Door County Fall 50 2010

I ran the team relay race at the Door County Fall 50 again this year, my third consecutive year. This year I was on a team of 5 including Dave, Brendan & Miaja, and my wife, Kathy. Kathy made a good effort this Summer as a beginning runner and we had run a few races together. Pain caused by a bone spur cut her running carrier very short (about 3 months). So, this year we ran as a team of 4 and our team name was "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out". The team name was a line from the movie A Christmas Story. All it takes is "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" boxer shorts, being worn in public at our health club, combined with a 'wardrobe malfunction', to provide inspiration for the team name. Brendan would wear those boxers in the Fall 50 this year but we made sure he had the fly pinned-shut. :-)

You can find my previous race reports by clicking on 2008 or 2009. There are many more pics in those reports because of the rainfall this year, I kept the camera in the car most of the time.

Friday night we drove to Sturgeon Bay and stopped at the Ladder House for packet pickup. Packet pickup went smoothly and I said hi to John Storkamp who is one of the top solo runners. John is the race director for the Afton Trail Run which is a great trail race in the Twin Cities area and it's a can't-miss race held in the peak of the Summer heat. We also ran into Kristen/Karl/Paul that I know as they're friends I run with sometimes.

We had dinner, the same as last year, was at the Inn at Cedar Crossing. Unlike the fantastic dinner we had last year, this year's dinner was ordinary. The restaurant was very busy and maybe it was an off-night as far as cooking goes. Of course, this is my opinion.

Saturday morning I got up for breakfast and we were ready to head for the start at 7:30. We had a 9am start time based on our Team's overall pace. Since Kathy dropped from our team, we would have a faster pace than I originally estimated. Before we left Minnesota, I filled out a spreadsheet that showed each of the legs of the race and when we expected to have a runner start from each exchange. I just entered what I guessed our overall pace would be - 8:30 per mile. I tell people that I'm good at guessing a team pace. Last year we were 3 minutes and 7 seconds faster than what I estimated. I guess with confidence!

Kathy also asked me if she could volunteer at the race since she wasn't running. What a great idea! So, I used my chart of when we would be at the exchanges and decided that it would work out best for Kathy to volunteer at the Exchange #3 food/water station. We dropped Kathy off on our trip to the start and we were getting more excited by the minute.

At the start, Brendan got prepared, went to the starting line and in a few minutes the horn sounded and he was off. I somehow didn't see him run by so I just took a picture of strangers (not posted here). I was happy that we had warmer temps and no cold wind blowing on us like last year, and maybe the year before. The weather seemed perfect for running. Not wanting to be last to Exchange #1, we headed down the road.

I was scheduled to run leg 2 and I was ready to go. When Brendan handed me the wrist band I took off and was passed by a runner after about one minute. Ugh. What a way to start the day. Oh well. This darn leg starts on an uphill. I ran hard and fairly fast and after I got to the top it was time to fly (this is all relative). I had expected to run at a 7:30 average for the day but I was runner well today. My Garmin data for this 6.4 mile run is here. I was very happy with a 7:09 average pace for that run and very happy that I ran the hills.

I won't speak much for the other runners but I handed off to Miaja for leg 3 and we headed to Exchange #3. There we chatted with Kathy and picked her up at the end of her volunteering shift as Dave waited to start. I love running leg 4 and it was Dave's turn to run that leg this year. If your team run this race enough years, I highly recommend that all runners get a chance to run leg 4 through Peninsula Park. It's my favorite segment of the race. I believe Dave ran very well at just over a 7:00 pace.

Leg 5 was my turn again. 4.8 miles and this is the leg that had a healthy switch-back thrown in. Nice! I ran this leg at an 7:17 pace and was happy again to run the whole thing - even the switchback. You can see my Garmin data here. Due to the difference between the actual distance and what the Garmin reports, the paces I list here don't match the Garmin. I used the recorded time along with the published leg distances. My day's average pace was 7:13 for 11.2 miles and I am very pleased with that pace. The cooler weather and rain helped me run fast. After I was done with this leg I was done with the race! In addition, I was at the half-way buffet and was ready for some soup. Yum!

The next legs were run well by the team with Brendan running legs 6 and 7, Dave running leg 8, and Miaja running legs 9 and 10. That seemed to be a good way to split up the legs for 4 runners and we each only had to run twice although two people ran back to back legs.

We went to the finish and waited for Miaja to come into the park then we crossed the finish in 7:07:09. My guess of an overall 8:30 pace would have put us in at 7:05:00 so we were just 2:09 over. This puts my two-year combined estimated finishing times at only 62 seconds slower than estimated for 100 miles. I'm predicting this will end with a total.pace-guessing.failure next year. :-)

The test party was great as usual but we left just before the awards were announced to go back to the hotel and get cleaned up. Later, some of us headed across the street and got a little more food and some beverages before heading downtown like last year, we hit some fun places downtown and a few of us stayed out dancing until after 1am. I'm convinced that 2 or 3 hours of dancing is awesome for recovery. My legs feel really good today, the second day after the race, and I think it's mostly because of that late night dancing.


me (Mark), Dave, Miaja, Brendan

Although I have one more race this year, I can confidently state that the Door County Fall 50 is my favorite race of the year for the third consecutive year!

See you there in 2011.

--Mark