I'm not going to lie, she kicked my butt in three of the races, and I had to wake up at 4:30 AM one morning just to achieve a "push" on one of them.
Race #1: November 27 - January 1
Jody's Goal: Madison, WI (about 74 miles)
Donald's Goal: Green Bay, WI (about 126 miles)
This race started in late November. I believe the Milwaukee Drumstick Dash was the kickoff. During this first challenge, we permitted walking to count towards the mileage -- no matter the distance. I can find nothing more boring than walking on a treadmill for several hours, which Jody would do. She would go to the gym and watch a basketball game or the half of a football game. Thus, I would run a hard 3+ miles and feel really good about myself until Jody informed me that she had gone 6 miles during her gym visit (3 miles of running and 3 miles of walking). To her credit, she would go to the gym twice for every one of my runs. Sure, I could have walked more (I should have walked more), but I didn't. In short, it did not take Jody that long to reach 75 miles -- not quite 3 weeks. So we started Round 2.
Race #2: January 10 - February 18
Jody's Goal: Madison, WI back to Milwaukee (about 74 miles)
Donald Goal: Finish running to Green Bay (about 42 miles) and return to Milwaukee (for a total of 171 miles)
This time, I tried to fill in the big loophole. For this race, we stipulated that we could only count a maximum of 2 miles of walking per workout (ideally, this would be a 1-mile warm up, followed by a 1-mile cool down). I still got crushed. Granted, I ran nearly 40 more miles than her, but it was still not nearly enough.
Race #3: February 19 - April 3
Jody's Goal: Milwaukee to Indianapolis, IN (282 miles)
Donald's Goal: Finishing running back from Green Bay and push on to Indianapolis (343 miles)
I had better luck during this round. This time, we changed up the destination. Our goal was Indianapolis but the catch was that I had to finish running back from Green Bay, while Jody could start from Milwaukee. The idea behind this variable distance was that I was going to run more as I trained for the Door County Half Marathon.
During this race, we added a new twist to help us account for the bigger distance. Every Sunday evening, we added to our running total the week's mileage from our Fitbit Zips (although I have found it to be consistently a half-mile or more off after my runs). For our competition, the Fitbits allowed us to count running as double any walking we did.
Depending on who ask, you will get a different answer on who won this race. I say I won by a hair but she will say that it was a tie at best. Truth be told, this came down to the wire. There was one point when Jody was within a trip to the gym to beat me -- she had about 7 miles to go and I needed just over 10. Confident that she was going to go to the gym one morning to reach the finish line first, I woke up at 4:30 AM, jumped out of bed, and cranked out 10.5 miles before the sun rose. Technically speaking, I reached the destination first, but because she went to the gym later that day to finish the race, I guess we can call it a push.
Race #4: April 6 - June 3
Jody's Goal: From Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Indianapolis, IN to Gateway Arc, St. Louis, MO (241 miles)
Donald's Goal: From Soldiers and Sailors Monument, Indianapolis, IN to Music City Center, Nashville, TN (289 miles)
This race was anticlimactic. The weather had changed for the better and we were both thinking about our summer plans. Jody won this race, but not in the blow-out fashion like the first two runs. By the end of it all, we were tired of trying to beat each other ... or maybe I was just tired of having my butt kicked.
Overall, the WI Race Challenge produced some impressive results:
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