Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon

The Race: The 27th annual Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon, also a 4-person relay. Filled this year at 2,500 marathoners, 140 relay teams. In contrast to those much larger races occurring to the immediate south and northwest, directed by an all-volunteer organization (the Badgerland Striders running club) which is justifiably proud of its efforts. A very nice choice for my state number 26, marathon number 30.

Worst Part of the Weekend: Dealing with Chicago traffic. One hour to drive one mile on I-90, before we bailed out and went up Lake Shore Drive.

Where We Stayed: Although the race hotels were downtown, I found a Baymont Inn just a mile from the start line in Grafton. I’ll do anything I can to avoid a 26.2 mile bus ride on race morning. Since Tommy wasn’t running the race, it was no problem for him to meet me at the finish.

The Expo: Held downtown at the Kern Center (Milwaukee School of Engineering rec center). Nice little expo for this small race. Vendors with good deals. I bought some new shorts, and socks to wear during the race (because someone, perhaps the person who keeps coming over to my house to use my treadmill, keeps taking all my running socks!). Also picked up a little pouch that I could velcro on to my ancient fanny pack/water bottle carrier to enable me to carry items like my cell phone, extra socks (because I wasn’t taking any chances), chapstick, etc.

Sat down for a few minutes to listen to a race official give us a little chat on the course.

Bill Rodgers was the special guest this year, so we hung around a little longer for his usual somewhat scattered and stream-of-consciousness talk. Bill was a half hour late but at least we were sitting down. What was on Bill’s mind that day? Seemed like he was thinking a lot about Alberto Salazar. I thought about asking Bill how his cholesterol was lately---he mentioned he had bacon with breakfast---but did not.

Bill was running as part of a relay team composed entirely of Olympians. One of the other runners on his team was Bonnie Blair, the speed skater. I didn’t recognize the names of the other two people. This team, and another team composed of local Wisconsin elite runners, was running in honor of Jenny Crain. She is a runner from the Wisconsin area who was hit by a car in August, while training (I think) to qualify for the marathon trials. She finished 16th and was second American at the 2003 NY Marathon. At the expo, you could buy red “Make it Happen” wristbands as a fundraiser for Jenny. Her injuries were very serious and her prognosis is still uncertain.

Nice touches: They decided to keep the course open an extra half-hour and announced this the day before to eliminate stress for the penguins and turtles. Race t-shirt is long-sleeve technical top. Finishers’ shirts---a slightly fancier technical top---available for sale at the finish.

Where We Ate: Friday night, after that horrible drive up through Chicago, we had a late dinner at a little tavern near our hotel called the “Ghost Town Saloon.” We had steak sandwiches---8 oz. sirloin filet pounded flat and seasoned with lots of black pepper, on a hoagie bun. Saturday afternoon, we touristed in the little village of Cedarburg (almost stayed at a B&B there instead of our generic hotel, but it’s about 5 miles from the start) and had lunch at a little coffeeshop/café named “Fiddleheads”---pretty good turkey sandwiches and I suggested that Tommy might want to make note of it so he could be sure to secure my post-race meal.

Us being us, we eventually found our way on Saturday afternoon to Sendik’s Market, where we picked up some snacks.

Saturday night we dined at Messina’s in Saukville (about six miles from our hotel). Very good red sauce Italian place.

Pre-race: Since the race didn’t start until 8 am, we had picked up an hour traveling west, and we were staying one mile from the start, it felt like I was sleeping in! They had warned us there would be traffic congestion near the start and to arrive early if you were driving there yourself. But since we were just one mile away, this didn’t seem like much of a concern---although it had taken us an hour to go one mile in Chicago a few days before! I kept looking out the window of the hotel and joking about the traffic jam---on a news report at about 7 am it looked like there were maybe 10 people standing outside Grafton High School. So we left the hotel at 7:30 am, and arrived there a few minutes later. I like it!

The Start: At Grafton High School, in the parking lot. I lined up in between the “sub-5:00 and the sub-5:30” group, which was surprisingly big. Could actually hear the race director over the loud speakers. We started right on time. Many people lined the sides of the road and cheered us on. A great way to start a race.

The Course: Very gently rolling hills. First few miles through farmland giving way to suburban McMansions, followed by very nice residential areas, and the last three miles on a bike trail along the lake.

Stuff I remember a week later about the race (the old brain is not what it used to be):

I accidentally deleted my splits in the car driving south, so you are spared that for once. I remember that the first mile was way too fast, about a 9:45. I was just trying to keep up with the people around me who were supposedly trying for a 5:00-ish race. I guess the idea was crash and burn, then limp home in 5:00? There was a lot of humidity for the first few miles and I could tell it was going to be a long day.

Water stops were exactly where they said they would be, at miles 2, 4, 7.5, 9.5, 13, 14.5, 17, 19, 20.25, 21.5, 23, 24.2 and 25.2. I knew this wouldn’t be enough for me early in the race so I was carrying a water bottle. I had Gatorade and water at most of these stations. This was the first time I started drinking Gatorade at mile 2 in a marathon, because I figured I would need it in the heat.

The people all along the course were extremely nice, and many of them had turned on their lawn sprinklers or had hoses going. So much of the course was residential, so there was a lot of this going on. And nobody said anything stupid, like “looking good” or “you’re almost there” when it wasn’t true. Some people along the bike trail/lakefront were laughing at us from the decks of their boats, however. That’s fine, I think that’s appropriate! The road was not closed to traffic, but even in places where it was somewhat narrow there really wasn’t that much traffic, so it was not a problem.

I was running very slowly, and one thing that struck me all through the race was that I never felt lonely back there. Generally, unless a race is gigantic, you will be pretty much alone if you’re in the 5:00-plus zone. So it was a pleasant surprise to have so much company at this relatively small race.

I was also surprised by how slow some of the relay teams were going. I was actually passing some of them, even late in the race. I wondered if the first three runners on those teams got there by crawling backwards? How could so many relay teams be slower than I was? A puzzlement.

Given my lack of training, I think I might have managed a 4:40 without the heat. I’m guessing---hoping really, since I have a much tougher race to finish in November---that the heat added about a half-hour to my time.

So, after that too fast first mile, I settled into some 10:30s, then some 11:30s and upwards from there. Got to the half in 2:21:43. Called Tommy around mile 15 to warn him I was going to finish over 5:00 for sure. 3:49:01 at mile 20.

It was amazing how much the temperature dropped when we hit the bike trail at mile 23 or so. I actually started to feel sort of cold, and I needed that space blanket at the end.

Tommy caught up with me at mile 25 and snapped some pics. The start of the last mile was a bit tricky, because we had to run a little stretch on gravel. I heard that the second place male runner fell down at this point! Then we had to go over a curb---equipped with a little wooden ramp and I needed it!---and across some grass before we hit the finish stretch.

Finish time was 5:13:49 chip time, which put me 44 of 62 women in my age group, 496 of 650 women, and 1355 of 1781 starters (I think about 1000 of these people didn’t finish).

Post-race: Finisher’s medal, not so special. Finish line food, nothing much. Had to buy the Finisher’s shirt but it’s a nice one. Tommy met me with no turkey sandwich, but plenty of other yummy provisions for our drive south, which he had picked up at Sendik’s, which Tommy was able to find his way back to even without using the GPS. This was good. I took a shower at the very nice downtown YMCA, and we headed south.