No trail race for me this weekend (apologies to my readers)

I've always prided myself on being a person who follows through on his committments, particularly when those committments involve time and money I've already invested.

So as you can probably guess, when I register for a road race, that means I'm going to run it. It might be a painful experience (Grandma's Marathon last year and a 5K I once ran on an excruciatingly sore hip come to mind), but I don't back out of races. I figure I've already paid the registration fee for it, so I might as well run the darn thing.

I had every intention of continuing this trend at the 7 @ 7 Trail Run this weekend. I signed up for it over a month ago, put in my fair share of training miles and was really looking forward to racing it it (and wearing the event t-shirt, kudos to whoever designed it, it looks awesome!).

However, due to my ignorance, I didn't realize that the trail run happens to be the same weekend as opener for fishing. And as luck would have it, I actually have the entire weekend off from work (definitely not a regular occurrence).

Now, I'll never admit to being an avid bait fisherman. My tackle box is nearly bare and my fishing rod rarely comes out of the closet in the summertime. Darkhouse spear fishing in the wintertime is my angling passion, and summers for me are mostly spent biking, running and attempting to play tennis.

But fishing opener is the exception to those interests. My dad and my brothers normally head up north for the weekend, and due to my work schedule, I haven't been able to join them for several years. On top of that, my dad is recovering from a recent surgery on his foot and has been looking for every excuse possible to get out of the house. Nobody likes being cooped up, especially someone as outdoors-oriented as my dad is (now you all know where I get it from).

I haven't seen him since his surgery, so I figure a weekend fishing adventure is a good way to catch up and help boost his spirits. It will also be a much-needed relaxing couple of days for myself.

So consequently, I will not be running in the 7 @ 7 race this weekend. The cabin we fish at is too far north and nobody likes to be the person that has to come home early from a weekend getaway. This means that my entry fee is now going to waste, but like the "fish in the sea" analogy for the opposite sex, there are plenty of other road races to run.

I wish nothing but the best of luck to all the runners this weekend, and I hope the weather and the trails cooperate in what looks to be a wonderful inaugural event for Final Stretch and the Greater Mankato Multisport Club.

Sakatah and Cannon Valley trails to be linked

Recreational cyclists in Mankato rejoice: There will soon be a trail long enough for even the most hardcore of riders. Heck, it almost stretches into another state!

While searching for Minnesota bike trails the other day, I came across a website for the soon-to-be-built Mill Towns Trail. When completed, Mill Towns will stretch nearly 30 miles from Faribault to Cannon Falls and will link the Sakatah Singing Hills and the Cannon Valley trails.

According to the trail's website, construction has already begun in Northfield, and construction in Faribault is due to begin this summer. However, there is no timetable for the trail's completion as a whole, as construction plans are likely to hampered by state-wide budget restraints.

Regardless of timetable, the Mill Towns Trail is definitely something for southern Minnesota cyclists to get excited about. Not only is it showcasing a wonderful cycling town in Northfield, but a completed Mill Towns Trail means that cyclists would be able to bike all the way from Mankato to Red Wing on bike paths. And if you include Mankato's Minnesota River and Red Jacket trails, that would combine to be roughly 100 miles of non-stop paved trails.

Needless to say, you might want to pack a lunch if you plan to bike the whole thing at once.

National bicycle league shows Mankato some love

It looks like the Mankato area is finally getting the recognition it deserves for it's comprehensive system of bike trails.

According to an article in today's (Saturday) Valley section, Mankato and North Mankato earned honorable mention distinction as a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. The distinction is based on an evaluation of a community's engineering, education, encouragement and enforcement efforts toward biking. Apple Valley and Rosemont were the other Minnesota communities to earn honorable mention designation.

Really, this should come as no surprise to any of the regular cyclists in Mankato. The city is loaded with bike trails and city legislatures have made a concentrated effort to make cycling a viable form of in-town transportation.

Probably the biggest reason I ever got into health & fitness writing was my discovery of all the great bike trails Mankato had to offer when I moved here three years ago.

I've always enjoyed riding my bike, but it used to be more a product of necessity than anything else. Either I needed it to train for triathlons, or I needed it to get to work when I didn't have a car in college. St. Cloud doesn't have much for recreational trails, so recreational biking was never really a big part of my life.

But that all changed after my first ride on the Red Jacket Trail. Biking is now an everyday passion of mine, and as readers of my blog can attest, I can't shut up about it.

Three things have always stuck out to me about Mankato's biking culture:

• Its great mix of recreational and commuter trails. The Red Jacket/Minneopa/Sakatah trails offer a lot of great scenery for recreational riders, but Mankato's trails go beyond mere leisure. You can pretty much get anywhere in town on bike trails, whether it's River Hills Mall, MSU campus or the downtown bars and restaurants.
• The connectivity of its trails. Almost all the trails in Mankato link up in some way or another, making it possible to commute from opposite ends of town without having to bike through much traffic. If you're a fan of longer rides, it also gives you the chance to get creative with loops (here is a 25-mile loop I did a couple weeks ago).
• The constant efforts by city legislatures to improve and expand on existing trails. Since I moved here, the Minneopa Trail has been completed and Riverfront Park has been revived as a potential transportation hub. But city administrators aren't stopping there. Plans are in place for trail construction on Madison Avenue and North Mankato is looking to expand it's trail system as well.

At present, Minneapolis and Rochester are the only cities in Minnesota that have been fully recognized as bike-friendly. Minneapolis has a silver rating and Rochester a bronze. Call me a homer, but I think our little city in the river valley is well on its way to joining them.

Bravo, Mankato.

Return of the summer bike trip series

After an April we'd all like to forget weather-wise, I figure my readership could use a little pick-me-up that involves warmer temperatures on the horizon.

Well, here it goes: Back by popular demand is the summer bike trip series.

Over the next few months, I'll be doing occasional entries about destinations in the Mankato area that can be reached on two wheels and a set of pedals (and hopefully with minimal flat tires). Unlike typical training rides, these trips won't be about the speed that one can complete them in. Rather, they will about the appeal of their destinations and the adventure it takes to get there.

It seems like this got a lot of good responses from people last summer. Perhaps others share my cycling-crazed belief that life is simply more exciting on a bicycle.

Similar to last year, I will post a route map of each trip and write about the ease/challenge of the ride, the safety of the ride and the appeal of the destination. Also similar to last year, I will post any trips submitted to me by other riders. Just e-mail your suggestions, photos and maps to avoigt@mankatofreepress.com.

Here are a few guidelines if you're going to suggest a trip:

• The destination should be a place that has some appeal to it. Maybe it's a restaurant with good food. Or a state park with some cool hiking trails and viewpoints. Or perhaps it's a historical landmark with an intriguing story behind it. Whatever the case, it should be a place you want to stop and hang out at for awhile.
• Extending the previous guideline further, it should be a place that can be enjoyed by people beyond yourself. Your grandparents' house may be an enjoyable visit for you, but it means little to me (unless of course they're making cookies, then it's somewhat enjoyable).
• It has to be a destination that a person can bike to and make it back to Mankato in a day. The bike trips are meant to be more of a "fun stuff to do on your day off"-type activity. I enjoy visiting the North Shore area of Minnesota as much as the anyone, but unless you're Lance Armstrong, you're not biking there and back in a day.
• On the flip side, it also has to be a destination with some degree of difficulty to reach. Reasonable guideline: If it takes you less than 15 minutes to walk there, it's not a challenge.
• The route should be relatively safe for cyclists. Roads are pretty much unavoidable if you're going to bike to another town. However, there's a big differencTe between biking on a low-traffic country road with wide shoulders than bracing for the constant flow of cars on Highway 169.

Here's a recap of the bike trips I did last summer:

• Rapidam Dam Park
• Minneopa State Park (recent addition: The Minneopa Trail was not complete when this post was written. That would now be the easiest and safest route to the park)
• New Ulm (I used the entire city as one destination. In hindsight, one location would have been a better idea. If someone wants to suggest an individual destination in New Ulm, I would be OK with it)
• Trail Blazer Bar & Grill (recent addition: The ripped-up part of the Sakatah Trail that I mentioned in this point is now paved)
• Amboy Cottage Cafe
• Green Giant Statue Park
• Franke's (Kolacky) Bakery
• Seattle Space Needle (just kidding)

And at the finish line...cardio beats car!

With April drawing to a close, I am happy to report that my month-long quest to outrun/out-bike my car has been a success! And I did it without having to become anti-social! (well, at least not more than usual)

My driving mileage for the month ended at 576, with the vast majority of those miles coming from two road trips to places (St. Cloud and Wabasha) that go beyond practical distances for biking. For in-town commuting, I used my car for the following this month: 2 plasma donations, 1 bike repair at Scheels, and once as a sober cab for a friend that needed a ride home from the downtown bars (he still owes me one, by the way). That's it.

On the flip side, my biking/running totals ended up at 625 miles collectively (108 by foot, 517 by pedal). Averages for that equate to be about 3.6 miles of running and 17.25 miles of biking per day. My longest run of the month was 8 miles, and my longest non-stop bike ride was 33 miles.

Pretty modest totals compared to what some of the hardcore duathlon junkies are doing, but still a respectable amount of exercise on a daily basis. And since I keep a pretty busy schedule, I won't complain.

Even for a person that's relatively in shape like myself, the effects of regular exercise like that are noticeable. By the end of the month, my legs pretty much stopped feeling sore after long bike rides and felt like they were recovering faster from weightlifting. Not to compete with my co-worker's "fight to be fit," but I also lost seven pounds for the month.

Beyond that, I noticed a definite improvement in cardiovascular endurance.

I haven't done much for serious training runs since I ran the Mankato 1/2 Marathon last fall. I still run regularly (pretty obvious since I topped 100 miles last month), but the pace is usually leisurely and the distances have been shorter (3-5 mile runs are pretty normal these days). Conventional wisdom says that my running times should be slower now than they were when I was cranking out 40-mile training weeks last spring.

But thanks to all the biking this month, my spontaneous decision to push myself on the YMCA treadmill yesterday yielded some surprising results: 8 miles in 53:41 (about a 6:43 average per mile) and I felt like I could've kept going at that pace for a few more miles. Compared with my race times from last year, it's almost like I never stopped marathon training.

The other big surprise came in how many less miles I drove with my car this month than I normally would. I can usually count on driving about 900-1,100 miles each month, depending on the frequency of out-of-town trips. But thanks to in-town commuting on my bike, I was able to keep the drive total low and add to my biking miles at the same time.

The two in-town destinations I biked to most often were the YMCA and my morning job near River Hills Mall. The distances from my apartment to those two locations are both pretty mild (roughly 1 mile to the Y, 4 miles to the morning job), but they add up over the course of a month.

I work at my morning job four days a week, which adds up to 32 miles of commuting per week and 128 miles every four weeks. Although I don't have a set schedule of attendance at the Y, six visits a week is a pretty fair estimate, which translates to 12 miles a week and 48 miles in four weeks.

Add it up, and that's 176 miles I didn't drive with my car in April. And since those are in-town locations, a safe assumption would be that I saved on having to buy around 8 gallons worth of gas for those trips (my Kia gets about 30 miles to the gallon for highway mileage). Given the direction gas prices are headed, that's hardly chump change.

Despite the challenge being over, I plan on continuing to use my bike for most in-town commuting. It's been a great boost to my exercise schedule, it's good for the environment and, quite frankly, I enjoy biking a heck of a lot more than I enjoy driving my car.

Moments that make an uncle proud

As much as I enjoy riding my bike, it usually feels pretty good to get done after a long day of cycling.

My ride this past Monday was no exception. With the day off from work, favorable weather conditions and my stomach in full-scale recovery mode from the onslaught of Easter (in retrospect, cherry cheesecake AND pumpkin pie probably wasn't the best choice for dessert), I decided to visit the old stomping grounds.

Starting from my parent's house in Sartell, I did a 35-mile bike loop of the St. Cloud area, making four stops along the way: the YMCA for weightlifting, a local sandwich shop for lunch, club rowing practice for nostalgia and the downtown bars for drinks in the non-water variety (here is the route I took, though the map probably means little to my Mankato-centric readership).

The day of biking was most certainly enjoyable. The weather was beautiful, my bike cooperated (no flat tires or any other malfunctions that have befallen my $85 Kuwahara) and it was cool getting to visit old friends. It also helped reaffirm my beliefs that Mankato is a far superior community for biking (more bike paths and motorists that actually watch for cyclists).

However, the best part of the ride came at the very end of it when I got back to my parent's house. This wasn't due to exhaustion from biking, though I was pretty psyched to have my mom's homemade rigatoni for dinner.

No, the real enjoyment came from what I saw as I approached my parent's driveway: My 4-year-old niece Alaina was riding up and down the driveway on her single-gear training wheel bike complete with handlebar basket, princess colors, tassels and glitter. The tires on her bike were flat, but she was still grinning ear-to-ear at the site of her uncle getting home, anxious to show off her styling ride to a fellow biking enthusiast.

She pointed out the features of her bike with the excitement of a seasoned cyclist who just bought a $10,000 ride. After commenting on my bike's lack of a handlebar basket, she led the way on a down-and-back trip up the driveway while I told her stories of her uncle's clumsy beginnings in cycling and reassured her that I would never be able to beat her in a race.

Really, it was a moment to cherish. I'm still kicking myself for not having my camera handy. Just about every uncle worth his weight in piggy-back rides will claim their 4-year-old niece to be the most adorable thing on the face of the earth. But at that point in time, I felt I could have made a valid argument.

It might have been the sheer elation of getting to hang out with my niece (I don't make it up to St. Cloud to visit as often as I'd like), or the joy of seeing her take after her uncle hobby-wise. But I could not have been prouder.

Winning the race against my car

With nine days to go (including this one) in April, I am happy to report that my month-long goal to bike/run more miles than I drive with car is shaping up (no pun intended) to be a victory for the cardio/conservation side.

I'm currently sitting at 455 miles combine between running and biking against 307 miles of driving. Save for a day trip to Wabasha, I've used my car exactly three times this month for a total of less than 40 miles. I drove once to get my bike fixed, once to donate plasma, and once to sober cab a friend home from the bar.

In-town commuting on a bike really hasn't been as tough as I thought it would be. Due to traffic lights and other factors, I've actually found that I get to places in town about as fast on my bike as I do in my car. This wouldn't be the case if I were trying to commute to New Ulm or the Twin Cities, but for a 1-mile trip to the YMCA or a 4-mile trip to River Hills Mall, it's a wash time-wise. (provided I don't get a flat tire, of course)

Really, the biggest adjustment has been running errands that require hauling something. The best example of this would be my grocery shopping experience -- which I blogged about last week -- but imagine one would have similar issues with something like doing laundry or delivering food. There's a lot more planning, balance and strategy required to haul something on a bike than there would be to simply throw it in your car.

As far as bike rides go, I've mostly been sticking with Mankato-area trails and haven't really ventured into outlying communities. The ride I did yesterday was probably my favorite of the bunch: a 25-mile loop of Mankato that used every bike trail in town.

I started downtown, biked toward Highway 14 on Madison Avenue (normally I would've been on the Minnesota River Trail, but it's still flooded), headed up to Highway 22 on the Sakatah Trail, biked over to River Hills Mall on the bike path along Highway 22, and took Adams/Victory/Balcerzak to MSU. Once at MSU, I took Monks out to Highway 90, hopped on South Route Trail, headed to Minneopa Falls, then took the Minneopa Trail back to Mankato.

I've probably biked that route in sections before, but I've never attempted it all in one ride. Not only does it avoid most of the traffic in town, but it's also a great mix of hills and scenery and goes past a lot of the major landmarks in Mankato. I'd highly recommend the ride to anyone who has the time for 25 miles.

As far as running goes, I've mostly just been sticking to the treadmill this month. A combination of crummy weather and a nagging hip pain have put a damper on my outdoor running habits. However, I've still been able to get miles in, either on the aforementioned treadmill or an elliptical if my hip's really bugging me. Most of the runs have been in the 3-5 mile variety, with the occasional 7-8 miler to really stretch things out.

My basic goal for the running portion of this challenge is two-fold: to keep myself in decent running shape for the 7-mile trail run at Seven Mile Creek next month, and to keep the ratio of biking to running relatively close to what they'd be in a duathlon/triathlon. For the races I've encountered, that generally means a ratio of about 4:1 or 5:1 for biking vs. running. Since my totals currently sit at 375 miles biking and 80 miles running, I'm well within that range.

Why is the ratio part of the goal? Well, since my biking totals have drastically increased, I figure I'll probably be in decent shape for a duathlon or two this summer. There's a race in my home town of Sartell at the end of May that I'm eying up, and I may try another one later in the summer if I can talk some friends into doing it with me.