Who: Me
What: 4 Mile Race
When: New Year’s Eve 2009,
Where: Bell Isle, Detroit Michigan
Why: Darn good question

The Belle Isle 4 mile race celebrated it’s 40th anniversary this year which must put it up there for one of the older races in the Detroit area. The activities such as packet pick up, restroom and then after race result posting along with food and drink are all held in the Belle Isle Casino… which apparently hasn’t been updated since the first year of the race. It is no longer really a casino, just a building with two floors and various rooms. It if truly was an active casino at one time, it was certainly small compared to modern day casinos such as Motor City or the MGM. According to the article below it was at one time an operational casino.

Wikipedia entry on Belle Isle.

An article published by the Friends of Belle Isle which lists the attractions of the island.

It is actually a nice place to visit during the summer, although as most venues in Detroit, it may not the the safest place to be on a hot summer night. The various attractions on the island unfortunately show their age, and also reflect the current financial situation of the city of Detroit.

One comment on the casino, the referenced article mentions the casino was built to take advantange of the cooling breezes before air conditioning was invented… well that certainly is true! This year, as last year, the weather was chilly, wet and with a brisk river breeze!

“The 2009 Belle Isle New Years Eve 4 Mile race Photo Album is complete!”

The official bib number.

The days activities include a one mile run, a four mile run/walk and a four mile race. I am always impressed by some of the one milers, mainly kids under 12 (I think) some run some pretty good times. There are pictures available for purchase, which you don’t have to do, but there are a lot of good shots taken of the race you might like to see, including the kids run. These include some of a friend that ran the race, but not me… but I have my own photographer(s).

This also has to be one of the flattest races you could imagine. The island can’t vary more than a few feet in altitude at any point. The “adjusted” track from the Garmin FR 305. The track is adjusted in SportsTrack software by updating the gps points against an official topographical map with the altitude.

As was mentioned race day was wet and blustery! Earlier in the afternoon it was still fairly nice, not sunny but at least warmer and drier. Just before race time a light drizzle started and that seemed to cool everything down rapidly. Nothing like last year’s conditions though!

The race grew quite a bit since last year with about 400 more runners registered this . Maybe because the race is seeing a little more advertising and publicity. Last year I only heard about it by noticing a flyer at the Detroit Turkey Trot race. No web site was found on it, maybe a few of the running web sites listed it, but in general it was a secret race. This year it was on several of the news channels the day before, and can be found via Google or other search engines. Also, and I think a BIG plus is this year had online registration! Prior years required a paper entry from be completed and mailed in, then either verified via email or trusting they got it and you just showed up and hoped your packet was ready. There is no early packet pick up, everything is done the day off the race. Notice to late comers… you can register right then fairly painlessly if you suddenly decided to come out and freeze your tuskus with the rest of the crazies.

Last year they gave each participant a wooden plaque, this year was a medal.

The online stats listing was published pretty quickly after the race.

…. and this breaks down into these numbers for the race:
a) 4 Miles
b) finished 338 out of 813 overall in the 4 mile. (Top 41.5%)
c) finished 10 out of 30 in my age group – M60-64. (33.3%)
d) finished ? out of ? men. (No data given)
e) had a 8:50 pace, and a 35:18.8 total chip time.
f) You can see the full details on the running stats web page.(Index) or this specific race.
h) had a great time – which is always the goal right?… Right!

Until the final resolution is kept,

George

Another race in the books! Today was the Detroit Turkey Trot. I entered the 10K race, there was also a 5K and a mile run.
The day started off pretty good, meaning we all got up and in the car right on time for the drive into Detroit. Very little traffic at 6:30 am on all the expressways so had smooth sailing. That is until we got to the final off ramp to Cobo Arena Parking…. It seems when 10,000 people all try to get into the same parking garage inside of maybe an hour, it just doesn’t work so well. Finally we were down to 15 minutes to race start. I am SO glad I went the day before to pick up my bib and chip!! Really!

I was in the wrong lane to get to most of the garages, but my two copilots noticed a small sign for public parking at the GM Renaissance Center – on the right – three lanes over… so, around the u-turn, back the other side of the median, another u-turn (I never saw that sign that said “No U-Turn here”, honest.) Into the correct lane, into the garage, up a couple of floors, grab the backpack with gear, down to the street, and we all hustled over to the start line. Getting there with about 4 minutes to spare! I stripped off the warm ups and jacket, added the ear warmers and jumped into line.
Whew.
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Holidays and vacations seem to go together. After we celebrated Christmas with the families we headed out for a little drive.
First stop was Lookout Mountain Georgia where we visited “Rock City”. I have seen the barns painted with “See Rock City” along the roads for years so finally decided it was time to see what it was all about. We made it in the evening for the “Fantasy of Lights” which they do every Christmas time. You can see the pictures in the album.
It was about as expected. Some very nice natural scenery and a lot of tourist stuff.

My curiosity satisfied we were on the road to the next destination, Florida’s “Emerald Coast”. Nancy had heard about the emerald green gulf waters and white sand and wanted to see for herself. We hit the coast beachs from Fort Walton across the pan handle until we turned towards Orlando.

We did not want to use a full day of a Disney ticket when we only had a partial day, so we spent time visiting some of the theme resorts. As they do for about everything, the Disney crew puts together some pretty nice resorts! They were decorated for Christmas so it seemed extra special. We also had tickets to see Cirque Du Soleil La Nouba. This was really cool. We have been to several “Cirque” shows and each one seems better than the one before.

Over the next two days we spent time in Animal Kingdom and Disney Hollywood Studios (new name for MGM studios.) Lots of photos, and a good time… even if it did rain a little the final day.

The other place we wanted to see was Sanibel Island. Nancy loves natural things, and shells is high on the list. We have been told about how great Sanibel is for finding shells so we wanted to see for ourselves and hopefully score some “hand picked” shells. We made it down to the island and out onto a number of the beachs. Unfortunately the weather had turned a bit nippy, and the wind was kicking up pretty good. We still managed to spend a couple of hours wandering up and down the shore line looking for “finds”. Since we came home with some pretty full bags of shells I guess it was a success.

We had some dinner at the local tourist spot “The Bubble Room” and then headed back off the island. After a nights rest we headed back towards Michigan, and got home about 2 am…. We had been concerned since we had heard there had been about a foot of snow since we left, and were not sure how we were going to get into the garage. It turned out that a mysterious neighbour had cleared the drive way already so we were able to pull right into the garage and hit the beds!

This is a pretty condensed version of the trip, but probably few people if any really want all the details.

Until Mickey and Minney fall out of love,

Last weekend while the activities director was making plans for the family holiday, the “best boy”, or maybe he is the “Key Grip”, was outside putting up the decorations.

The traditional process dictates that:
a) The lights must NOT be tested before being strung up.
b) They are all tossed into a big box when taken down the prior year, shaken well (not stirred) then placed into the attic where mice can chew on them.
c) The main rule is the traditional stringing of the Kazology Christmas Lighting Spectacular must absolutely wait until the coldest and darkest day in late December.

I am very pleased to report that in 2007 the tradition has been maintained! I think it was about 8 pm, and 20 degrees outside when completed. If we were not such traditionalists we would have done this on Saturday after Thanksgiving when it was daylight and 50 degrees, but what fun would that be anyway? It was a very good year having only achieved a 20% light failure rate!

The final step in the process, we have already taken the pledge that “next year we are going to get LED lights with the 100,000 hour guarantee and tangle free design….. right….. sure we will…. you betcha boss….. don’t hold your breath!

Until the last mini-light fails to work disabling the entire strand,
George

The secret can be told now that we are home again. We decided to take a short vacation and get some education in the process. So, off to Washington DC we went. The weather, while nippy, was great every day. Warm enough with no snow, better than home, but neither was it a tropical island. We had been to DC and especially the Smithsonian before when we took the brothers and sisters when they were younger, but it has been quite awhile since then. We also visited places this time we did not then since not everyone is excited about seeing the original Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. We managed to find a few places to get a little nourishment along the way too. One just for fun spot included the International Spy Museum. The White House had put up the Christmas Tree in Presidents Park. It was nice, and included trees from all fify states. After visiting the Capital area and museums we also visited the newly renovated Union Station. Lots of nice shops, restaurants and big cookies.

Finally we headed out and stopped by the National Cathedral which is awe inspiring in it’s size and grandeur. Here, like so many other places in DC the amount of stone carving defies the imagination. How many people and hours did it take to create all these stone reliefs, columns and gargoyles.

After climbing and walking about the cathedral a last meal was needed. So we swung by Georgetown and went though a couple of blocks worth of boutiques, clothing stores and restaurants before we found a place to eat. Walking off the meal we visited the “Old Stone House” the oldest building in the area, supposedly built in 1765 and predating the creation of Washington DC.

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar”.

George

A sampling of the pictures taken during the trip has been posted on Kazology.