Catching Up

As you know, I've been pretty lazy lately when it comes to blogging.  So I thought I'd write a quick post to catch up and try to get back into the habit of blogging regularily.

Since my first cross country race a little over a month ago, I've been working on my running.  I've put in a lot of miles and done several races including a couple of cross country Turkey Trots which were really fun.

The first Turkey Trot was in Madison at the beginning of November and there were two races to choose from: a 5K and a 5 mile.  The 5K ran at 10 and the 5 mile at 11.  I signed up for both.  Not a good idea. 

The start of the 5K.

 

It's kind of hard to see, but that hill was really steep and I had to run it twice....in each race.  Ouch.

 The end of lap one in the 5K.  What you don't see is the Badgers CC team doing a tempo run in front of me (they had the Big 10 Champs the next weekend so they weren't going all out, yet I couldn't catch them).

 

 The start of the 5 mile race.

The next race was a 5K Turkey Trot in Lake Geneva and that was race was awesome.  I loved the course.  It was pretty hilly, but not so hilly it wasn't fun.  There was also a lot of variety in the terrain from grass to dirt to wood bridges to gravel to sand.  Post race was almost as much fun as the race.  They had the typical food and coffee inside a heated tent with live music.  Then they had a raffle and the prizes were great.  They gave away Montrail trail running shoes, jackets, Smartwool socks, Patagonia backpacks, gift cards to restaurants, etc.  I won my age group, and my prize was a beer, a pint glass and a tree.  Yep, a tree.  I won a blue spruce seedling that I need to plant.  For anyone in the area looking for a November Turkey Trot, I highly recommend this race.  

This weekend is the Footlocker Midwest Regional Cross Country Championships.  It's a high school race, but they have an open class so I'm racing that hoping to set a new 5K PR.  It's on the same course as the 8K I ran in October.  So far the weather looks great for a late November race in Wisconsin: sunny with a high of 36.