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Held up by a hurricane, visitor gets a true taste of Wisconsin ... and an Al's run win, too
Ben Steele
Danielle Klein had a pretty successful first trip to the Midwest.
The 26-year-old ate her first cheese curd, fell in love with New Glarus Brewing's Spotted Cow beer and also was the top female finisher at the Brigg's and Al's Run on Saturday morning thanks to Hurricane Florence.
Klein is originally from Boston, where she still races competitively for the elite Heartbreak Hill running club. She now lives in North Carolina and works as a corporate recruiter for Lowe's.
She came to Milwaukee for a business conference. The trip lasted a little longer than anticipated, with her group forced to stay through the weekend as Florence hit the East Coast.
"Our flights are cancelled until Monday," Klein said. "Which I'm really happy about because I was able to run this race. It was amazing."
Klein crossed the finish line for the 5-mile run in 31 minutes and 15 seconds. Not too bad for having decided to run the day before.
"One of the managers that I'm here with, she's actually from here," Klein said. "She was like, 'There's a race here Saturday morning.' So I said, 'Well, I have to do it.' "
Klein usually runs half-marathons but loves doing 5-mile races.
"I ran the same distance five weeks ago and I bested my time by a minute and 10 seconds," she said.
Klein was going to celebrate as if she were a Wisconsin native.
"It was a really great day. Gonna go drink some beer," she said.
The top men's finisher was also a first-time participant in Al's Run, but one who was very familiar with the race
David Luy, 26, was a competitive runner at Brookfield East High School and stayed active at the club level at the University of Wisconsin.
He works in real estate and had been more into triathlons in recent years. Those races have often kept him from doing Al's Run, but this year he is building toward running in the Lakefront Marathon on Oct. 7
Luy finished in 24:54 on a sunny day with temperatures in the mid-70s.
"Right now I am focusing more on trying to get the Olympic Trials qualifying standard (in the marathon)," Luy said. "So I'm putting a lot of my time and energy into becoming the best runner I can be while I'm still young.
"I'm in pretty good shape right now. It was a tough one today; it's pretty warm. So I think it was a good test three weeks out. Lakefront is what I'm gearing up for. I did a marathon earlier this year in Eau Claire and I was a few minutes off at (2 hours and 23 minutes). You have to do 2:19 (for the Olympic Trials standard)."
Luy started out fast and finished 1:26 ahead of the next finisher.
"I loved running downtown, especially now that I'm done with the tri season," he said. "Because doing all the biking kind of taps your legs out and I feel kind of flat. But now I've had four good weeks of running and I feel pretty fresh."
Luy was also happy to be in a race that in over 41 years has raised $21 million for Children's Hospital. More than 12,000 runners, walkers and wheelchair racers participated on Sunday.
His grandfather, who died recently, was a surgeon who did some work at Children's. Luy and his sister each were patched up at the hospital when they were younger.
"There's a lot that they give back," Luy said. "It's nice to race for them."
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