madcity girl

Last Saturday morning, my friends Karen, Emily, and I road tripped to Stevens Point (about 2 hours north of Madison) for the Point Bock Run. It’s a 5-mile road race that takes place at the Stevens Point Brewery every year in early March.

I’ve done the race several times and it’s always one of my favorites. You may remember my post from the race in 2008. I love the small town, grassroots race vibe. Plus it’s fun to make a day out of it and road trip there with friends. And you can’t beat the $15 early registration fee—which includes a long sleeve t-shirt, light post-race food (bagels, cookies, etc.), and two hours of all-you-can-drink beer and root beer at the finish line tent. You better believe I take advantage of the root beer and cookies.

Each year I’ve watched the race grow bigger and bigger. This year the race reached capacity (2000 runners) a week beforehand. I registered two months out, after my friend Karen repeatedly asked, “have you registered yet?” [insert snooty tone]. Procrastinator Emily didn’t register until the week of the race. Emily happened to check the online list of registered runners a few days before the race, only to notice that Karen’s name wasn’t on it. That’s how we came to figure out that despite repeated reminders to both Emily and I, Karen had failed to actually register herself for the race. But being the good sport that she is, Karen opted to come along anyways and do a training run while we raced. But I don’t think she’ll live that one down anytime soon.

Amazingly, the Point Bock Run always seems to fall on the most spectacular late winter day—with warm temperatures, sunny skies, and the promise of spring lingering on the horizon. This year was no exception. The snow was literally melting all around us. Some people were eagerly sporting tank tops and shorts, while others were still bundled up in hats and gloves. It was as if people didn’t know what season to make of it.

While in past years I’ve treated this race as a fun run, this year I decided to give it my all and see what I could do. I haven’t been incorporating much speed work into my training as of yet, so I knew it would hurt. One motivator was a girl ahead of me in a pink running skirt. Nothing against running skirts, but I wasn’t about to let a girl in a pink running skirt beat me without a fight. I kicked it in at the half-way point and made my move. I finished the race in 35:17, which equates to a 7:03 minute/mile pace. Just a few seconds ahead of pink skirt girl. It was a PR for me by more than 4 minutes. Thank you pink skirt girl.

After several cups of root beer and post-race cookies, Emily, Karen, and I headed to lunch at Big Apple Bagels before returning to Madison. The stop brought me back to my high school days when my friends and I would routinely spend our lunch hour at Big Apple Bagels gorging on chocolate chip bagels with chocolate chip cream cheese. There’s nothing like a little piece of chocolate chip heaven to speed post-race recovery. Uh…and I also bought a dozen bagels and a tub of chocolate chip cream cheese for the road. For memory’s sake.