Tuesday, April 6, 2010

April E-Blast

2010 Marathon Filling Quickly

We are quickly approaching our registration limit of 2750 marathon runners. As of April 4th we had just over 1000 spots remaining. Sounds like a lot, right??? Not so many… In 2009 it took just two weeks to fill those last 1000 spots and the last 300 filled in just two days. If you want to run in 2010, you do need to commit now.

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Help Locate Former LFM Winners!

Many of you know that 2010 marks our 30th Anniversary Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Back in 1981 marathoning was a very different sport – mostly men and mostly fast men. However, even in 1981 Milwaukee provided an opportunity for both elite and citizen marathoners to test themselves and to meet their marathon goals. Over the years we have been honored to see several of our elites achieve Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying times and to see many of the rest of our runners (sometimes as many as 22%) achieve a Boston Marathon qualifying time. We have also been a race that even in that first year, also welcomed 5+ hour runners.

To mark this anniversary we are trying to locate ALL of our former winners. We are making good progress in this but need your help. Do any of you know these runners?

1981 Steve Benson 2:18:09
1983 Fred Torneden 2:14:43
1984 Jesse Garcia 2:23:42
1988 Mark Horwitz 2:27:23
1989 Dan Martin 2:27:43
1994 Mitchell Craib 2:25:27

1981 Mary Bange 2:55:31
1982 Sue Moen 2:54:29
1983 Nancy Mieszczak 2:39:15
1984 Betty Nelson 2:51:57
1985 Audrey O'Brien 2:56:02
1988 Sandy Lovejoy 3:02:55
2004 Aaron Clark 2:58:30

If you do, please e-mail us with their contact information. If you are interested in results from past years, we have located and posted ALL of them on the web site – Post Race tab.

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LFM Memorabilia??

Speaking of 30th Anniversary doings… we still have three guys who have run every year and are ready to toe the line again in 2010 – Jim Bahr, Bill Boehm and Duane Tate. They are amazing for their commitment to our race!

Do any of you have old LFM race shirts, posters or other memorabilia? If so, take a photo and e-mail it to us and we’ll post them on our Facebook Fan Page.

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Run for Charity

Many runners find that running for a charity enhances their marathon experience and will be running LFM to benefit an organization that is special to them. Again in 2010 we will have the American Cancer Society DetermiNation program as a charity partner. An important part of that relationship is their sponsorship of our pre-race pasta dinner. Information about their program and the dinner are on our web site.

In addition to ACS, we will also have runners associated with Project ADAM, TEAM SALUTE, and Team in Training. Information about these programs is also on our site . If you are running for any of these charities – good for you! If you are running for another charity and would like to publicize that, send us an e-mail with information about the charity and (most importantly) why it is important to YOU. We’ll post that on our page.

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An Army of Volunteers

Many of you are receiving this newsletter for the first time – you are not LFM runners but VOLUNTEERS, the key element in making this such a great race. Because you are so important and it is good for you to know what is going on, we decided to include you in these e-blasts. You may not know that our race requires one volunteer for every two runners – an army of smiling faces.

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An Army Requires Captains

We are always in need of volunteers and hope that you will help out if you can’t run the race this year. However, every year we also have vacancies in our Race Captain positions – these are the people who do the planning and other work in preparation for race weekend. Examples of these Captain positions are Course Sentry (we have 5 of them), Merchandise, Aid Station Supply (4 of these), etc.. If you are interested in serving your fellow runners in a leadership capacity, please contact us and we will see if we can find something that meets your interests.

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Run to Benefit Jenny Crain

As we indicated in the last newsletter, our 2010 special guest will be two-time Olympian Anne Marie Letko. Anne Marie will also RUN the marathon with a lucky and generous runner to raise funds for elite runner Jenny Crain. This opportunity is being auctioned on Jenny’s Facebook Fan Page . We know what you are thinking – me? Run with an Olympian? GIVE me a break? Really, this is a great opportunity. Anne Marie will be a registered runner and has committed to run at your speed – from 3:30 to 6+ hours – to make your marathon day special to YOU. In addition to the chance to run with her, the lucky bidder will receive entry to the marathon (or a refund if already registered), LFM In Training shirt, special Brooks TeamJenny hi-viz shirt or singlet, $150 Brooks gift certificate, and lunch on Saturday before the race with Anne Marie (you can bring a friend). Running 26.2 miles with Anne Marie will be a great experience and an opportunity to make a friend for life.

There is also an opportunity to run the marathon as part of TeamJenny with each member raising a minimum of $250 for Jenny. You must, however, be registered for the race to do so. If you would like more information about the team and perks to be provided, please send an e-mail to TeamJennyCrain@gmail.com

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Course Maps

Maps…everyone LOVES maps but (boy) are they a pain to keep current… In an effort to provide more options for everyone, we have provided three additional map options for you – all on the map tab of our web site . Using the 2009 course - we’ve mapped it on the USATF site, MapMyRun, and iRace. The MapMyRun map is available on the web and for iPhone and the iRace map is available for iPhone only. As soon as we have finalized the 2010 course, we will update these and provide up-dated links.