Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon Ace Report and Video - October 2019

My marathon for the year is the Mount Desert Island Marathon in Maine.   I have been training all summer for it and my motivation was not there.   The training was a grind mentally.   I had a 50 State hangover!  I had one more long run before the Maine Marathon and was dreading one more boring 20 mile run by myself in the neighborhood or on the treadmill.   I saw that the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon was the same weekend.   I had wanted to do this one some day so now seemed as good as any.   I would get a supported long run and hopefully it wouldn’t be boring.   

The marathon is a point to point and starts north in Grafton, WI and ends at the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds.  With the race on Sunday we dropped Dave’s car off in a garage in Milwaukee since he’d leave for work from the city on Monday morning.  We stayed at a B&B in Cedarburg, WI since it was close to the start and we had heard it was a cute town.   It is a cute town, but not that much to do.   An afternoon was perfect.   Touring included Fermentorium Brewery, lunch at , chocolate shopping at , bourbon tasting (for Dave) at Handon Distillery.  The town was also hosting Oktoberfest this weekend so we made a stop in for a beer.  Dinner was Holly’s traditional spaghetti and meatballs at Tomaso’s.

We got to Grafton High School early and there were a lot of people.  It was nice that they let us in the school, so you could use a real bathroom.   Long lines though!   Soon we had a Disney race day like walk to the start corrals.   The course is flat with more uphill sections than I thought there would be.   It was a beautiful day for a marathon.  

The course had some boring parts in the beginning as you ran through farmland.  Then you started going through some beautiful neighborhoods by the lake.   I was feeling good and having fun.    I did have a volunteer tell me to stop walking and get to running.   I admit I yelled at him.   Not cool dude.   He obviously doesn’t know the Galloway Run/Walk/Run method.   I may have said, I have run 60 of these, I think I know what I’m doing.  

My only other complaint was the water on course.  Every stop but two of them used a garden hose hooked up to people’s houses.   I don’t know if it was the hose or Milwaukee’s water, but the smell and taste were awful.   Thank goodness for Dave to fill up my bottle.

The finish area was great.   You were immediately greeted by a medical person to see if you were ok.  Then got your medal and then they handed you a huge bag of snacks!   Dave had procured me a free beer and we sat and enjoyed that, the snacks, and listened to a great band.   All in all a pretty good day for a last minute “training” run.

Video from the race

After the race we were going to explore the Brady Street section of the city but decided to just hang out by our hotel downtown and hit up some of our favorites.  We hadn’t been in Milwaukee since our Labor Day Disney World trip was cancelled due to the hurricane so there were a few places we missed on that trip that we enjoy.   The burgers at AJ Bombers were excellent as always.    We tried to visit Uncle Buck’s in the new entertainment district by the stadium but it was crazy crowded with people watching the Packers.    We moved over to Ale Asylum Brewery and then Buck Bradley’s (we are done with that place - turned tourist trap).   We discover a new bar (to us) called The Trio with $5 Absolut drinks.  Score!   We had a dinner of Mac and cheese at Water Street Brewery before heading back to our hotel (Saint Kate) bar Giggly for a champagne cocktail nightcap.   It was nice to see Dave’s commute to work from Milwaukee was only 20 minutes longer than it is from home.