Lambeau!

It was my birthday weekend, which also happened to be Marquette Beer Festival and the Packers vs the Bears football game at the Lambeau Field.

Hannah and I were in the midst of training for our 100K race, so we needed to somehow pack in a longish run during this weekend. We ended up doing the Four Peaks route in Marquette - it has an elevation gain of about 1300ft, and total distance of about 10 miles. The run is mostly single-track, climbing the 4 peaks: Sugarloaf, Top-of-the-World, Bareback, and Hogback. And throughout the run, we had views of Lake Superior, and its shoreline. We took our time to enjoy the view while making sure we get our heart-rate up in the climbing of the peaks!

It was good that we lost a bunch of calories in the run because we definitely "replenished" those lost calories at the Marquette Beer Festival! Hannah's dad had bought two tickets for us. And by the time we reached the beer festival after the run, everyone (Hannah's dad, Billy Palmer and family and Grace) had already been there for hours! It was very clear at first glance that it was a huge event, and everyone were "enjoying" themselves tremendously :) Unfortunately, we did not remember to take any photographs at the beer festival, but we did enjoy sampling beer from different breweries. 

On Sunday, we were back in Iron Mountain. We joined Hannah's mom and Uncle Jim at the famous Lambeau Field for the Packers vs Bears football game. It was a GAME! Hannah's mom and us were so amped-up throughout the game - it was a very close-call with the Green Bay Packers overcame a 20-point deficit  and eventually winning against the Chicago Bears 24-23! The whole stadium were cheering, and it was a sight when a stadium packed with 78,000 fans were all cheering at the same time!

Marquette Half-Marathon

Disclaimer: Took a quick 2 mins break and wrote this during work.. tins of mistakes. Please forgive me.

I am got into another race again! And this time, Hannah also managed to convince Grace into running for the race. It was Labor Day weekend, and we were up at Hannah's parents place in Iron Mountain. The race was on Saturday, but Hannah and I had to meet our weekly run quota, thus we went for a easy 13-mile run on Friday as well :). 

The run was in Marquette, which was about an hour drive from Iron Mountain. We woke up at around 4.30am, and after a quick coffee and breakfast, we were on our way. It was a nice, breezy drive, and we were at Marquette around 7am (EST). We took the shutter bus to the starting line, and of course, we had to quietly "mock" all the "super runners", people who are over-dressed etc.

Got our tags, checked in our belongings, and ready for the run. We took joy in looking at various runners in their colorful running gear, and people looking very serious doing their stretching. Took a few quick photos (Hannah insisted on it :) and we were on our way! We stayed behind most of the runners so that we would be more inspired to run passing them along the way...

I had told Hannah and Grace prior to the run that I would picked up my pace after 2 miles, and see if I can push my limit on this race. I finished the race at around 2hrs 1 min, with an average pace of 9.12mi/hr. Not too bad.

Of course, there were beer after the run! and even more beer and food when we were back in Iron Mountain. Until the next run :)