February 2022 – an amazing run

In February 2021, I took a couple of coworker buddies Micah and Tom up to my lake home in Minocqua, Wisconsin to do some ice fishing and we had a great time. (You can read it about it here: Ice Fishing Fun). Tom is the fisherman, Micah likes outdoor fun, and I am fortunate enough to have a house on a lake to enjoy great activities all year long. Although we only caught one dang fish in 2021, and nearly froze our rear-ends off, we decided to go back to give catching some fish another go. Unfortunately, another buddy Lou couldn’t make it again this year, so he’ll just have to read about the fun here instead. Next year for sure, Lou!!!

Me, Micah, and Tom in Tom’s truck and heading north.

A winter snowstorm slowed our exit from Illinois but it ended after crossing the state line into Wisconsin.

We left work in the afternoon and motored along until stopping for dinner. As there’s not a lot of choices of places to stop for a quick meal, I suggested a common stop for me – Culver’s in Portage, Wisconsin. Tom and I were convinced we hadn’t stopped there before, but Micah was sure we had – “This is the same damn Culver’s we ate at last time, you jack-loads!” Micah was right. What can I say, there’s not much variety in Wisconsin.

We enjoyed our meal, as well as the circuses.

Upon getting to the house, we unloaded our junk, and Micah and Tom set about getting our rods set up just right to catch loads of fish.

Last year we went to a new bait shop in town and the owner kind of treated us indifferently. I think Tom said he treated us like “Fibs” – a Wisconsin put-down for Illinoisians. Fortunately, Kurt’s Island Sport Shop opens at 6am, so Tom hopped in his truck and came back with a bucket full of minnows and shiners (a bigger minnow) and some helpful advice as to where the hot spots for fishing was. Now it was time for some breakfast.

Starting our Friday morning off with a great breakfast.

Micah loves to cook and once again Tom and I were glad to let him do so. I was a little concerned about the chocolate-flavored pancake mix Tom brought along, but I have to admit that they were really tasty. I was disappointed in them somewhat when they opted for the fake Aunt Jemima syrup over real maple syrup, but whatever.

Tom measured the depth of the water and Micah jigged his pole. It’s actually not too cold in the shanty with a small propane heater going.

Hoping for warmer weather than what we had in 2021 was pointless. It was brutally cold, and also windy. And to add to that, later in the day it started snowing like crazy. Typical Northwoods weather in February, I guess.

After a few hours of not catching anything, we decided to head back inside, eat an early lunch, warm up a little, and then head back out.

Me outside of our shanty to check on the surroundings. Yup, still cold and snowy.

We found that the wind was really howling in the afternoon so we decided to head over to a cove that was protected from the wind and try our luck there. It was definitely better to be a little more sheltered from the wind, but the fish still weren’t biting.

Tom outside in the snow, checking to see if his beer was still there.

We opted to call it a day and head inside to shower and get ready for dinner. I had made reservations for us at Minocqua Prime, knowing that they had a pretty good Friday night fish fry. We all had the bluegill and enjoyed our dinners.

A post-meal trip to Walmart to pick up some more food and some more propane for the heater, we then headed home. After a day on the lake and a very filling dinner, we found ourselves pretty tired and hit the sack at 8:30pm. Ended the day with zero bites and caught no fish.

Saturday morning didn’t start quite the way we were expecting, but after another great breakfast from Chef Micah, we were ready to hit the ice once again. The temperature was once again very cold, but we had sunshine and hardly any wind, so it made for a pretty comfortable day.

Tom doing some carpet cleaning. Don’t ask.

Clearing the snow from the ice seemed like a good idea, but it made for some puddles and slick surfaces.

We chose a new location for some deeper water but it didn’t yield any action. We are starting to be convinced that there are no fish in the lake in the winter. After a little while, we moved closer to what’s called Clumbs Island hoping for some luck near a weedier part of the lake but still had no bites.

Since we had gotten a little bit of a late start to the day we decided to skip lunch and fish until we had enough. Once again, the conversations Tom and Micah were having were very interesting. I don’t know when I became an old man, but I found myself shaking my head at the stuff these two were talking about. But it was entertaining nonetheless.

We make not catching fish look like fun!

We finally pulled the plug on fishing and packed it up for the day. The neighbor has some open water near his on-the-lake boathouse which prompted those two to once again think about doing the Northwoods version of the Polar Plunge. That made me really nervous. I was relieved when their scouting of the water made them reconsider doing that. Why can’t they be normal? (lol)

Since they had deemed the Polar Plunge to be out, we opted to do some sledding down the hills in my yard. That’s more my speed.

We showered up and headed over to a wood-fire pizza place called Oakfire. Another great meal and more great conversations with these two.

Tom was pushing really hard to drive his truck on the lake and I was trying really hard not to let him do it. But I finally relented and we found ourselves driving onto the lake. A minute later he got off the packed down snow and we quickly found ourselves stuck in the snow! My fears were becoming reality! I probably wouldn’t have been too nervous about it, but Tom had already told us a story of how he got stuck in the snow with his truck. Micah and I got out to help push, and after Tom cleared some snow from the tires, we pushed. Micah fell down, I laughed, and we got ourselves unstuck. I think these two live to see me have nervous breakdowns.

We were actually on the lake – in a truck! And we survived!!!

Upon getting home, Tom wanted to play a game but I told him the games I had stunk. Sorry about that, Tom. I’ll have some better games next year.

Sunday morning came and Tom headed out to the lake while Micah and I opted to stay inside and have breakfast.

Breakfast has become the highlight of the weekend for the second year in a row.

Tom was able to land a couple small fish, but I never got to actually see them. But even so, this trip will forever be known as the no-fish ice fishing trip. Oh well, try again next year!

In April I’m heading back to Beloit, Wisconsin to give the second running of the Big Hill Bonk another go. I’m so not ready. I already feel like I’m bonking. Winter running is not my friend, and as an older runner, I try to use winter as a recovery period of sorts from what I did throughout the previous year. That makes running spring marathons tough for me. My mileage is low and my knee kind of hurts lately, but there’s still some time to get my act together and give this race another try.

I find this race format intriguing. It’s pretty simple – run 4.16 miles in an hour and keep running that 4.16-mile loop every hour for as long as you can. People will drop out until there is only one runner left and that runner is the winner. For everyone else, well, thanks for playing.

I’m not fooling myself, I know I won’t win, but I had avoided ultra-distance running for so long that I thought that I should at least experience it in order to validate my running legacy somehow. Last year I made it through 8 loops (also called yards), a total of 33-miles. The goal was to pass the 50K mark, which I did – marking my first ultra-marathon distance – and to have some fun, which I also did. I learned some valuable lessons along the way, and I’ve been thinking about them a little bit.

There’s a little bit of strategy involved in this type of race. You have to budget your effort to not wear yourself out too early, yet you have to expend enough energy to finish the loop in an hour. I came to the race last year not knowing much about how to run a trail ultra, but I got a crash course quickly. I walked more than I was expecting. Some of the hills the others were walking I would have typically never walked. I was also carrying too much stuff and noticed most of the others just had a small water bottle. I made a change to just carrying a handheld bottle myself by yard number three.

Me and some of the field shuffling up the namesake “Big Hill” in the early yards.

This year the race will be in April and not August, so I have to plan for running in cooler weather rather than the warm weather of last year. There’s no crystal ball for the weather this far out from the race, so I just have to assume that it could be much cooler, and possibly rainy. I wouldn’t have minded getting a little cooling rain last year, but the thunderstorms of the area thankfully skirted around us. I’ll just have to hope for cool and dry temperatures for April.

It will be interesting to see how the course is in early spring compared to summer. I’m hoping the trail will be dry. Last summer the course had a section that was a little overgrown with the typical forest undergrowth in spots, but it wasn’t an issue. I’m guessing that we won’t have to deal with that this time.

A fallen tree and some of the foilage we had to navigate through.

One of the other changes this time around is that the start time will be in the morning rather than early evening. Last year we were able to get in about three yards of the course before it got dark. So we will have some daylight loops to start with this time.

So far the field is about the same size as last time, about thirty runners. This is a good number for the course. More than that could make for some clogged spots in the single-track areas of the course. I won’t need to worry about it too much. It’s not a speed contest, but you do have to finish the yard before the hour is up. I think most of us will average about 50-minutes to do a yard. Having ten minutes to replenish water and food, and maybe sit for a moment is plenty of time. I think I will try to take on a little bit more food this time as well.

I looked at the registered athletes for the 2022 event and was surprised to see that at this time there are only three runners returning from 2021 – myself, Zac Lungren, who ran 13 yards/54 miles, and Jon Noll – the eventual winner, who ran a mind-boggling 34 yards, and a total of 141 miles! Last year there was a very solid group of six runners that all surpassed 100 miles and kept pushing Jon to earn his title. The rest of the 2022 field are all newcomers as of this post. I’m guessing some of the runners from last year saw that Jon signed up and said, “Well, what’s the point?” and decided to find another race to do. Maybe some of them found the course in Beloit to be a pretty good challenge, I certainly did. And since the race got moved back to April instead of August, maybe some are also like me and feeling a little under-prepared.

Of the newcomers, there are some serious contenders there. Jon will have his work cut out for him for sure. Many of them will be like me, curious to experience this kind of event, maybe challenge themselves to experience trail running, or hit a distance milestone for the first time. Maybe some think that they can win. Only Jon stands in their way. You just have to run one more yard than everyone else. Good luck!

Month: February 2022

Ice Fishing 2022

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