Rundle (3) Baylor Regional Park. A Cross Country Rundle

Who like me, detested cross country at school? It was the winter athletic sport/method of torture, of choice when I was being educated. Running across fields, up and down hills, through farmyards, slipping and sliding in the mud. 

Ugh. Then why do I find myself looking forward to this run at Baylor Regional Park forty years later?

Mainly because it’s not cold wet and muddy. I have run my fair share of marathons on trails. Approximately 24 of the 26.2 miles of The Whistlestop marathon in Ashland, WI are on old railroad track bed, not unlike the surface at the park. I’ve run that event in the snow. I have cold weather running gear, when needed. Cross Country holds no fears for me now.

Since I learned to cross country ski earlier this year, I have spent quite a bit of time on the trails in the park getting the hang of the sport, and I love it. There’s five miles of trail here, and as that was what my training plan called for. That was what I decided to do. Run the trails that I have ski’d and snowshoe’d.

It didn’t look like this the last time I was here

Of course, everything looks totally different at the end of spring compared to the bleak midwinter when I was here skiing last. Where I felt I should run turned out to be an RV pitch, and a fire pit had appeared from nowhere. But once I got out of the camp site it was plain sailing.

The scenery was a beautiful as it was in the winter.

Nicely compacted limestone trail, comfy on the legs.

The trail heads off into the distance

I easily found the section of the trail where I had embarrassingly fallen going uphill, because my skiing skills were no match for the gradient. Another spot I recalled because it was where I fell and lost track of one of my ski’s as it sped off into the undergrowth.

The oddest thing I saw on the trail were the brushwood teepee’s in a couple of clearings in the woods. Why they were there is a mystery. It was an interesting sight to cogitate on as I jogged around the trail.

Teepee 1.

Teepee 2.

I left the woods behind and skirted Eagle Lake, the swimming beach was deserted. A few swans in the distance were pretty much the sum total of the wildlife I saw on the run. 

No swimmers today

The Observatory

One thing worth recording on the run is the Minnesota Astronomical Society’s Onan (Eagle Lake) Observatory. The M.A.S. is one of the largest astronomy societies in the USA. The observatory is sometimes open at night for star parties when you can use their telescopes to view the cosmos.

With that I headed back to the car. My Garmin came up slightly short on the distance, so I did a lap of the parking lot to bring up five miles. A relaxing run in lovely scenery. Nothing could be finer. What’s next? 

Treadmill Trivia

What Ho running peeps!

OK. I’ll come clean. I’m not on the dreadmill. I wouldn’t be able to type anything while running. I’m on the exercise bike cross training. So for a bit of fun while I turn over the pedals. Here’s some running trivia for you. We all love trivia don’t we?

Which Lake Bemidji innkeeper and fishing guide has won Grandmas Marathon twice, and the London Marathon?

Dick Beardsley.

He’s a running legend. The only person to have run 13 consecutive marathon personal bests. Think about that a moment. Running a PB thirteen times in a row. That fact alone should boggle the mind. 

His finish time of 2:09:37 at the 1981 Grandmas Marathon stood as the course record for 33 years. 

But he is probably best known for his 1981 London Marathon finish with Norwegian Inge Simonsen. I can vividly remember watching the inaugural London Marathon back home in the UK as an impressionable youth. It was a huge thing with live TV coverage every step of the way.

It raised the profile of Marathon running in the UK and inspired many people take up marathon running. (Not me, that was still over 20 years away). But I do remember thinking as the two runners finished, that this was something pretty special. A unique runner's bond. It’s not stretching things too far to state that the Beardsley/Simonsen finish helped set the reputation of the London Marathon as one of the world’s great marathons. It was exactly the finish the race needed. It was so “British” in a way. If this race had been in America, the public would have wanted the US runner to power away to a resounding solo victory.  This was a result for the greater good of the sport.

Here’s some highlights of the event. If you don’t know the history of this race or had forgotten it, you’ll do well to take a look at this BBC footage from the time. It contains priceless interview footage with ordinary runners. If you aren’t inspired by Scots woman Madge Sharples then you are a cold, lifeless, human being. It’s also worth listening to Dick at the end of the race. I don’t think any professional marathon runner would do what he did today. 

Grandmas Marathon runners hear Dick’s voice at the start and finish line as he commentates with another Minnesota running legend Carrie Tollefson.

When Dick is not traveling the world being an in demand motivational speaker you can find him running a Bed and Breakfast up nort’ in Bemidji MN. If you’re a fisherman you can also have this Minnesota Running legend be your fishing guide on Lake Bemidji. 

Rundle (2) Norwood

Norwood Young America or NYA, depending on your point of view, is one, or two places. Historically speaking, Young America came first, being platted in 1856. Norwood in 1872. The two settlements merged in 1972. Depending on which you live in, the settlement can be known as Norwood, or Young America. Divided by Highway 212, I think of Young America as north of the highway and Norwood south. Having run in Young America on Tuesday, and spied the highway underpass as I finished, I thought that as today was Global Running Day. I would discover Norwood.

Whats down here?

As with the previous day, I warmed up on the exercise bike in the gym for 20 minutes. Setting out, I looped around the public trail through the school grounds before hitting the underpass on my voyage of discovery. 

NYA appears to have a good selection of new trails and sidewalks, judging by those that I ran on. It was nice to have a good trail away from the highway as heavy semis and cars sped by.  
I had planned out a route of 4 miles on Google Earth. I find it a quite handy tool to use for plotting routes. The measurement of distances is accurate, and you can always take a look in Streetview to see if there are any notable features on the route, should you think you’ll get lost running in a new locale.

Is that a train I see?

As I’m a bit of a railroad enthusiast, turning onto Railroad Avenue filled me with hope that I’d see a train. But it wasn’t until I had done a loop around the strip mall and was heading back the way I came, that I spied a couple of locomotives at the head of a train on the Minnesota Prairie Line spur. It was hidden by trees, if the motors had been running, I would have for sure heard and seen it the first time!

Running on more good sidewalks I soon found myself at the ballpark fields, a very nice community facility. My Garmin had chirped at three miles, so I was pretty confident that the Google Earth prediction of 4 miles would be correct. I slalomed through the trees for good measure. 

The Karmann Ghia is the Orange/Red car in the middle

Crossing over the railroad. I hoped to hear the horn of an approaching train in the distance, but no such luck. However, on the other side of the road, I saw a small industrial unit signed as “Dune Buggy Supply”. Outside were parked a couple of VW Beetles, a pair of Microbuses, and a Karmann Ghia. I secretly covet a Volkswagen Karmann Ghia. So it was pretty sweet to see one. 
That was it really. Back to the underpass, under 212, and just as I entered the gym parking lot, my Garmin chirped four miles. Excellent.
Once again, the run could be said to be a bit on the fast side, but I was having fun exploring, and I hadn’t worked too hard, despite the humidity feeling higher than the previous day.

Global Running Day.

“Global Running Day is a worldwide celebration of running that encourages people of all ages and abilities to get moving. This day plays an important role, reminding us of the positives that running can offer to our physical and mental health and the power of unification. This year, let’s run together on Global Running Day to celebrate our love of running and as we take strides towards leading healthier and more active lives.”

https://globalrunningday.org/

Go for a Run today.

Rundle (1) Norwood Young America.

What’s a Rundle?

Rundle is the name I give to my training runs. 

Do you remember way back in the far off Covid times of a couple of years ago? Wordle was the big thing, and people posted their scores all over social media. I got sick of those posts very quickly. In reply I posted my Strava run details and called them “Rundles”. The name stuck. 

Here then is the first Rundle of the blog.

You would expect that my first Rundle would be of a route that I run regularly. Not so. This is the first time I’ve run this route in Norwood Young America. 

As I’m tapering down for Grandmas marathon, I find myself tiring of my regular shorter routes in my home town, and I’m in need of a change. My gym is the Snap Fitness in NYA so I thought I’d run around there. A sort of voyage of discovery. 

After a 20 minute warm up in the gym, I set out on my three mile/5K run. (I’d measured it out on Google Earth the night before so I was pretty certain of the distance.) 

It’s nice to run on new roads, distances can fly by quicker because you don’t know where you are. On a familiar run you know exactly where you are. 

All. 

The. 

Flipping. 

Time. 

It can get quite tedious. 

I left the health club and ran past the school, through a residential area and turned at a delightful small town baseball park (note to self; take pictures next time). 

I ended up taking a wrong turn at a staggered 5 road crossroads, but that made little difference to the total distance covered. The only drawback being that I ran on the shoulder of the busy Highway 5 for about 1/4 mile. In another way it was a fruitful wrong turn, as in the distance I spied my favourite food truck. Elephant Joe’s Coffee. I decided to stop there when I was done. As I approached the end of my run, I saw that there was an underpass beneath Highway 212 leading into Norwood itself. There’s another new running route to discover sometime.

The pace of 9:04 minute miles was likely a bit fast, but I find that short runs can be quite comfortable at quicker paces by this stage of training. You’re hardly eating into your energy reserves at all, and if your breathing is fine. You’re good. 

It’s humid hereabouts right now, and thanks to the Canadian forest fires, there’s an air quality alert for sensitive groups today as well. But I felt quite comfortable out there, and had such a pleasant time discovering 5 kilometers of new roads, that a cup of coffee from Elephant Joe’s was a nice treat to end the run with.

I’ll have a large “Ivory Elephant” please. Thank You.

How did I get here?

Twenty years ago, I didn’t even have an idea of running one marathon. Let alone coming up on 25 of them. It was 2004, I had entered my forties, and like everyone approaching their mid-life crisis, I started to evaluate my life. Things I’d done. More accurately the things I hadn’t.  I remembered seeing something about the first Ironman triathlon on TV growing up. I thought that was pretty amazing. Perhaps I could work towards that. I’d improve my fitness that’s for sure. That would please my family physician. 

I decided I would start small to see if I liked it, and go from there. I signed up for the first Buffalo, MN sprint triathlon, found an online training plan and started training. 

Everything was going well until two weeks before the start. Out on a training ride, I got too close to a crumbling road shoulder, fell and broke my collarbone.

Two weeks from race day!

I was pretty upset. All that hard work and training was for nothing. On top of that I was signed off work for six weeks. All I could do was sit at home and feel sorry for myself.

A few weeks later, my brother-in-law, Jeff, was running Grandma’s marathon. He had started training for marathons at the same time as I started on triathlons. He then gravitated to triathlon, completing a dozen Ironman, including Kona, while I switched to running from doing triathlons.

My wife and I went up to Duluth to cheer him on. I sat on a lawn chair on the finishing straight, my arm in a sling, still feeling sorry for myself. 

That was until I saw a young woman run past with her arm in a sling! She was running the half marathon.

She was running with her arm in a sling! 

I immediately stopped feeling sorry for myself. After the race, we went home. Pretty much as soon as we got back, I changed, strapped up my arm tightly and went for a run. Just a couple of miles, but there was no pain. I could run again! 

Naturally, the next thing to do was find a marathon to run. The Twin Cities marathon was already full, but there was a marathon in Ashland, Wisconsin in the fall. The Whistlestop. 

We have friends that live in Ashland. We had a marathon. We had accommodation. 

For a few years, I ran various triathlons and the Whistlestop marathon. That was until I got to the half Ironman distance. It was then I discovered I would never be a strong enough or confident enough swimmer to do an Ironman. I switched to marathons and never looked back.

Marathon has given me so many memorable experiences. Good and not so good. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve listened to experienced marathoners, I’ve ignored what experienced runners have told me and paid the price. 

I’m 60 now and retired. I’ve matured as a runner. I’ve left my best years and PB’s behind me, so there’s no pressure. It’s all about the joy of running now. 

I think about the woman with her arm in a sling sometimes. Is she still running?