Baraboo, WI

Baraboo High School; Running Time 55:18.5 + 1-lap kick

Cool, crisp, sunny afternoon to run – ideal conditions. I had tried and failed to find an easily accessible trail to run on, so I defaulted to the local high school track. It was a 10-minute drive – more than I normally like to do – but this track was really good. There was a baseball game in process, and every time I hit the top of a grandstands staircase and made the turn, I could watch a pitch being thrown.

In preparation for this trip, I visited AllTrails to find non-paved trails near my hotel on which to run. I found a state park within a few miles, with multiple trails, and I had one picked out. However, even though there was no one working at the state park, and one only car in the parking lot, there were multiple signs warning that a state park permit was required, or payment of $11/day. I had no cash, no check, and no desire to test the system, although I am sure it would have been fine.

Baraboo is a quaint little town near Wisconsin Dells, which is where the hotel was. I had a crapload of work to do in the evening. When I travel for work, I still have normal emailing and troubles to shoot and triage work to accomplish, and if I am trying to hit all my targeted visits and have to drive a lot, I do not have much time to stop and check emails on my phone throughout the day. Plus, we sent out new pricing recently, and I want to make sure all of my accounts saw it, which requires a lot of emails. Some nights I am still working at 10 pm +. But I am not about to sacrifice my running for all of that.

My wife and I traveled to Western New York the week before. We are thinking of moving there. I drove through a few nice places in Wisconsin and couldn’t help letting her know that Lake Geneva and Horicon and Mayville are nice places, and then she would sent me some Zillow listings. We have been living with our daugher, son-in-law, and granddaughter in Utah for the past 8 months, but they are going to move somewhere this year (maybe Western NY as well), so we need to find our next landing place.

My timed circuit for this run was 2 full laps around the track, with double sets of stairs on both grandstands, which were both solid. One had four sets of stairs and the other five. When I run stairs, I reenter the track at the same spot that I left, so I always run the full length of the track. My first circuit was 19:26, then I dropped to 17:42 for the second circuit, and I was on track for a faster third circuit, but I must have bumped my Wyze watch, because it was stopped at 1:08.