Spring has finally hit southeast Wisconsin in the nice, sunny, warm way, not just the cold and rainy way.  Though, that rain has been sorely needed, as you’ll see later.

After my 20-miler on the 11th, I’m winding down the mileage to give my body time to repair all the microtears and whatnot that have surely been accumulating.  I skipped both of my week runs last week; I don’t have any real good excuse, I just didn’t feel like running.  This season in particular, I’ve been skipping one or both of my Monday/Wednesday runs, but it doesn’t seem to have affected my performance too much.  Sure, I probably would be a little stronger, but I’m happy with my progress so far.  Instead of worrying about speed, I’ve been focusing more on endurance and strength (especially hills).  Hopefully it’ll pay off!

Last Saturday, the 18th, I headed out to Parkside for a 12-miler.  A nice “middle” distance.  I can’t consider anything under 14 miles “long” any more.  Sorry.  My plan was to run the 10k course twice.  For fun, I decided to eschew shoes completely, and do the whole thing in my KSO’s.

Clear skies and bright sunshine led to a near-70 degree late morning when I stepped onto the Killing Field, clad only in shorts, a bandanna, and my lizard feet.  With a beep of my stopwatch, I was off.  As I crested The Hill, I was met with an familiar sight: thick, white/yellow smoke coming over the trees.  At the top of The Hill is, simply, The Top.  A wide, open field of tall grasses with various course trails cutting through.  At the edge of The Top is Green Bay Road, and there was a grass fire.  I wondered if it was a controlled burn, but controlled burns usually require someone to, you know, control them.  Other than a County Sheriff’s car on the side of the road, no one was out there.

Since the trail I was taking ran through the burning part, I stopped at the squad car first.  “You mind if I run through there?” I asked.

“Knock yourself out, just don’t get burned,” came the mustachioed reply.

“That wasn’t intentional, was it?”

He shook his head.  “Nope, fire department’s on its way.”

I thanked him and headed down the path.  The ditch and telephone pole to my left burned, and the grass to my right was being rapidly consumed.  The trail itself was short, green grass, and didn’t burn - just the tall dead stuff from last year.  The wind was really whipping from the east, though, and pushing the fire along.  The burning/burned area was maybe 100 feet long and 20 feet to either side.  I left it behind and ran on, doing a little loop in a stand of trees.  Maybe three minutes later, I came back out, and the fire had easily quadrupled in size.  Another little loop through some trees, and I passed the field again, and by now there were firefighters knocking down some of the smaller independent fires.

My route took me away, through the Pines, across the Meadow, down the long Straightaway, and around the Two-Mile Loop (named for the 5k/8k marker, not it’s actual length).  Then it was up the White Lady (cuz she’s a bitch of a hill), across the 8k/10k Cut, down the Hill of False Hope and the Exit Ramp.  This took me into the Chutes and back out onto the Killing Field.  I was then on part two of the figure-eight-shaped course, running back up The Hill.

Once at The Top, the fire department was still at work.  The fire was quite a ways away from where I was going to run, but a brush truck was parked on the trail.  I slowed to a walk and sought out the Chief.  I’ve known him since I was kid, but he wouldn’t recognize me now.

“Hey Krause, am I ok to run through?” I yelled over the rumbling equipment.

He looked at me, a little surprised.  “Nah,” he called back.  “Go around!”

I waved and smiled, “Just checkin’, thanks!” and headed away to rerun the first half of the figure eight again.  I come from a firefighting family.  I’m not going to bother them if they don’t want me going through there, even if *I* think I’ll be fine.  Now my only problem was that I had no idea what my distance for “Lap One” would be.  Oh well, I’d figure it out later (6.4 miles instead of 6.2, not bad).  At the end, I gagged down some Gu and water and set off for Lap Two.  By this time, the fire department was gone, so I was able to run unhindered.  At The Top again, I could see that the fire had burned about two acres or so.

For Lap Two, part two, I ran through The Top and into the Highlands and down the Back Stretch.  This went along the road past the Killing Field and up the Exit Ramp, up the Hill of False Hope, cross the Cut, and over and down the White Lady.  I veered right instead of hitting the Two-Mile Loop, and took the Creek Line out to the Chutes and to the finish.

So, run 2 in the KSO’s.  While last week I started with blisters and ran in comfort with my lizard feet, this week I had some issues.  I don’t know if I situated myself in them funny, or tightened them wrong or what, but I developed some small blisters on my right arch and my left arch somehow got a nice gouge in it.  I’ll have to play with them more and see if I can’t solve the problem.  Might have to do some creative taping or moleskin or something.

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