Keeping with the sealed for freshness theme, Today’s post recounts an event that happened mere hours ago! 16.5 years ago I had to make a difficult decision to put a bow on my martial arts hobby. It was taking a toll on my body and at that point in my life there wasn’t enough recovery time to get healed before taking another round of injuries. Problem was how to fill the healthy athletics void that would leave – then my wife mentioned something called the Bix 7 race in Davenport IA. Soon after purchased some running shoes and jumped into a new adventure. 15 years ago practically to the date I completed my first Bix 7 and I was hooked. Guess what…
I haven’t missed a Bix since that initial run – 15 years of toeing the line and taking on one of the toughest 7 miles course you can run in the area. They even give you an anniversary pin if you look close at the swag picture at the beginning of the post. I wasn’t the only family member testing their grit on the course. Linda also took part in her 16th Bix race opting for the Quick Bix which is a 2 mile alternative to the full race. She met up with a friend from her childhood who had recently started participating in the event. My running friends were planning on running with me today. Sung made it even though he has been struggling with some leg issues. Unfortunately, got word right before the race that Ryan was not going to be able to make this year – not sure what issue there was, but I know it must have been disappointing having trained for a number of months for it. As you can tell, the sun was shining on a cloud free day and the weatherman promised me a cool temp at race time. That ended up being a slight exaggeration – they claimed 61, it felt hotter than that at the starting line and it only got hotter from there. Admittedly, this was still better than we had feared being this far into Summer.
Hit the jump to read how things turned out!
To complete this month’s quota, I figured I would mention I recently earned another medal for my running collection. I basically train year round for one key race a year and that race is the Bix7 held in Davenport Iowa. For those who have never experienced it, the event is 7 miles (actually 2 miles if you choose to do the QuickBix) in some difficult hills. The first 7/10ths of the mile is basically straight up followed by ~2 miles down and then the smaller but definitely harder hill short of the turnaround and then reversed. This year I finally lined up at the start without much injury for a change and that coupled with favorable start temperature led to a P.R. for me. Usually the temperature and humidity are through the roof due to the late July start, but thanks to Global Warming (smirk) we starting the morning at 57 degrees (yes, I was shivering when I got out of the car) and warmed up to around 87 by mid race. I’ve ran it in the past over 90 with 23 people going to the hospital that year.