April Up-date

In this issue Kids' Run Returns Pasta Dinner Details Cool New Sponsors RRCA National Marathon Championship Guinness Record for Jenny Volunteers - We need and LOVE Volunteers Boston Marathon Procedures Tell Us YOUR Story Other news Facebook & Twitter Follow us on Facebook via our group and fan page and on Twitter use #mkelfm to post and follow other runners. Volunteers!!! We are already recruiting volunteers - contact Alice to help! Unsubscribe Click to instantly unsubscribe from this mailing list. Send to a friend Send this email to someone you think may be interested.

Friday April 8, 2011 Feature We're Baaack We know that it has been a while since you’ve heard from us…that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been thinking about all of our runner friends and haven’t been busy with plans for the 2011 Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. As you can see, we have actually been VERY busy! First and foremost, we are approaching our 2011 entrant limit of 3050. As we’d planned, we think that the increase in our entry limit will give our runners just a little more time to decide – but not much more, really… We are now approaching the point when a LOT of runners commit to the race so don’t be lulled into that “there are 300 slots left” thing. Those last slots go very quickly. We really do hope that sometime before race day you will be just sick and tired of the reminders about our changed start time. We just want to make sure that you get to the Start on time and unharried. So…remember the RACE STARTS AT 7:30 AM – 7:30 AM – 7:30 AM. What time? 7:30 AM. Other stories Kids' Run Returns Many of you have written to tell us how much you and your family enjoyed being a part of the Kids Run in 2010. We have to tell you that emails we get from parents about how much the run meant to their kids and their family bring tears to our eyes – we know that this event is absolutely the right thing for LFM, our runners, and our runner families. We can’t wait until we see some of these kids running the race as adults… Won't that be cool? We will be bringing the Kids Run back again in 2011 – but with a small and important change. We have moved it to Saturday afternoon in the 3:00 or 3:30 range. That will allow marathon parents to share the run with their kids, provide the kids with all of the special attention they deserve, and will allow more kids to participate. YIPPIE!!! The generous folks at BodyBasix will again sponsor this event and will provide the very special training logs that they provided in 2010. The kids really liked the logs and we think that it provides a way for them to be heartened to see each mile they tick off to completion of their own very special marathon. Entry information will be posted soon on our web site. Also, for the Milwaukee area parents and Kids Run supporters - our Badgerland Striders Kids Programming Director and our Kids Run Director will be speaking at the April BLS meeting on Wednesday April 20 at 7:00 at the Pettit Center. If you are interested in kids running, make plans to attend, hear what we are doing for kids, and to get involved with this important part of LFM and BLS. Pasta Dinner Details Many of you have asked about the pasta dinner. The American Cancer Society DetermiNATION program will again put the dinner on for us. Ticket information was not available when many of you registered but is available now. You can buy your ticket as part of your registration or can register directly with ACS. It is important to note that the venue for the dinner has changed to the Plankinton Arcade within the Grand Avenue Mall. This will allow them to offer a quality dinner at a much more reasonable cost to you. Cool New Sponsors We are happy to announce a couple of very special new sponsors. I can’t tell you the number of requests we have had for chocolate milk at the Finish – you may remember the mention of it in an earlier e-blast. Well…as it happens one of our runners actually works for Nestle and “voila” chocolate milk for all of you. It was not really exactly THAT easy but runner Kelleen made it happen for all of you big time. THAT is one of the many things that makes LFM so special. We also have a great sponsor for our changing tents at the Finish – a company called PaperShower . They have a great product (your RD has now placed two orders, personally) that makes it quick and easy to clean up after a race or workout. They will be stocking the tents with their product for your use after the race. We are very excited to help showcase their product and to provide something special for our runners. We are also working on a few other goodies but nothing that we can announce at this point. RRCA National Marathon Championship We are so happy to remind you that LFM has again been designated as the Road Runners Club of America 2011 National Marathon Championship. This is a testament to the work of the Badgerland Striders Running Club (our owners) and to the work of all of our LFM volunteers working together to make this a fist-class marathon. We will also serve as the Wisconsin USATF Marathon Championship, another great honor for our race. Guinness Record for Jenny Robin, our friend at BodyBasix has been busy. In addition to sponsoring the Kids Run, he is also the guy who came up with the idea for a Guinness World Record attempt to benefit Jenny Crain. He is organizing a small army to run LFM – tethered via rope – to set the record for the most number of people to run a marathon, all tied together. The current record is 37 set at the London Marathon in 2010 – he intends to SMASH that. Many of you know Jenny’s story …an elite athlete training to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials, hit by a car while training, a traumatic brain injury and other injuries, and (now) almost four years of recovery. Jenny works hard every day at therapy and at home and continues to make progress – working harder at this than she ever trained for a marathon. The funds generated by this attempt will be used for her continued therapy. Volunteers - We need and LOVE Volunteers Yep – we’re starting our call for volunteers already. We know that many of our runners volunteer prior to race day and hope that many of you will be able to do that again. We also need a small (actually kinda big) army of volunteers on race day. This is a great way to see the race “up close” and to give back to the running community – just remember how many course sentries you run past every year in races and how many waster stops you pass. Contact Alice for more information about volunteer slots and how you can help. We'll be posting the link to our on-line volunteer sign-up soon. In the meantime, please save the date... We also always have openings for Coordinator and Captain positions. These positions require a greater commitment but offer you the opportunity to be part of the race decisions as well as part of our runners’ “Marathon Dreams”. Contact Alice if you’d be interested in one of those positions. And, we also have a program to involve charitable volunteers. If you have a group of 20-40 people who can commit to race weekend we can provide you with a donation to your organization or free expo space in exchange for volunteer time. This is a great way to enhance your visibility and a fun volunteer experience. Boston Marathon Procedures Almost 20% of our 2010 runners reported that they qualified for the Boston Marathon. We hope that many of you were able to get into the 2011 race and that you have a great race on April 18. We are sure that many of you are aware of the changes in their registration procedures and qualifying times. If you are not aware of the changes, we suggest that you review them on the BAA site. Also - we do send our results to the BAA as soon as they are final. You don't need a confirmation from LFM in order to register - they simply verify it against our results file. Tell Us YOUR Story Here at LFM we figure that we are in the “dream business”. Yep – the dream business. We think that we are lucky enough to be in a position to help you make your marathon dreams come true. Yeah, it might sound hokey but it is true. Each of you comes to the Start with an idea, a dream for your race. To run your first marathon (we are honored); to run with your dad, your mom, your SO, your kid; to qualify for Boston; to run your “x th” state; even to make a few new running friends. We’re honored that you trust us with your marathon dreams and we’d like to hear about them. How about you all post them on our Facebook page so that we can share in them? It will be fun and it will inspire us all!

Up-Date

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In this issue WOW! Guinness Record Attempt to Benefit Jenny Crain Kids, Pasta, What Else? National Runners Survey - Still Time Other news Facebook & Twitter Follow us on Facebook via our group and fan page and on Twitter use #mkelfm to post and follow other runners. Unsubscribe Click to instantly unsubscribe from this mailing list. Send to a friend Send this email to someone you think may be interested.

Monday January 31, 2011 WOW! WOW things are really moving fast! We opened registration on Friday January 21 and a little more than a week later we have filled almost 700 slots – approaching 25% of our entry limit! If you are thinking of running in 2011, but not ready to make the decision now, monitor the web site to see how close we are to filling the race. It is important to remember that the last 500 or so spots go “in a flash” as those on the fence commit. Don’t wait too long… In case you wonder why you are getting these e-mails – we merged the list of 2009 and 2010 entries, some volunteers, and many friends – and now those 600 people who have registered so far. As soon as we reach our entry limit, we will stop sending E-blasts to those who registered in 2009 and 2010 but who did not register in 2011. If you’d like to know what is going on you can always subscribe to our blog , follow us on Twitter, or “like” us on Facebook. You can also “unsubscribe” to these e-blasts. However, please understand that it is VERY difficult to add you back into the list as this service has very strict anti-spamming controls. Back to top Guinness Record Attempt to Benefit Jenny Crain Some of the runners in the Milwaukee area may have seen the articles about the exciting Guinness World Record attempt that will take place at our 2011 LFM. Robin Gohsman (long-time friend and sponsor of the race) will be putting a group together to break the record for the most number of people to run a marathon – while tethered together. This is being done as a benefit for Jenny Crain, an elite runner and LFM Race Committee member who sustained a traumatic brain injury in 2007 while training for the Olympic Marathon Trials. Robin has a great list of people who are interested in being part of this historic effort and is looking for more. The attempt is outlined in some detail in a recent Milwaukee JournalSentinel article . You may also be interested in the article about Jenny that appeared in Runner’s World. The group will be joined at the finish by honorary “coach” Bart Yasso and by Jenny, herself. As Bart says, “This will be EPIC”. If you can’t participate in the attempt, you can also help another runner raise the funds for their participation. We do understand that, while there will be a great deal of support for this attempt and for Jenny, some of you may wonder what this will mean to YOUR race. Robin, with the approval of our Race Committee, is going to great lengths to ensure that your race is not negatively affected in any way. They will start dead last and make sure that they finish in the 5:40-6:00 hour range. They expect to provide support and encouragement to runners at that point in the race and to increase spectator interest. Please note that all participants in this attempt must register for the race on their own AND before we sell out. Back to top Kids, Pasta, What Else? Kids… Some of you have asked if we plan a return of the very successful Kid’s Run (100% sponsored last year by our friend Robin and his company Body Basix ). We LOVED seeing the kids set goals and run those last 1.2 miles and know that you did, too!! We are working on planning for this year – very much hoping to make it a Saturday event. We will let you know as soon as we have made some of the final decisions on this. Pasta… We are again working with the American Cancer Society and their DetermiNATION program for them to host the pasta dinner again this year. As soon as they have confirmed the venue and price we will let you know and provide the information you need in order to purchase tickets. Merchandise, Shirts, Etc…. Remember that we now provide an option for men’s and women’s sizing on our race shirts. PLEASE check the sizing charts on the RaceReady site before you select yours. We really want you to be happy with yours …. When you’re not happy, we’re not happy. Some people have also been confused by the Finisher shirts for sale on the web site. These are the shirts we produced in 2010 – they have no year on them so are good for ANY finisher. We will produce another shirt in 2011 and will also have the remaining 2010 shirts for sale at the Expo and at the Finish. FYI – we find that the shirts without a year provide any of our finishers with the option to purchase one AND allow us to offer a quality product at a good cost as we don’t have to worry about obsolete inventory. Expo… You may know of a business that would be interested in being part of our Expo. We will be posting information on the web site soon. In the meantime, they can contact your “Trusty RD” or Pam, our Expo Coordinator. Back to top National Runners Survey - Still Time Calling all RUNNERS! What motivates you to run? What is your favorite race distance? How often do you run? You are being invited to participate in Running USA’s 2011 National Runner Survey, a comprehensive survey to assess the demographics, lifestyle, attitudes, habits, and product preferences of the running population nationwide. The National Runner Survey is easy to access and available online. All responses are completely anonymous and confidential. Don’t miss this opportunity to join other runners nationwide! Last year our race participated in this survey. We are participating again in 2011 and ask you to click the link and complete the survey. Select Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon as the organization that invited you to participate. Please note that the link is unique to our race. If you received a link from another race, it would still be very helpful for you to respond to ours. We receive the results of those who respond via OUR link. That allows us to target potential sponsors and to use the data locally – in addition to the post-race survey that many of you also completed. Please note that all responses are confidential.

2011 Registration Opens!

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In this issue 2011 Registration Opens National Running Survey A Little Housekeeping Thanks to Everyone for YOUR Help! Other news Facebook & Twitter Follow us on Facebook via our group and fan page and on Twitter use #mkelfm to post and follow other runners. Unsubscribe Click to instantly unsubscribe from this mailing list. Send to a friend Send this email to someone you think may be interested.

Tuesday January 18, 2011 2011 Registration Opens Well…we told you all that we’d spend the months since the race getting ready for the 2011 race. We have definitely been doing that and will ratchet things up next week with our first planning meeting. The one piece of news that many of you have been waiting for is the opening of registration…set your chrono’s for Friday January 21 as we’ll be open then. As I indicated in my last newsletter, the fee for 2011 will be $75 and that includes the on-line processing fee. Also – registration will be on-line only, no paper forms. To register follow the link on our web site. You will recall that we are making a few significant changes for 2011 * START time has been changed to 7:30AM. This will prevent potential heat-related issues and will mean that the race presents fewer problems for people living and doing business along our course. * The entry limit has been increased from 2750 to 3050 – an additional 300 spaces for runners who plan ahead. We urge any of you (or your formerly unlucky friends) to register now, if you plan to run in 2011. Last year we sold out in mid-April and would expect to sell out very early again this year. We DO try to accommodate you by posting the number of available spaces remaining (some races don’t or don’t even tell you what their limit is, actually…). However, the last few hundred go in a matter of hours – really. * The marathon relay has been discontinued. We know that many people enjoyed the relay and are disappointed by this decision. Please understand that it was not made lightly. We discussed over a period of several years and just had to admit that the relay required resources disproportionate to the number of participants. We’d encourage relay runners to give the marathon a try or to find a great volunteer assignment. * We know that only men really think that “unisex” shirts are truly unisex… Therefore, we have decided to offer shirts sized for both men (unisex) and women. We’ll use RaceReady shirts again in 2011. Please consult the sizing charts on their web site before you register – saves us all a LOT of trouble later. Our 2010 designer – Mike Kasun – has also agreed to design our 2011 shirt – yiiipppeee!! * We will continue to provide special recognition to former winners who run our race. If you are one of our former winners and are considering running LFM in 2011, please contact us directly before you register. Back to top National Running Survey Calling all RUNNERS! What motivates you to run? What is your favorite race distance? How often do you run? You are being invited to participate in Running USA’s 2011 National Runner Survey, a comprehensive survey to assess the demographics, lifestyle, attitudes, habits, and product preferences of the running population nationwide. The National Runner Survey is easy to access and available online. All responses are completely anonymous and confidential. Don’t miss this opportunity to join other runners nationwide! Last year our race participated in this survey. We are participating again in 2011 and ask you to click the link and complete the survey. Select Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon as the organization that invited you to participate. Please note that the link is unique to our race. If you received a link from another race, it would still be very helpful for you to respond to ours. We receive the results of those who respond via OUR link. That allows us to target potential sponsors and to use the data locally – in addition to the post-race survey that many of you also completed. Please note that all responses are confidential. Back to top A Little Housekeeping It is great to see that so many people purchased the 30th Anniversary jacket. Today I saw a runner wearing one at a race – it made me feel so great! (I know - it is the little things.) Due to a couple of order issues, we do find that we have two jackets (now) in inventory – a Men’s Small and Women’s Medium. If you are interested in purchasing either of these please contact us for more information. Other merchandise – In-training shirts, 2010 runner shirts, and Finisher Shirts are available for purchase via the registration site or the form on our web site. Back to top Thanks to Everyone for YOUR Help! Finally, a note of thanks to everyone who responded to our request for help in identifying food providers. Our Food Captain Sherley will be in touch with you soon, if she has not already contacted you. I also want to thank the people who responded to our 2010 call for marketing/media help. I DID think that one of our race captains had followed-up with each of you but now find that that was not always the case... SO sorry and embarrassed. If you are still interested in helping out, please shoot me an e-mail - I promise not to lose track of you. Which reminds me...we could also use a little bit of help in setting up a very simple on-line "store" for merchandise sales. We have no problem sending the merchandise out ourselves to save you the handling fees assessed by third party vendors but there HAS to be an easier way than using mailed order forms or tacking it onto our registration site. If you are interested in helping in any other leadership capacity, also let us know. We always have a few Captain and Coordinator vacancies to fill.

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In this issue 2011 Preview Finisher Shirts Thanks Again... Other news Facebook & Twitter Follow us on Facebook via our group and fan page and on Twitter use #mkelfm to post and follow other runners. Enter title here Enter body content here Unsubscribe Click to instantly unsubscribe from this mailing list. Send to a friend Send this email to someone you think may be interested.

Monday November 15, 2010 2011 Preview Over the last six weeks we have been winding down from the 2010 marathon, taking care of post-race runner questions, and beginning to plan for 2011 (though that actually began quite a bit before the 2010 race…). We really appreciate the time that many of you took to respond to the post-race survey. We look at every single comment to find ways to improve our race – more than 700 of you provided at least one comment and many of you commented on several questions – that is a LOT of input. We were very pleased with your overall rating – 99.6% of you said that you’d recommend the race to a friend. All I can say is WOW and THANKS for your continued support! I do hope that you noticed that our survey company, Events Response, removed the ads on their “landing page” this year. When we explained that we are not really a commercial endeavor, they agreed to do that – thanks so much to them for that! As we begin planning for our October 2, 2011 race, we’d like to make you aware of a couple of significant changes in the race and a couple of other things that we have in mind based upon your comments. Relay and Marathon Entry Limit – After much thought and discussion over the last several years, we have decided that we will no longer offer a relay as part of the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Since the inception of our race in 1981, our race staff and the Badgerland Striders have focused on the marathon as our primary mission and on making this the best marathon experience that we can. The relay was added many years ago as a secondary event to support the marathon. We have simply gotten to the point where the effort and resources required to maintain the relay are taking away from the marathon. The relay is the equivalent of 100 marathoners - for whom we have a separate busing strategy, have very significant spectator management issues, and accounts for a vastly disproportionate number of questions and issues. Importantly, our post-race survey shows that the relay runners want MORE from us - medals, immediate bus service to the finish and between exchange points, accurate timing of their splits, treatment equal to what we provide the marathoners, etc. We simply are not in a position to meet those expectations. We also received many marathoner comments about the relay - that they believe that it detracts from their experience and that we should drop the relay and simply increase the marathon entry limit. That is exactly what we will do. We will increase our entry limit by 300 to 3050 in 2011 and focus entirely on the marathon. We know that some people will be disappointed but hope that you all understand that we believe that this decision is in the best interest of the race and ask your support. Start Time – Since the heat in 2007, we have discussed a change in our start time from the current 8:00 to 7:30 - and will implement that change in 2011. We believe that this will provide for a safer race should we experience the temperatures we experienced in 2007 and that Chicago experienced in 2007 and 2010. We also believe that this will reduce race-related access issues with homeowners and businesses on our race course. Registration and Fees - For those planning ahead…we expect to open registration for 2011 in late January – we will let you know (in January) when we set the exact date. The 2011 race fee has been set at $75 and will include the on-line registration fee. Registration will be on-line only – we will not be processing paper race forms. And, for those REALLY planning ahead the date for 2012 is October 7. Race Shirts – We received such great feedback on our 2010 shirts and happy to report that 2010 designer Mike Kasun has agreed to return to design our 2011 shirt. We’re still thinking about color choices… Back to the survey…Events Response tells us that we have a higher proportion of female racers than other marathons and many of you have requested gender-specific race shirts. Therefore, in 2011 we have decided to make the plunge to offer both male and female sizing in our race shirts. Do I hear a “Yippee” from the ladies? Finish Area Food – We had a lot of comments from people about the food lines and the quality of the food at the Finish. We will figure out a better way to feed you at the end. What we’d really like to do is to find good sources of pre-packaged items that can be bagged and handed to you in the runners' corral. Believe it or not, it is hard to get 2000+ items when we ask. This is where you can help – please let us know if you know of a good source of pre-packaged items – cheese, dried fruit, salty stuff, meat snacks, etc. One of the runners said in their comments “Tell us what we can do to help.” Well…we could use your help on this. And…we really ARE working on the chocolate milk thing. The Train – Several of you commented on the train delay. Ever since the front runners were delayed by a train more than 25 years ago, we have gone to great lengths to ensure that things like that don’t happen. We contact the railroad several times, double check with them, and promise them sweatshirts… The railroad person in charge was very embarrassed by this glitch and promises that it won’t happen again…we’ll also triple check on this next year. Back to top Finisher Shirts We still have a good selection of the navy blue ¼ zip Finisher shirts, though availability of Women’s Medium is limited. You can order them using the form on the web site . We also have a few 2010 black runner shirts (no women’s XS or S) – the form to order those is also on the web site. And...for those who liked the 2009 shirt we do have some of them available for sale as well. Back to top Thanks Again... This is probably enough news for one e-blast… Have a great holiday season, stay safe on the roads, and thank you all so much for your support!

Race Weekend Approaches!

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In this issue Ready for Race Weekend? Expo & Packet Pick-Up Finish Area Runner Parking Have Your Friends & Family Follow You on Facebook Elite Athlete Technical Meeting Race Weekend Freeway Closures The "Rule of 2000" Runners of Note Other news Facebook & Twitter Follow us on Facebook via our group and fan page and on Twitter use #mkelfm to post and follow other runners. Enter title here Enter body content here Unsubscribe Click to instantly unsubscribe from this mailing list. Send to a friend Send this email to someone you think may be interested.

Saturday September 25, 2010 Ready for Race Weekend? Race weekend is almost here – we can hardly believe that in just a week we will be welcoming all of you to Milwaukee and to the 30th Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon. Your race staff has been working very hard to make sure that you can run the best race that your training will support! This is your "almost final" e-blast. You can expect another on Thursday or Friday. Questions... Questions... Lots of you have lots of questions related to packet pick-up, the expo, race rules, the race (of course), etc. We have tried to assemble lots of information to answer those questions on our web site. We hope that you find everything that you need on the Race Weekend and Maps tabs. If you have questions related to you registration – correcting data errors, lost your confirmation e-mail, etc. please contact our Registration Manager directly at LakefrontRegister@gmail.com . If you need to have someone pick up your packet you need to use the Packet Pick-up Form. Please fill out the form as indicated, attach a copy of your photo ID, and give it to the person who is going to pick up your packet. This might be a good time to tell you all a little bit about our race and some of the things that we think contribute to making it special to everyone. First, we are sponsored and owned by the Badgerland Striders Running Club. We have approximately 1600 members and are very active putting on 15-20 races annually. The race is put on by an army of people who have full-time “day jobs” or are lucky to be retired… We have more than 50 Race Captains or Managers and marshall more than 1300 volunteers to assist on race weekend. We think that the fact that we are all runners putting on the type of race we’d like to run is one of the things that makes LFM special. We could not conduct this great race without the support and assistance of our host municipalities. We work closely with their public safety personnel - their greatest concern is the safety of you, the runner. Please be sure to thank the residents and police as you see them and remember that we are guests in their homes. Back to top Expo & Packet Pick-Up In case you don’t have the information handy… packet pick-up and our Health and Fitness Expo will be held at the MSOE Kern Center on Friday from 4-7 and Saturday from 9-6. We have a great line-up of vendors and exhibitors. We will also again have our “Cheer Sign” area to provide a chance for kids to make special signs to support their favorite runner. The Preliminary Expo Seminar Program has been posted on our web site. We hope that you plan your trip to the Expo to take advantage of some of these great presentations. Of special note is our traditional Saturday morning fun run with special guest two-time Olympian Anne Marie Letko. She will lead a run from the Kern Center to the LFM finish and back - about 4 miles. The group will leave the front of the Kern Center at 8AM on Saturday morning. Anne Marie will also speak at the Expo and will be available to meet you at the Jenny Crain Make it Happen booth. Last year you told us that you’d like to see more seminars and technical information so we added a second, smaller seminar area to the Expo. We have invited our Expo vendors to make presentations in this area. We will post the preliminary schedule soon. Back to top Finish Area Runner Parking As you know we strongly encourage you to park near the finish area and take the FREE Runner Shuttle Bus to the start. Last year we had runners park at O’Donnell Park and loaded the buses at the Milwaukee Art Museum. O’Donnell Park is closed due to structural issues. We have secured parking for the runners (paid for by the race) at the Italian Conference Center (ICC) approximately .75 mile from the finish area. We will load the buses to the start on Chicago Street directly in front of the ICC. Take a look at the handy map on the web site for details. As always, the buses to the start are for registered runners ONLY – no spectators. Please note that you will (definitely) not be able to park off of Lagoon Drive or in the War Memorial lot. Please use the parking at the ICC. We will have shuttles going back to the ICC after the race for runners who don’t want to (or can’t) walk that far. Buses to take runners to the start will also leave the Hyatt and the Courtyard by Marriott at 6AM sharp. As with the ICC buses, the hotel buses to the start are for registered runners only. Back to top Have Your Friends & Family Follow You on Facebook This year your friends and family can follow your progress via Facebook. YOU need to set this up on Facebook prior to the race using the link provided . Please follow the instructions provided - they are so easy that even your overloaded RD coulf figure them out :). We will have timing mats at 7 miles, 13.1 miles, 20 miles and the Finish. Back to top Elite Athlete Technical Meeting We have scheduled a special Technical Briefing for Elite Athletes on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 in the small seminar area at the Expo. The briefing will be conducted by Elite Athlete Captain Dan Held, assisted by Race Director Kristine Hinrichs and our USATF Official. The briefing will cover race rules and other logistical issues. If you think that there is any chance that you will compete for prize money, WI USATF Championship, or RRCA National Championship we strongly suggest that you attend. Note that Masters and Grand Masters athletes also compete for these awards. Back to top Race Weekend Freeway Closures WDOT announced last week that a portion of I-894/I-43 in the Milwaukee area will be closed on race weekend. This will not affect most of the runners but may affect you if you come from communities southwest of the Milwaukee area. Information about this closure is available in this article in the JournalSentinel . Also...runners coming from the south should be aware of freeway construction from the WI/IL border through the Mitchell Field area. Back to top The "Rule of 2000" Huh??? Yep – you know the concept… “I know that I shouldn’t be doing this but IT is JUST me and it can’t matter to anyone.” One latte cup left on a resident’s lawn might not be a big deal – 2000 spectators, each dropping a cup IS a big deal. One spectator who thinks that it is cool to follow their runner by car might not cause a problem – 2,000 cars on the course following a runner – chaos. One runner too impatient to use the porta-pottie – 2,000 runners…get the idea? We know that runners are great people and that your friends and families are the greatest in their support for you. However, we would like to remind you to review the Race Rules and Spectator section of the Runners Guide. As we have said before, we get more complaints about the behavior of spectators than any other issue. Please make sure that your spectator is not the one that makes it difficult to get a permit next year, makes it impossible to secure use of a private parking lot, or does something that will result in YOUR disqualification. Back to top Runners of Note We have many special runners who will toe the line on October 3rd – including each of you! However, there are a few that you’ll want to watch for. First, we have assigned #1 to Anne Marie Letko and #2 to Mike Henze member of the US 24 Hour Team who won a bronze medal at the World Championships in May. Mike's performance in that race was nothing short of amazing! We also have several former winners who have come back to help us celebrate our 30th Anniversary. With the exception of Cornia Canitz running with her favorite #4 in honor of her four beautiful daughters, all of the Champions will have red race bibs - their race number represents the year they won the race. We also have three guys who have toed the starting line every single year – James Bahr #38, Duane Tate #39, and Bill Boehm #40. If you see them, give them a high-five. You also might see a guy out there running a bit of the race (he has retired from marathons) wearing #30. That will be Bob Fitts – our original Race Director. Thanks, Bob for setting us on the course from Grafton to Milwaukee. We hope that you like what your baby has grown up to be.