Walleye Festival Race 2020 Photos 108 Mile Drive TRITOFINISH is my favorite running company.  I was registered to run in Bay City this past Spring for the St. Patrick’s Day Festival and it got postponed until September and then permanently cancelled.  TRITOFINISH has lost a lot of their 2020 events due to COVID.  I was so excited when I got word that the Walleye Festival in Freeland was going to be held in person.  It was another run I have watched over the years and wanted to do.  Freeland was an easy drive up just past Saginaw.  A lot of TRITOFINISH events are held on Sundays which makes for good double city weekends. I love TRITOFINISH because they put on great events in very unique family fun places.  They started as a triathlon company.  I love their company name being a play on words.  There’s been many times when simply “finishing” a race was difficult for me.  TRITOFINISH always has amazing DJs at their start and finish.  They have awesome long finish lines with their classi

   Wings of Mercy 2020 Photos 50 Mile Drive The 2020 Wings of Mercy 5K was rescheduled to late August from its original date in June.  The race staff was very concerned the run would still have to be cancelled after the decision to postpone it.  My advice to them was to wait as long as possible before they cancelled.  Their final decision was to hold the run with a lot of different safety measures put in place.  I started receiving emails about the changes a week before the run.  The biggest change was their decision to split the race into two start times of 6pm and 7pm with 100 runners in each race.  They asked us to email them with our preference of start time.  At the time I had booked a 5K in Free Soil on Saturday and a 10K in Freeland on Sunday.  I already had a very full weekend of running.  I knew we would be driving back from Free Soil late.  The latest possible start was the best option for me Saturday night.  I was glad when I got the 7pm spot.   We were originally going to g

  Stakenas Stampede 2020 Photos 249 Mile Drive The Stakenas Stampede was a run in a city I didn’t have on my original list.  I instantly loved the city name.  Free Soil was the kind of city that I knew would stand out on a city list.  Even with the longer drive it was a one-of-a-kind opportunity.  A new Michigan city, an inaugural run, and in 2020 of all years.  I registered immediately. I was really excited the week before Free Soil.  On a grocery run I asked Jason buy a bag of soil.  He had no idea what it was for.  The bag ended up being purple which was amazing.  I taped a “FREE” sign on it.  Corky and I took a picture.  The “free” soil bag came with us for the city picture sign.  I learned from locals they call their town, “Cheap Dirt” as a joke.  That was hilarious. Originally, we were going to stay just outside of Free Soil on Friday night.  Highway 31 Cabins that were only five minutes down the road looked amazing.  Due to weather, we made the decision to drive up Saturday morn

Kent City Ridge Run 2020 Photos   160 Mile Drive The Kent City Ridge Run was just as my running friend Barb described it, a reasonably priced beautiful run through hilly farm country.   When we lived in Grand Rapids I always had the impression Kent City was huge, but we never traveled up to Kent City.  I don’t know why I had that preconceived notion about it.  Maybe it was because “city” is in its name and makes it seem large.  It turns out Kent City is a very small village.  I could count the number of shops in their downtown.  I was really surprised.  It is a great Michigan farming town.  I saw so many apple farms and a truck carrying crates of apples.  A lot of Michigan apples must come from Kent City. The run itself was set up really nice.  The start for both the 5K and 15K at Kent City High School had a lot of space.  There were spaced X’s on the ground for runners to stand on.  They had great music playing.  As I have mentioned before, high schools make great venues for running e

   Michigan Run Cheap Lake Orion 2020 Photos 40 Mile Drive On Thursday night I got concerned about the weather for Lake Orion on Sunday.  The outlook did not change as days went by.  There was a 60% chance of thunderstorms at 8:30am on Sunday.  When I woke up that morning the thunderstorms were wide-spread.  We managed to avoid rain for the majority of our car ride.  When we got off at the Joslyn Road exit by Great Lakes Crossing the thunderstorm hit. I was relieved when I ran up to registration and found out they could postpone the race up to an hour before cancelling it.  I knew for sure the storm would be cleared in the area within an hour.  At most I thought we would have to wait 30 minutes.  They ended up starting us at 8:52.  We were only post-ponded 22 minutes.  There was a light rain when we walked to the start.  Some runners had their umbrellas.  I could still hear thunder, but it was not right over us.  I commend the race staff for letting us start.  This was not a situation

  K of C 5K 2020 Photos 116 Mile Drive The K of C or Knights of Columbus 5K for Food Pantries was a small hometown run in Cass City.  It put us in the northern middle of The Thumb!  I capitalize because “The Thumb” is an authentic location to a Michigander.  We had a great ride up to Cass City.  I love the part of M-53 by Romeo where it goes from city to country. You bounce back and forth from freeway to 55mph road a few times and then you are cruising through cleaner air and farmer’s pastures.   You can see for miles.  We got to watch the sun come up, it was beautiful. With everything going on in the world, The K of C 5K had a really good turn-out in a smaller rural town.  Participants were spread out in age. They had temperature checks and lots of hand sanitizer.  The Knights of Columbus men were very helpful and nice.   They had awards displayed before the race started and granola bars lined nicely on a table.  They made sure the water bottles and Gatorade were cold for us in ice bu

   Hey 5K 2020 Photos 181 Mile Drive   Muskegon was one of the top cities I had been waiting to run in.  It has so much to offer with Michigan Adventure, Muskegon Lake, Lake Michigan, Normal Kruse Dog Park and Muskegon State Park alone.  I’ve always loved their Veteran’s Memorial that Muskegon Causeway takes you through over water.  Our Lee’s Famous Chicken sister store is located in Muskegon and has a drive-thru!  On the way back from the Jazz Blueberry Run I saw a street sign in Shelby, MI advertising the Hey 5K.  Any sign that advertises a run right now instantly grabs my attention.  Had it not been for that sign, I may have not run this race. I got worried the night before when I went on the Hey 5K website and saw a cropped picture that had the words, “COVID….Due to Governor’s Order…..2021.”  We were already in Muskegon and I thought the run had been cancelled.  It was a really sad 20 minutes until we found a larger picture of the message that simply stated the cut-off was, “100

   Monument 5K 2020 Photos 138 Mile Drive I didn’t automatically connect the Sanford Monument 5K with the horrible dam break in Edenville back in May. My mind thinks of the city of Midland first and not of the small towns that were destroyed along the water’s raging path.  When I read the event info before I signed up I was really moved by my registration going towards the rebuilding fund for the Veteran’s Memorial that got destroyed.  I noticed they had a 100 person limit and only seven people had signed up so I emailed them to make sure the run would still be held.  Jason was concerned that low numbers may cause them to cancel as some runs have done.  I got the nicest email back from Leslie saying the run was still on.  We emailed back and forth a few times.  I told her about my running goal.  She amazed me with her ultra-running adventure of 54 miles from Ludington to Evart last weekend.  Leslie has incredible mental strength and endurance.  I was really excited to meet her in perso