Icebreaker Indoor Marathon Relay

This entry is also being used for teacher challenge #5 – using images in posts.

Last Saturday, I was healthy and privileged enough to be able to participate in the Icebreaker Indoor Marathon Relay. The Icebreaker weekend is a unique event which includes a full marathon, half-marathon, marathon relay, and 5K. The neat thing about the races is that they are all held indoors at the Pettit National Ice Center.

I signed up with Fit Milwaukee (which is an awesome site/blog to check out if you live in the Milwaukee area). They had ten teams sign up for the race. 103 teams participated– that’s a lot of runners! Our team was called Rox Ur Sox. I had never met any of my teammates before Saturday, so I was a bit nervous for that, but they were all really great!

Our plan was to each run 12 laps of the track and then cycle through our team again. Kristina went first, and being the veteran runner she is, was done in no time. Curtis (our awesome team captain) was up next and he was great! Stacy then did her turns around the circle and then I was up. I got around the track a few times…running by where all the spectators were and then walking to recover a bit on the backside of the ice rink. By the time the 11th and 12th laps came around I knew that I was getting a blister on my heel. Little did I know how bad it was. When I got back to the transition area and gave Kristina our chip timer, I hobbled back to where we had camped out. I took my shoe off and the heel was covered with blood.

I hobbled out of the track area to find someone with a bandaid. I got it all covered up and just sat where my team was camped out for a while. I was not happy with this development, because I knew that if I tried to do another 12 laps it would just get worse.

Kristina felt good enough to do 13 laps, and Curtis went back in. Kristina left so she could get sleep before her overnight nursing shift. Stacy was getting cold just standing around waiting, so she asked if we could switch more often and do 4-lap increments. This is when things started falling apart for FITMKE: Rox Ur Sox. Curtis’ knee started bothering him. Stacy’s IT Band was bothering her (from a former injury) and I was still slightly bleeding. I was determined to get back in there and do at least a few more rounds of the track. Curtis wouldn’t give up even though his knee was obviously killing him. Stacy was as determined as ever to get in there and get it done. Curtis demanded the last lap around the track and as he came around the final turn, Stacy and I joined him and we went through the FITMKE cheering powerarch and finished in five hours, three minutes and thirty-four seconds. 101st of 103 teams (officially) and good for an 11:36 pace overall.

The best thing about this race was that every time you went around the track, someone was there to cheer you on. (Thank you to EVERYONE from FitMke/TeamChallenge!) I even got a little choked up for people cheering me on as they were passing me. (Yes, I’m talking about you, Anne, Tracey, Krista, Meghan and Erin!) This is a start to a new love affair with running. After starting just a year ago, events like this are extremely motivating…Seeing all these people by whom I am inspired cheer for me?

It’s a complete #lovefest up in here.

Both photos are licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike license. Photos by Curtis Gibeaut (Click for Flickr)