Heading to McBain on S Morey Rd. saw this barn and had to take a pic. I love old barns.Close to town two bikers in front of me.Parked at a gas station. This was across the road. Looks like they handle grains.Started running the direction from which I just came.Across the road, I saw a substantial gate.This was the view over the gate.Looks like a substantial operation.Biewer Sawmill is pretty impressive.Lots of boards already cut.And lot’s of logs for boards.I mean a lot of logs. Wow.A lot of corn in this area, but here they are watering something else. Also notice to wind power towers in the background.Whole lot of corn farms all around.Almost to the road that heads back to town.You can see the town far in the background.Back into town heading down a backroad.Past the fire department.Downtown.Heading back north toward the main road. Very nice homes in this area.Ran across the school, maybe McBain High School. The foot ball field was just to the right.Heading back toward the gas station. You can see the grain elevators in the top left of the photo that were in one of the first images.The flowers down the sidewalk in this town looked great. This photo was taken after my run was complete. Was a very good run. Seemed like a pretty good time considering how many times I stoped to take a photo.This may have been the southern county, but I spent a lot of time on this dirt road in order to get back to M115.
There really wasn’t much of a plan for this county. I considered running a 5k at the north end. I mapped it out on “mapmyrun.com”, and I also mapped a route in Lake, but McBain was closer to my sister’s home so I decided to knock this one out. Also, I’ve been to Lake before. I don’t ever remember going to McBain. Was cool to see a new place.
This was for sure in the country!
Missaukee County
Aetna
Bloomfield
Butterfield
Caldwell
Clam
Union
Enterprise
Forest
Holland
Lake
Lake City
McBain
Norwich
Pioneer
Reeder
Richland
Riverside
West Branch
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)
Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.
Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
In addition to the county-run goal, I’ve also set-up a goal to run a 5k run every other day for at least a year. There have been many goals in the past through my life, but this one has been a mix of easy/hard. Easy in the sense that it is much easier than training for a half marathon; but harder because of the consistency required. It wasn’t uncommon for me to take two days in a row off during training for most years. I have never been this consistent with my running in the past. So happy that I chose this goal for a year.
This all started on October 4th, 2019. I ran a 5k several times in September, but not every run. I ran the Byte Productions 5k race in late September. I was thinking back to training for a half and realized that a 5k or 10k run would be just my normal training. Also, I used to be able to accomplish a 5k in 30 minutes easily. Even after running with this schedule for 9 months, I’m nowhere near being able to run a 30 minute 5k. Now, I can complete this run in about 36 minutes and I can do a 10-minute mile, but not two in a row at this point.
I’ve been introducing a hard run at least once a week by adding either hills or distance. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m leaning towards a goal of 10k and two 5k’s every week for next year. This will allow me to have two rest day’s in a row once a week. It is encouraging to make a doable goal that is harder in distance but much easier in rest.
In the winter I was running for 40 minutes every other day and that was about 3.5 miles. Will probably go back to that when the snow flies.
8-28-20: on my run today I was thinking again how easy this goal has become and I started thinking back to a time when it was the most challenging. I have been doing this challenge for 329 days so far. And I’ve had a few back-to-back runs so I’m probably at 167 5k runs in the past year. That is at least 520 miles! (I say “at least” because many days I extended my runs to 3.5 up to 4 miles). But the most difficult run by far was when I injured my back from pull-ups back in December… There were two runs on the treadmill both were very uncomfortable.
I recovered from that injury with some yoga stretches and was back to running uninjured since. The next worse run was one when a very large stick got stuck in my laces on a run in the Reffitt Nature Preserve. That was painful when I took a tumble finished the 5k but then walked the extra mile home. Rough. Lately, I’ve been introducing more miles, speed, and/or hills and the following runs have been rough. Also, rough because it’s been super hot the last few weeks.
Most runs are great, no too hard, and quickly complete. Only a little over a month left to achieve this goal!
A lot of miles behind me for the years of 2019/2020. Possibly, more miles than ever, but maybe not more than when I was training for half marathons 10 years ago. I really don’t know, because I’ve never run every other day. So good to be back!
What now that this is complete?
This was a hard goal to finish… Some days I just didn’t want to run, but so glad I had it in my mind to complete this. But what I’m thinking about doing this year is slightly less frequently but more miles once a week. Thinking about trying to do 2 5ks per week and then a long run (slowly getting up to a 10k). I have run 4 miles several times in the last few months, but it’s been years since I’ve done over 6 miles. I have run 4 half marathons in the past, but I’m thinking about trying to eventually do a full. Maybe in 3 or 4 years, once this goal of running every county is complete.
If you want to start a couch to 5k program (C25k), it would be great to research it a lot before you do. If you can join a class as I did (the first time), that would be even better. There are tons of resources online to get you started. Also, it is beneficial to start it with another person or group of people. But really, it’s just totally doable for almost anyone. I remember starting the program (thinking I was fat and there was no way this was going to work for me.) and struggling with the 30 second runs followed by 90 second walks during week one toward the end of the workout (because you repeat this ten times). I was thinking at that time that there would be NO way that in just 11 weeks, I would be able to run for 30 minutes straight. But honestly, that is what I did. And with that said, it indeed wasn’t hard. There are many days, even now, that I don’t “feel” like going for a run. But honestly, I don’t remember once complete, ever regretted that I did the run.
The following is the schedule that got me started back in 2005.
Right-click (control-click – Mac) on this and the below image and save to your computer and print them out.
Since getting to the point where I could run a 5k, there have been many times that I had to “start over” (or sometimes do a partial – start over). I’ve used the above plan more than once. But the last 2 or 3 times that I’ve had to restart, I’ve relied on phone apps. They are great because you can listen to music and have the app tell you when to start running/walking. I’ve never paid for the apps, but honestly, I would pay if I ever had to do it again. I don’t remember why but I think there were ads or something that I didn’t like about the app. But, with a payment of little cash, the problem is solved. I didn’t because when I got tired of it, I almost completed the program.
If this page has motivated you and you think that you will start, please let me know. Once you can run a 5k at any pace, let me know so I can run with you. Start a couch to 5k program (C25k) TODAY!
You will notice that I don’t have a Strava record for this run. I had to enter it in manually because I wasn’t getting any phone service at this location.
What I decided to do was set my timer on my phone and run for at least 20 minutes out and then 20 min back. That way I would be sure to do, at least, the proper distance. I’m not 100% sure it was 3.2 miles but I do know it was at least 3.1 miles.This was our swim in Lake Huron the night before. Notice how far the people are away from us. It was nice to keep our distance during this Covid time.Shot of the Fietcher Pond is a super big lake. This was taken the night before the run.Same picture first thing the next morning. The beginning of my run.Leaving the campground.This was the start of the road. Was cool that I met up with our camping neighbor, he was walking his dog and returning as I was leaving.A lot of these pictures were more for the fact that I wasn’t getting service out here and I wanted to make sure I had record of what each turn looked like. There were a lot of turns.And a lot of straight gravel roads.Further down the road. I wanted to do a loop, but I was afraid of getting lost without a way to contact my wife back at the camp. So I ended up doing an out and back.My G Lyon shot.Another shot of the gravel road, but it was cool to have my shadow in this shot.On the way back.Seeing the camp sign down the road.Back at camp and my wonderful wife and grandchild had breakfast cooked. Boy was I spoiled.
After staying the night in Oscoda County, we decided to head towards Lake Huron. We ended up finding a place to stay on the West side of Alpena County. We were looking for something that would be enjoyable for Melody, but my phone was not getting service in the part or the state. Was frustrating, but we did find the campground/fishing hole. Jacks Landing was a cool little place to camp. We set up our tent and did a couple things then we went east, to the town of Alpena. With the purpose of swimming in Lake Huron with Melody. Was great.
Alpena County
Alpena Green
Hillman Long Rapids Maple Ridge Ossineke Sanborn Wellington Wilson
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)
Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.
Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
This was the crew for the weekend! Myself, Lisa and Grand-daughter Melody. We stayed at Big Bear Campground. It was nice and partially filled but LOTs of space between camp sites. We were always about 30 yards away from others.Great view from the campsite.This was the start of my run. But it shows how busy the campground was, a huge bonus for us.Early on I met up with this fellow. He had a mouthful of something.Another view of Big Bear lake. Beautiful little place.Just outside of the campground running east, I think.Most of this run was on dirt roads, with almost no houses. This was a very rural area.Did like seeing all kinds of deer track and listening to the birds and wildlife first thing in the morning.This was a fairly flat run, this area opened up a bit, but most of the run was pretty covered with trees and scrubs.Loved the look of the field on one side of the road and the forest on the other.A Strava friend (and previous co-worker) Genevieve Lyon often takes pictures of flowers along her hikes/rides… I was inspired to do the same when I saw these flowers.This was the end of my 5k and I was super close to the campground. I got an idea to try to find the other end of a trail that lead right to my campsite…….after following a path for about a quarter mile, I looked at the map on my phone it was clear to me that I took the wrong path. So I reset my Strava and did a walk back to the campsite.Back at camp.
It was initially my plan to go to Lake Huron and run Iosco County. This is during the COVID scare in late July and that county was getting a lot of infections as the above map illustrates. And because we were taking our grand-daughter with us, we decided to hit the more northern counties. We also hit campgrounds that were not tight or filled with campers. It seemed to work well for us. So we hit Oscoda county first and it was great to see this area. It was the first time for all three of us. I think I’m going to like the fact that this goal will make me explore places that I’ve never been. Hopefully this Covid pandemic will be over during the completion of this goal. It most likely will be as this will take several years to complete.
Oscoda County
Big Creek Clinton Comins Elmer Fairview Greenwood Loon Lake Mentor Mio
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns / cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run)
Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past.
Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
Contact
If you have some ideas about a county please share them on that counties commentssection. I would like others to see what makes the county great. If you would like to contact me privately you can do so here: thanks. m
