I ran the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon on Sunday, October 4, 2009.
On the morning of the race, I ran a few blocks over to the bus to the start, which was 26 miles away to the north in Grafton, Wisconsin. The bus ride seemed to take forever. The race started promptly at 8 am. 2 hours and 53 minutes later (average of 6 min 37 secs per mile), I finished down by the Lakefront a few blocks from home. The race started at Grafton High School, wound south and east through Mequon, then went straight south along the lake shore road from Brown Deer, Fox Point Whitefish Bay, my hometown Shorewood, and finally into Milwaukee, finishing on the Lakefront in Veterans Park next to the Milwaukee Art Museum a few blocks from home. It was a decent course and relatively flat. We had light headwinds for the final 8 miles of the course.
It was nice not to travel somewhere for a fall marathon. I saved a lot of money. The race had about 1,900 starters. The weather was perfect, the scenery was nice, but it was the loneliest race I ever ran. I was by myself the entire time.
I ran out of gas around mile 20 and just kept chugging along until I got a second wind at mile 24 and picked up the pace. I followed this one guy the entire race but at the end, 50 feet from the finish line, he developed cramps and stopped running. I went cruising past him to a strong finish.
I am smiling in my finish photos as you can see. All I could hear as I approached the finish line was "Here comes Christopher Trost of Milwaukee. He is 50. He is going to be the 50-54 age category winner...." I had never won my age category so I was elated. The race director Kristin, whom I see most days running, was there is the finisher's areas to congratulate me. Big hugs went to her. I then got my finisher medal, posed for a picture, collected my gear and walked 1-1/2 miles home.
