Race Recap: 2010 Ragnar Relay

This past weekend was the Ragnar Relay Great River and I was part of Team #94 "Java Junkies"

If your not familiar with Ragnar Relay it is a 200ish mile 24+ hour relay race and Ragnar Relay Great River specifically is 193 miles from Winona to Minneapolis. The relay team consists of 12 runners divided into two vans of 6. The runners take turns running their legs 1-36 and switching vans at the major exchanges; 6, 12, 18, 24, 30. Each runner is assigned a runner number and they then run three legs throughout the course of the relay. Leg distances are anywhere between 3.1 and 8.5 miles and the total distance that each runner cover is between 12.4 miles and 21.8 miles.

Kris and I (Kris was Team Captain) put together our Java junkies team from our family and friends, a lot of them coming from TNT. Van 1 consisted of our friend Brady and several TNT friends, Dan, Lance, Rich, Dawn and her friend Melissa. Van 2 was myself, Kris, Michael(my brother), his wife Cari, Kris friend Mandy and my best friend Steve.

 Van #2 Pre-Race Lunch (We all look good now)

We got up early on Friday morning to drive down and see Van #1 get started on their first set of legs, not really necessary, as Van #2 can start at exchange #6 the first major exchange, but we wanted to be a team and start this adventure together.

Prior to the race Ragnar provides you with a Race Bible which summarizes the rules and breaks down each of the race legs including distances, elevations and map directions. It also classifies legs as either Easy, Moderate, Hard and Hard. Those classifications take into a couple of different factors, distance and elevation changes. The one thing that the race bible does not really touch on is the various weather conditions during your different legs, and since this race is in the middle of August, heat is an issue.

During the relay, I was runner #8 and my legs were as follows: Leg 8 - 5.2 miles, Leg 20 - 5.4 miles and Leg 32 - 6.0 miles.

** Side Note - Before the race, I finally got a chance to buy a GPS training watch that I have been saving for a long time. I had been planning on getting either the Garmin 405CX or the 310XT but a few weeks ago I saw that Timex has a new Ironman Global Trainer and it not only had all of the features I was looking for but it  is also considerably cheaper then the Garmins. During the race was the second time I have ever used the new GPS trainer and I love it! I have included links in my times that take you to the online data from the Global Trainer.

First Leg: Leg 8 - Hard - Start Time 5:30pm - Temp 82; Dew point was close to 70 degrees - My first leg was by far the hardest of all three. It was defined as hard because of two major hills in the middle of the leg. Most of the morning and early afternoon was cloudy and that was helping keep temps down even though it was still very humid. While we were at Exchange 6 and waiting for runner #6 the clouds cleared out and it got very hot on top of the humidity and by the time I got on the course it was mostly sunny, fortunately the first hill was mostly in the shade.

The second hill was just torture, no shade, long and you could see the entire hill all the way to the top.

I am in this picture, I am all the way at the bottom, just a tiny speck.

I ended up walking a bit on both hills just to keep from over doing it. On the second hill, while I was walking I turned and looked to my right and it was Scott Dobbins, a friend from TNT, so I started running again and Scott helped pull me up the hill to the top. 

Running next to Scott to the top of the hill.

First Leg Done! 5.21 Miles - Time 45:19 Avg. Pace 8:41

In between our first set of legs and the second set of legs we were at the Prescott High School, Exchange 12 where your could take a shower, sleep, eat. Kris and I choose to skip the shower and try to get in as much sleep as possible. For a $3 dollar donation to the school athletic fund, you could sleep in the Gym or library, but we choose to just throw our blankets on the grass by our van. We ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep before we had to be up and getting ready for the exchange back from Van 1 to us. Combined with the 4 hours of sleep we got on Thursday night that made 7 hours total from when we woke up on Thursday morning until we went to bed at 10pm on Saturday night.

Second Leg: Leg 20 - Hard - Start Time 3:58AM - Temp low 70's; Heavy Fog. My second leg was in the middle of the night and from my experience during my last Ragnar, I was looking forward to this leg. There must be something about running in the middle of the night in the middle of no where. Two years ago I had an absolutely amazing time with clear skies and a beautiful moon to run in. This year I had a completely different experience but by any means no less enjoyable. While Kris was running her leg, we noticed how hazy it had become, not quite fog but think humidity in the air that you could see. After she handed of the snap bracelet to me at exchange 19 the fog started to really settle in. This time my leg had one serious hill but only because I had to go down into a deep river valley at Kinnickinnic State Park. As I approached the valley I really noticed how think the fog was getting and I even had to turn my head lamp down to it;s lowest setting so I was not running through a white out caused by the lamp and all the fog. Again the hill got the best of me and I had to spend a bit walking just to save some energy. One of the tings that the race bible can't tell you about is how your energy start to fade on the second leg, not enough food and defiantly not enough sleep starts to eat away at your energy reserves. So up out of the valley I climbed and my team was able to toss me a poweraide that i carried the remainder of the leg. By this time the fog was getting rediculas, at one point I even got to within 5 feet of another runner before I could see him, he did have a blinking red taillight but it was really weak and I only saw it at the last minute. All in all this leg provided me with another very enjoyable, if not sureal Ragnar experiance that I will always remember. Leg Two Done! 5.32 Miles - Time 41:40 Avg. Pace 7:50

The second big exchange was at the Lifetime Fitness in Woodbury. At first I did not put two and two together but this worked out beautiful and Kris and I Lifetime members and we juts grabbed out gear, went into the club and soaked in the whirlpool for a while, showered and rolled out our muscles a bit with the foam rollers. That felt really good! And I don't think I would have been in as good a shape as a was starting my last leg.


Third and Last Leg: Leg 32 - Hard - Start Time 12:10PM - Temp 74; Dew point 68 and overcast. Third and last leg and I was not even sure what to expect from this leg. As I started out I wasn't thrilled with the first half of the leg, a lot of urban running on the side of the road smelling car exhaust, not very  fun but at about the half way point the route turned off onto a path the runs along Battle Creek. This was beautiful! I have never been here before and I was not sure what to expect but this is an amazing trail. I had so much fun and I think it showed in my run. Most of this leg was down hill and I was able to keep up and strong pace, never stopping or walking.

 The only downfall of this leg was that is was mostly downhill, and it was very hard on my legs, ankles and knees. I was very sore the next day. During my other legs I had been mentally counting the number of runner that I passed and the number of runners that passed me and came up with a net number for each leg. Just before this leg at exchange 30 I figured out that is called road kills. Learn something everyday. I got 6 roadkill's on this leg. Something that I think we will track during our next Ragnar. Leg 3 and my Ragnar Done! 5.83 miles - Time 45:00, Avg. Pace 7:43 My best performance of the race, even though it was my final leg, which by then I was exhausted.

My sister in law Cari, was our last runner and I give her tremendous credit, that last leg was almost 6 miles and it had gotten incredibly hot again, she did a great job and as she was finishing we all joined her to cross the finish line together as a team. Total time for Java Junkies #94 - 31:00:57 We came in 220/286 teams and 145/192 Open Division - Mixed. We easily would have been well under 31 hours had Cari and several other runner had not been stopped by a train for about 8 minutes with about a 1/2 mile to go. Next time!!

Java Junkies - #94 at the Finish Line (minus Brandy and Lance)

Van #2 Cari, Michael (w/Michaela), Me, Kris, Many and Steve.

Is it too soon to start thinking about our next Ragnar? I have done Great River twice now, perhaps a different Ragnar? They recently took over a relay from Madison to Chicago and next June will be the first running of that Ragnar Race. Mmmmmm.......

Next up Minneapolis Duathlon on August 29th

Race Recap: Graniteman Triathlon.

 First off, I really liked this race a lot!

I originally signed up for Graniteman because I was looking for a race that I could do by myself, Kris does Minneman every year and that is sort of her race so I wanted to find a race for me. Last year I did Lifetime Triathlon one week after Minneman and that was OK, but honestly Lifetime is a lot of hype and the emphasis is on the Elites and the average age groupers don't get much especially considering it is one of the most expensive Tri's I have ever signed up for.

Graniteman had a number of things that attracted me to the race. First and foremost was the swim course, Graniteman has been around for 7 years but this year they moved to an entirely new location in Warner Lake Park and the swim is a straight point to point .46 mile swim, no turns to fight around and as it turned out a nice lake, a little murky with no weeds to speak of.

Heading into this weekend we have not gotten much training in at all due to the new priority of getting Kris moved into my house. Take a moment to read our combined blog A Life More Complete for more details. With our focus on the move and lack of training this past week, skipped Core, no swims at all but we did have a very hard weights on Wednesday night which left us sore for most of the week. So with all of that I was not in the best place for this race and to top it off I we did not get in our pre-race soak.

The race is in Lake Warner Park and it has a bit of an unusual start, there is only transition but it is at the north end of the lake and you have to walk to the swim start at the south end of the lake. I was in wave 8 out of 9, another plus if you ask me, less chance to get run over during the swim. I started the swim and felt pretty good, but my lack of swimming this season came back to bite me again, about a 1/3 of the way across the lake my anxiety got the best of me, call it a combination of dark water, lack of training and the curse of starting off too fast during a race. Whatever it is I had to flip over onto my back and regroup, I keep swimming but with my own personal swim stroke, don't even know what it is called but it keeps me moving forward. Not sure how far I swam that way, maybe another 1/3 but after gathering myself I flipped back over and finished the swim fairly strongly.

Out of the water and into transition, I was trying a new tactic to wash my feet and speed up my T1 time, which I have been historically very slow at. I brought an additional towel and after rinsing my feet from my water bottle I stepped onto that towel to dry and keep dirt out of my bike shoes. It seamed to work since I got out of transition in 1:44 which might just be my fastest T1 time ever.

Out on the bike and this is the area I am hoping to be able to improve the most so I planned to put most of my energy on my bike today. The bike course was 15 miles and it was mostly gentle rollers, not two hard but I was at a slight disadvantage; I did not know then course and somehow I had it in my head that the course was 13 miles. My cycle computer had a dead battery so I honestly did not have any idea of how I was doing during the ride. And I am still having problems with my front derailer, I dropped my chain again that makes  two races in a row. Sigh.....

OK back to transition for T2, which is always pretty fast for me, I don't wear socks during the bike and then can just slip into my running shoes grab my visor and go. Back out on the course. The last mile of the bike you ride on the other side of the road from the runners and you sort of get an feel for what to expect on the run. It is a straight out and back with just one turn before the turn around. Unfortunately, the run course also has several rolling hills, not as bad as Waconia was but enough to make the run that much harder.

Having pushed pretty hard on the bike, I was shooting for a 20mph average or better, I used up a lot of my energy, and strting the run was harder then I was expecting, the weather was not helping , sunny and warm which is always one of my downfalls during a run. But I pushed on and after the first mile or so I was feeling a little better, I think my last gel might have been kicking in so i was able to add a little bit more speed and was able to finish strong. One critique would be that they needed two water stops, not just the one right at the turn around, or put the water spot farther away from the turn around and it can act as two water stops on the course.

I finished with a time of 1:29:18 and with the exception of the swim, I will count this as one of my most successful triathlons. Better then 50% in all categories, overall, division and gender. And one of the best part of the day was having my own personal cheerleader and photographer. Kris did a great job cheering me on during the race.

Mark Kuhn
bib number:	206
age:	40
gender:	M
location:	Robbinsdale, MN
overall place:	114 out of 367
division place:	20 out of 42
gender place:	89 out of 208
time:	1:29:18
swim:	16:40 (2:15/100y)
trn1:	1:44
bike:	45:15 (19.9 mph)
trn2:	0:56
run:	24:45 (7:57 pace)

Next up: Ragnar Relay (unfortunately more then a month away)

Race Recap: Tri-Loppet and Lake Waconia Tri - Back to Back Relays

This past weekend I had two opportunities to compete in a Multisport Relay event for the first time.

Cities of Lakes Tri-Loppet 

On Saturday, Kris myself and Jeff, our boss/friend at ZapEvent, competed in the Cities of Lakes Tri-Loppet, a twist on the standard Triathlon formula. The Tri-Loppet is a 8K Paddle, 5K Run and then an 11K Mountain Bike. We were signed up in the corporate relay division as Team ZapEvent (thanks by the way to Jeff and/or ZapEvent for picking up the entry fee) and divided the race legs with Jeff doing the paddle, Kris on the run and me finishing up on the mountain bike.

I was really looking forward to this race as I have never raced on a mountain bike before, there are several mountain bike race series in the area but I have never had the opportunity, granted I just got my new mountain bike this spring and I would never have ridden my old piece of junk in a race.

This race requires a bit of planning as, there is two transition location and the start and finish are also in different locations. The best plan is to park at the Lake Calhoun Exec Center and ride the shuttle boss to all the different locations. So we did just that and met Jeff down at the starting line on the south side of Lake Calhoun. It was quite the site to see all of the kayaks and canoes take off at the same time. We even had an Eagle preform a flyby in front of all of the boats just before they blew the horn. That was really neat!

So after Jeff took off we jumped on the shuttle and headed to the 1st transition, Paddle to Run at the top of little Brownie Lake. I honestly did not know you could travel entirely on the water from Calhoun to Brownie, learn something every day.

It might be a good point in the story to mention the torrential downpours we received the night before the race. Enough rain that it actually flooded out the creek and trails and required the race to make some last minute changes to the course. The run course originally ran along Bassett Creek but had to be rerouted because of the flooding, but they were still able to run the full 5K. The mountain bike course was also along the banks of the Basset Creek but in addition there was a lot of washed out areas as well requiring the race directors to eliminate the entire course north of Highway 55. So do to the weather on Friday night the mountain bike course was now less then half of the original distance of 11K.

So from transition #1 I had to get back on the shuttle and head up to Transition #2/Finish line where we dropped my bike off earlier in the morning. I had to leave before Jeff made it to Tran #1 and handed off to Kris. At transition #2 I met up with Charles, one of the videographers that will be filming our wedding, he decided to come and film some background training/racing before we head to Vegas in December. So we talked and I directed him around to the best spots to film Kris and I during the race and transition while we waited for Kris to finish the run.

One of the nice parts it that I got to see Kris at about the 4K mark before she headed back out for a final loop, which gave me a chance to get back into transition and get ready. In addition to the rain the night before, the morning started out very warm and humid and that was very apparent when I saw Kris come into the transition for the hand off, she was wiped. Grabbed the timing Chip and  headed out on the bike. So in eliminating the entire course north of 55 then end up creating two loops south of 55 around the finish/transition area. It worked out really well, but it did make the course a lot more crowded then it would have been. Passing was a challenge at times and impossible at other times. The first loop was more about learning the course and that allowed me to really put the hammer down on the second loop. I have to be honest and say that was the most fun I have had during a race in a long time. There were several watery mud pits that you had to cross along the route, not by design, but just all of the standing water from the storm. In one spot in particular it was water across the entire trail and it was about 30 long, which really will get you plenty muddy in a hurry if you are going fast. Loved it! On the second loop I really could feel how hard I was pushing, and it felt really good, the finish line was just beyond one final hill loop and I like to think I finished strong.

The final results were that we took third place in the Corporate Relay Division with a total time of 1:53:58 and I finished the bike in 19:05 and had an average of 21.5 mph. That is actually my fastest average in any Multisport event to date.

One other great thing came out of this race is that I finally got a ROCK STAR race photo!!

I highly recommend this event to anyone, either as a relay or as an individual. I am looking forward to trying this again next year and hopefully I can ride the full mountain bike course.

Lake Waconia Triathlon

On Sunday we continued our Relay weekend by participating in the Lake Waconia Triathlon.

For this more traditional multisport event we switched roles a bit and my brother Michael was part of this relay team. Kris took the swim leg as Michael is not a swimmer and she is a much stronger swimmer then I am. We had Michael play to his strength so he took the bike leg and I for the second time in two days anchoring a relay team and finished up this time on the run leg.

First a little bit of background information about the Waconia Tri, the swim takes place in Lake Waconia which is a very large lake. One of the issue that frequently occures is that the wind can build up quite a wave chop even with mild breeze and that can make the swim very difficult. Last year they even shorted the swim for all of the non-elites. But on Sunday morning it was calm and clear with the only issue is that it was a bit warm and very humid.

With the exception of the Elites Waconia is a time trial start and the relay teams were at the very front of the start line. Fortunately they realized that they had a problem with the time clock just before Kris started seventh in line. The first girl ended up swimming at least a 200 extra meters before they could get her attention and called her back. So after one false start Kris was in the water, and true to her expectations she was out of the water and running into transition in about 16 minutes. In transition, Kris run to where the relays teams were lined up along the back and Michael grabbed the chip and he takes off  out of transition.

 Now this is the hard part of a relay, the bike leg was 20 miles so you have about an hour of waiting before Michael would be back and hand the timing chip off to me. Another issue was that it was getting warmer with the very humid air, this was going to make my run even harder then I was anticipating. I tried to stay out of the sun and found some water to drink a little. As time got closer to when we were expecting Michael to come back to transition I ran for about 10 minutes along the road that the bikes were returning on. This section of road was fairer short in the park so I ran back and forth several times trying to take it very easy. So once I was warmed up Kris and I talked and we decided she would watch for Michael coming in along the road and way to me when he passed her.

After I got the wave I watched for Michael to get back into transition. A soon as he got to me along the back fence line I grabbed the timing chip off his ankle and put in on my and I was on the run. This run was 4 miles and a bit longer then Kris and I have been training for this spring, that and the heat and I did not want to take off too quickly like I have a tendency to do. So pacing my self I headed into downtown Waconia expecting to find a hill along the graveyard near the water tower, but as I quickly discover, this course was very hilly with several long rollers throughout the course. At mile 1 I was at about 7:35, much slower then I wanted to be so I picked up the pace a bit. Mile 2 was just beyond the turn around on this out and back course, and the turn around was just beyond the crest of yet another hill so you had to climb back up and the turn around, that is a little cruel. One of the things that I was really keeping an eye out for was other relay runners, they were easy to spot, we all had a letter "T" after our ages on the back of our right calves. During the run I was able to catch 5 other teams and I saw the other three that were the first teams out of transition, I made up a lot of ground on them but was unable to catch them, just too far ahead.

When I was in downtown, Karen from our master swim group passed me, I had passed her earlier during the run,  and I gave her a "Good Run" comment, she responded as she was passing me to "Keep Up with me" which I was able to do through out downtown but when we got to the next hill, I was beginning to get  the tingles, a good indication I was pushing too hard so I had to let her go. I think at mile 3 when I looked at my watch I was about 21:36 which is not bad, I was able to pick up my pace a bit from the first mile but still no where near what I can do in better conditions. After climbing out of downtown, I was able to get a bit of a breather and speed up going down the big hill by the graveyard which was a blessing as I knew there was one more hill before the finish line.

OK as I am approaching the finish area there is one more guy in from of me, I had been hanging out about 10-20 feet behind him the last 1/2 mile and I was fairly sure I could pass one more person, he did not make it easy though, as i got close he sped up and the I had to speed up a bit more. As we made the turn to head down the chute I gave it all I had and passed him but he managed to hang on right behind me where i could not hear him and passed me just as we got to the line. No big deal, he was an age grouper and I was a relay team, so we were not directly competing but it is nice to have someone help you pull out a little bit more speed then you might have if they had not been there.

Race is done and I have completed my first Triathlon relay, it was fun and I defiantly would do it again but it is something different and does not quite compare with doing all three legs yourself.

End result was that Team Coffee Love came in 4th place out of 13 in co-ed relay teams (5/19 overall) and we just missed placing 3rd by 1:22. Kris's swim was 16:06; Michael completed the bike in 1:03:41 and my run was 28:56, a 7:14 pace which was a little disappointing as I know I can go much faster then that, and we cam so close the placing 3rd, but I did have the second fastest run among all relay teams so I am happy with that.

OK time to wrap up this novel, next up for me is Graniteman Triathlon in 2 weeks, should be interesting as it is almost the identical distances that Manitou Tri was a few weeks back, hopefully I won't freak out on the swim this time. This coming weekend is Kris's race - Minneman Triathlon and Sugar and I will be cheering her on like I did last year, hopefully she has a great race and it is not too hot.

An unexpected suprise in the mail.

Last Friday I opened my mailbox and to my complete surprise I was looking at a magazine with a very familiar picture on the cover of it.

Look familiar?

That picture was taken by me after we completed the Lake Minnetonka Half Marathon.

I knew that we were going to be part of an article about ALARC members who blog but I was not expecting our picture to be on the cover. And upon further investigation we also made the contents page and the blogger article as well.

 

The part that I was completely flabbergasted by was the second article entirely about Kris and I, how we met, how I proposed and how we plan to get married in December. It turns out Kris knew all about this second article, in fact I help write it up with out knowing that it was going to be used in the ALARC magazine. She is not only very cute but also a little sneaky.

Since this started out as just being included in an article about Blogging and the article includes a link to this Blog I am going to have to make a point of keeping it updated more often.

I am currently working on a blog about this past weekends races, the Tri-Loppet and Lake Waconia Triathlon, both of which I participated as a relay team.

After I get this past weekends blog finished I will then write up a few catch up blogs starting with a Grandma's weekend wrap up, followed by a Spring Races review, a post 40 Birthday blog and one final article discussing the 90 weight loss plan and the end results.

Hopefully with those blogs i should be sufficiently caught up to move forward.

Mark

Weeks 3 & 4 - Not what I would have hoped for.

(And Yes, I know this is actually week 5, trying to get caught up at the moment. Check back tomorrow for the Week 5 update)

But when your father is in town visiting from Arizona and you come down with a horrible cold, I will take just maintaining any day.

Not only was my Dad in town during this time period, which we went out to dinner on several occasions, Crave is fantastic, but we also had 3 get togethers/parties. The Superbowl, my niece Michaela's 3rd birthday party and a Olympic opening ceremony party. A lot of food was around during this two weeks and I did my best to eat as good as I could but at times I was not as successful as I would have liked.

Week 3
Current Weight - 184.0 lbs.
Weight lost this week - 0 lbs.
Total weight lost - 8.0 lbs.

Week 4
Current Weight - 184.5 lbs.
Weight lost this week - +.5 lbs.
Total weight lost - 7.5 lbs.

Throwing a monkey wrench in the works was the cold that Kris gave me and I held onto for several days. Not only did it make the diet hard, decided to eat more to make sure I was getting enough nutrition to get better, but it wrecked havoc with the race/event schedule.

2/6 Yukon Days - The original plan was to run the 1 mile and the 3 mile snowshoe race, but when we cold not locate running snowshoes for rent we fell back on plan B. Run the 1 mile race and the 3 mile race. What was a little bit of a surprise was that the races, all of them, were on the snow covered White Bear Lake. OK, something differant, we wanted to try trail running and we did something similar in December at the Winter Waddle.

So we lined up for the 1 mile and off we went. Once again I started out way to fast, I was in the lead from almost the beginning and held onto it until just before the turn around at half mile. OK, I let two get past me in the next quarter mile so if I could just hold on I could still take 3rd place and get a medal?? Nope, not today. In quick succession, I was passed by 3 more runners letting me finish in 6th place. My time was 7:51 but 3rd place was 7:41 so we were very close. Running through the snow on the ice was so hard, I know I am in not in shape at the moment but I have run two sub-6:00 minute miles if that gives you an idea how hard this race was. The winning time was 7:11. I would love to have know what my 1/2 mile split was.

After the one mile I was spent! I could not even catch my breath and had horrible coughing fits. (Foreshadowing of my cold?) We decided to skip the 3 mile on the same snow covered ice terrain. No thanks! First and last time for that event. At least we got a hooded sweatshirt, modeled in the picture below, which is a new swag that I have not seen before.

2/13 - We originally planned on running in the TC Valentine's Day 5K, but when online registration closed on the Tuesday before the race and the price went from $50 per couple to $35 per person we said NO THANK YOU!

2/14 - We hoped to attend the Charities Challenge - Challenge Hearts indoor track meet, but due to my stupid cold we decided to stay home and get some additional rest. So no early season 1 mile benchmark. :(

Hopefully now that life has gotten back to normal, all the big celebration events are over and my Dad has gone back to Arizona we can get back on track. I am hoping to show a little weight loss in this coming week.

Week 2 Update and Great Lakes MultiSport Expo and InStep 5K oh my!!

90 Day review...

OK, so this past week was a lot harder then the first week. I think will power got me through the first week but it was difficult finding that same amount of will power in week two. The hunger urges got the best of me on a couple of occasions.

Workout summery:

Wednesday 1/27 - ALARC Core Class - 90 minutes
Sunday 1/30 - Instep 5K - 27:20
Monday 2/1 - Running - 30 Minutes; Weight Training - Legs

We traveled to Milwaukee last weekend for the Great Lakes Multisport Expo (review below) which defiantly put a dent in the workout scheduled and made the diet a challenge. I can tell that my stomach has shrunk and it takes less for me to feel full.

Current Weight - 184.0 lbs.
Weight lost this week - 1.5 lbs.
Total weight lost - 8.0 lbs.

The one plus this past week was the fact that Kris lost 4 pounds which I had been telling her for the past two weeks that she was doing good and that she was losing weight and would show in week two. And I was right!!!

Multisport Expo:

This past weekend Kris and I traveled to Milwaukee for the 2010 Great Lakes Multisport Expo presented by RACC. This was a great opportunity for us to talk to several race directors and running groups about ZapEvent and what we can do for them, we made several promising contact that I am currently sending follow up emails too.

From a multisport participant point of view, it was really fun to see everything the Expo had to offer but by far the coolest thing had to be the team and individual bike time trials.

This would have been so fun to do especially the team time trial but I don't think we would haul our bikes to Milwaukee in the middle of winter time unless we had an enclosed option, plus we are missing a team to be part of. The one oddity about the expo was the complete lack of anyone that we knew and absolutely NO Gear West red anywhere. Hopefully we can generate enough interest in the Twin Cities multisport community so that we can better represent next year. Hey Kevin O'Connor, Steve Gunther and Kris Swarthout are you listening????

InStep 5K:

As part of the Expo on Sunday morning they had the InStep Winter Series 5K Championship at the Expo. Since we were going to be at the Expo already we decided to add another race to our schedule. Did I mention that the Expo was at the Wisconsin State Fair grounds? The 5K race was through out the fairgrounds and did a lap around the Miriacle Mile race track. The course was mostly flat and we were able to finish with a decent time of 27:20 giving Kris a good benchmark for the beginning of the season.

After the race we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, took our time getting ready and then geocached in Milwaukee until about 3pm when we had to head back to the cities. Details about our geocaching part of this trip can be read about on our other blog, A Life More Complete.

This coming weekend we are signed up for the Yukon Days 1 mile and 3 mile snowshoe on Saturday morning and the Luminary Loppit on Saturday evening.