometimes even taste what the new surroundings have to offer. The best route that I could find was – The Shore Trail. It’s a trail that follows the lakeshore around the entire lake. Total distance is roughly 18 miles. One unique feature of this trail, is that there are houses that back up to the lake nearly the entire way around. Therefore, this path goes through everyone’s backyard. Each property owner is therefore responsible for maintaining their portion of the trail, and each can provide their own type of pavement. It varied from crushed rock, to blacktop, to flagstone, to grass (No visable trail), to dirt single-track.

I started at 4:30 AM. It was already very humid, and the sweat immediately started pouring. I started from the far west side of the lake, so I watched the sun rise as I made my way along the lakeshore. As previously mentioned, the trail changed every time I crossed another property line, and it was quite hilly throughout. I was surprised to see quite a few boaters and swimmers out on the lake that early in the morning. This along with the stunning views of the lake, and the many mansions along the route, made for a very interesting run.

As the sun came up the humidity began to rise and I was soaked with sweat by the halfway point. I slowly made my way around, and finished the run shortly after 7:30 AM. We were supposed to meet up for a team-building event at 8:30. I quickly showered, ate, and made my way to meet up with my co-workers. The team-building event was a GPS based scavenger hunt. There were 10 GPS points on and around the resort property. Each team had to make their way to each point, take their picture in front of the landmark. We had 90 minutes. The team that made it back in time, and with the most pictures would be the winner.

I didn’t know that I’d be running again, so I had a t-shirt, cargo shorts, and sandals on. I also had a Venti Starbucks coffee, banana, and Clif Bar. I wasn’t prepared. Curiously, the owner was prepared. He had running shoes and shorts on, although he’s not a runner, nor is anyone else among the group. So after I had downed my banana I stuck my Clif bar in my shorts pocket and started running with my coffee. They would tell me where to go, and I would run ahead with the camera and take pictures. It got very hot and humid, and we ended up running through some woods, people’s yards, and up some very steep grades under construction to get all of the items on the scavenger hunt list. It was a great team building experience for us, and we WON! By roughly 1 minute. It was an overall great trip for us as a management team. We learned quite a bit about each other and how to work as a team, and once again, my running experience came in handy!

Happy trails! Until next time >>>>>>>>

Bike MS 2008

So two weekends ago was the Bike MS ride at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, IL. We had assembled a group of riders from our office to raise funds for MS and ride a certain distance. My father in-law would also join us. The distances were 35, 50, 75, or 100 the first day and 40 or 80 the next day. So of course I said I’d do the 100 and 80. Even though I had not ridden a bike further than 13 miles in the last 10 years, let alone a road bike. I had to borrow my neighbor’s road bike since all I have is my GT mountain bike and Robinson BMX bike. I figured that if I can run 100 miles, I can certainly bike 100 miles.

So I packed the same fuel that I would if I were running an ultra. All of the Hammer goodies such as Perpetuem, Gel, Endurolytes, and Anti-Fatigue. I would also wear my hydration pack. My “padded” bike shorts arrived the day before and barely got them washed in time for the ride.

So I was off. I left before anyone else because nobody else was doing the 100 mile distance. The first 20 miles were easy. The wind was at my back and I felt great. I passed up the first two aid stations. I stopped at the third one at about mile 35 or so. Then I was off again. Made my way from Hinckley down south just north of Sandwich. There was another aid station in Sandwich, but I didn’t stop here either. I was feeling good enough and had enough fuel on me to just keep going. So I made my way from Sandwich to Paw Paw. Paw Paw was mile 49, so about half way. I ate lunch here and was back on the saddle. It was at this point that I started to notice my butt was starting to hurt, as I had expected. As I made my way southwest towards Earlville, the wind had picked up considerably. This point of the course was a point where the 100 milers broke off on their own to do a 25 mile loop and then make it back to the lunch stop for another stop at 75 miles. It was on this loop that I started to hurt and feel the toll that the wind was taking on me. The entire ride was in open farm fields with nothing to block the wind, rain, or sun. The wind had picked up to a steady 30 mph while out on the 100 mile loop. I had gone from a steady 25 mph pace to about 13 mph. The wind was so hard and constant that if I stopped pedaling I would have stopped going downhill and started going back uphill. So I was pedaling for the entire time pretty much. I made my way back to the lunch stop where I ran into a co-worker who was ahead of the rest of my coworkers on the 75 mile route. We exchanged war stories about the wind, rain, and sun, and I was on my way to complete the final 25 miles. This sounded simple, but if I only knew… My butt was hurting real bad, but the tendon just to the inside of my kneecaps was starting to hurt extremely bad. Once again, the wind was a constant 30 mph in our face, and it seemed as if it was all uphill. I was really struggling to keep the bike moving at 9 MPH now in the wind. I rolled into the last aid station with about 13 miles to go and fueled up on whatever I could find to eat. I didn’t care what I put in my mouth at this point. I needed something to get me jacked up enough to where I could forget about the now excruciating pain in my knees. Nothing helped. As I slowly made my way back into DeKalb, I was cursing the wind out loud. How could it blow NON STOP for the entire last 50 miles, with the majority of that time being against us. I made my way across the finish in 6 hrs 14 min. I wondered how it would be possible for me to ride another 80 the next day as I got off the bike and did an a** check to see if I still had one…. It was there but wow did it hurt. I could walk and even run just fine, but the motion of pedaling hurt my knees so bad that I nearly had tears in my eyes. I decided I’d ice the knees, drink lots if Recoverite and just come back and see what I could do the next day. The rest of my coworkers finished a few hours later and we all went to my house, which was relatively close compared to their houses which are in Chicago area. We all passed out very early after lubing up with aloe and icing our sore areas.

My wife and I made breakfast for them all the next morning. Our youngest daughter (7 mos) was up and she sat at the table and ate with the new strangers that had invaded her space. She gave just about every one of them a dirty look (She is great at this for some reason and it’s funny). We all enjoyed a good laugh and hobbled out to our vehicles to make our way back to Dekalb for the last leg of the ride. I said “I’m not sure about this” as we left. We arrived and I got saddled up and took off with the group. I made it ½ mile and said forget it. I had tears running down my face because my knees hurt so bad. It was just a tiny area around my kneecap, but it hurt BAD. To go any further than ½ mile would be torture. So I rode back to the finish/start area and volunteered. I picked up and stacked up folding tables and chairs, emptied garbage, and did whatever they needed to be done while I waited for my co-workers to get back.

They pulled in a few hours later. After it was all said and done, we had raised $1,166,222.99. The goal is $2,000,000.00. If you would like to donate, please visit http://www.msillinois.org/goto/nolanming. I have a few more months to hit my personal goal of $2,000.

For pictures you can visit this link http://picasaweb.google.com/nming1/BikeMS2008.