Crazylegs Classic

Crazylegs is insane (you thought I was going to say crazy, didn't you?). Crazylegs is an 8K race benefitting UW Athletics. The race starts on the Capitol Square and finishes in Camp Randall - where the party starts... a band, beer, Bucky...what more could you want? There's usually about 10,000 runners along with several thousand walkers. It's one of those events that everyone does. Even people who rarely run dig out their running shoes for Crazylegs.

Cheri and I had some pretty aggressive goals for Crazylegs this year. I wanted to run it in 32:30 and Cheri was shooting for 42:30. The weather this morning wasn't quite what we were hoping for - mid 40s and windy. Not ideal, but the sun came out and the temps warmed up a bit so it wasn't too bad. The wind was tough, but not as bad as we thought it was going to be.

My race went pretty well. I started on pace, but lost about 10 seconds climbing Observatory...10 seconds I was never able to make up. I felt okay the rest of the race, but I just didn't have enough left in the tank to make up the time I lost on Observatory. So I finished in 32:40. I missed my goal by a bit, but I'm really happy with my time. It was an aggressive goal so to come as close as I did is encouraging and tells me that my goal wasn't unrealistic. I finished 280 out of 10,174 runners - 53 out of 885 in my age group.

Cheri doesn't race as much as I do so Crazylegs means more to her than it does to me. She spent a lot of time this year training to hit her goal, and I really wanted her to finish in under 42:30 so I let her use my Garmin figuring it would help her pace herself and keep her on track. I use my Garmin so much it's tough to run without it, but I figured if only one of us makes our goal I would rather it be her (running with my Garmin wouldn't have helped me make up those 10 seconds so it's all good). She said it helped a lot and she can't wait for hers to arrive (I'm getting her a Garmin 405 for her b-day - not much of a surprise).

Anyway, Cheri tore it up. She finished in 41:58, way ahead of her goal. That's an 8:26 pace, and I think she's finally starting to believe me when I tell her she can run 9s at the Mad City Half Marathon. She finished 3210 out of 10,174 and 159 out of 1106 in her age group. That puts her in the top 1/3 overall, so I told her she can no longer say she's not really a runner.

Here are a few pics I found online. I'll post more when they post them on the website later next week....


Bucky...




Camp Randall...




Puppy...