June 18, 2007
Dorgan's Ice Age Trail "thru-run" generates big donations for IAPTF!

Jason Dorgan's remarkable feat of running the entire thousand-mile Ice Age Trail in just 22.5 days has drawn strong publicity for the Trail since April. On Thursday, June 14th, members of the IAPTF Development Committee discovered that the feat has drawn strong financial support for the Trail, as well.

During the committee's meeting in Madison, Dorgan made a surprise visit (coordinated through the IAPTF's new executive director, Mike Wollmer) to deliver the good news in person. Jason presented committee members with a whopping $15,000 in donations he collected on behalf of the IAPTF, evoking a hearty round of applause and "thank-yous!”

Donations are still coming in. If you would like to show your appreciation and support for both Jason and the IAPTF, please send donations (payable to IAPTF) to:

Jason Dorgan
3012 Maple Valley Drive
Madison, WI 53719



Jason Dorgan with some very happy members of the IAPTF Development Committee (l to r): Dan Geraghty, Tom Gilbert, Mike Wollmer, Ellen Drought, Jason, Judy Fossen and David Bohl.

It's been over 5 weeks now that I stopped running every day. I can bike and run, but each is more effort than it used to be. There are no injuries just some deep seated fatigue. I am thinking about what my next runs will be, but am realistic it may not be until 2008. My mind thinks I could do a marathon or 50 miler, but my body is not ready yet. This morning may be a poor example, but a 55 minute run around our Arboretum was really tough in the 80F and humid weather. Happy to be back to 3 runs a week and a couple of bike rides. The tuesday night workout is one of the hardest since it is on the track. I haven't done speed work for a couple years and it shows in my leg turnover. But this is what I need to do to try and break the 3 hour barrier for the marathon. Maybe start with the Blue Ridge Relay in the Fall?

I am excited to be writing articles and seeing others in Silent Sports and the Capital Times. It is great to be able to keep supporting the trail and raising awareness of it. I gave my donations to date to the IAP&T Foundation Thursday. I am happy to say you allowed me to raise $15,000 so far for the trail. Special thanks to my Mom and Dad for their generousity and support.

I will be giving a talk in Janesville (7 p.m. at the Rock County JOBs Center, 1900 Center Avenue) on Thursday (6/21) at a Rock Trail Collition event. They are also using this meeting to build enthusiasm (and volunteers) for the Ice Age Trail Mobile Skills Crew project in Janesville for July 19 - 22. The MSC will be building a technically challenging trail through a steep limestone hillside overlooking the Rock River. This trail opens up the link going west out of Janesville. It will eventually connect to the Janesville Arboretum, another couple of miles, and somehow get to Magnolia Bluff county park and on to the Sugar River section of the IAT. I will post the presentation on the website too.

I will continue to try to get more pictures up on the website.

Hello,

I am finally coming around and the legs aren't twitching so much. So I can sleep and I have run (sorta) 3 times this past week.

I am also finishing an article for ultrarunning which hopefully you will enjoy when it comes out.

Maybe see some of you out at the Kettles this weekend for the Kettle 100 mile.

Jason.

Ice Age Trail 50 mile run

Well it finally happened, I feel like a truck hit me yesterday. Saturday was still very successful however. I finished the 50 mile run in just under 10 hours, but my feet and quads now feel like I thought they would for every day of the 1000 miles. They are sore and stiff and I walk the Frankenstien. What I learn from this is we got a little lucky. By going a little slower (11ish hours) for the 23 days and by ice bathing and eating right we were able to maintain the body. After I finished
Continue reading "1079 miles plus 6 days and 50 more miles."

Start in madison and end in Madison, Sleep in my own bed and putting in 0 miles, though did 35 on the bike last night.

It has been an incredible 4 days. Mentally I am relieved to be able to relax and not have to stay so focused on what I am doing every minute of the day. The body however continually reminds me of what I just finished.
Continue reading "Postrun Days 1 through 4, The Aftermath"

Dave, Brenda, and I left Madison at 05:00 on Sunday to run with Jason on his final stage. As we got to Algoma, Brenda asked "What is all that smoke from?"


Continue reading "What's all that smoke?"

More great photos and a few video clips from Timo of Jason's last day on the Ice Age Trail...

Continue reading "Photos - Jason's last day on the trail"

We will try and maintain this "What's New" post with the newest stuff at the top. Note that this post is sticky, so new posts will occur below this post.

02-May-07 Journal Sentinel Online Story with video

07-May-07 Photos & Video of Jason's last day on the trail from Timo

Play a random clip from Jason's audio journal! (Audio starts after a short delay) Stop Audio
(if nothing plays after a bit, click play again - there are a few missing file names in the sequence)

Thirty (30) miles for an unofficial total of 1079 miles over 22 days and 6 hours. If I can still do math that comes out to just about 48 miles a day. The official count will have to be tallied over the next few days to account for some of the road changes we made during the run.

We finished at 12:34pm on top of Potowatomi SP. My dad pointed out that that meant we finished 1234567. Get it? It was a great day with family and friends and fellow runners. I got choked up throughout the day as more runners and watchers joined our convoy of cars. It is wonderful to know such great people....


Continue reading "Day 23"

Jason has completed the continous through run of the complete Ice Age Trail (1079 miles) that he started April 14, 2007 . This blog exists to track his daily progress. Jason finished today about 12:30pm and just called from on top of the tower where he was celebrating with about two dozen people. They were having some champagne and were then going to have a little cookout. Great job Jason! There will be many on-the-trail photos from Jason's camera coming in the next week, so check back every couple of days for new content.

Jason should soon be a member of the Ice Age Trail "Thousand Miler club!"



Remember that this was a fund-raising effort and 100% of all tax deductible contributionsmade on behalf on Jason will go to the Ice Age Park and Trail Foundationand will be used to:

- Provide training, tools and technical assistance to the volunteers who develop,
maintain and promote the Ice Age Trail.
- Protect key land parcels and serve as a link between local landowners and our
government partners in order to further completion of the Ice Age Trail.
- Build partnerships for the Ice Age Trail with local governmental units, civic
organizations, and teachers and their students.

We ended in Rio Creek at about 1049 miles.We are staying in Algoma. We will plan to start at 6:30am tomorrow, but if we wake up early and are ready to go, then we will start early. I can’t imagine how we ever made it through the past 3 weeks, but we did. It has been fun listening to all the stories from people following my adventure. I am glad to be able to give you a successful tale. You are all the best. Please get out when you can to enjoy the trails that I have been enjoying for the past 22 days. (Photo's inside)


Continue reading "Day 22, Unbelieveably only 30 miles left!!"

More on-the-trail photos from Tim Yanacheck...


Continue reading "Timo's Photos from Thursday"

Jason called in tonight since he did not have a good Internet connection where he was staying in Two Rivers, so we have an audio report for you. It appears that there is new trail along lake Michigan, which is why the green line branches toward Manitowoc on the map (I suspect the IAT map is out-of-date).

Click here to play today's audio report.



Continue reading "Day 21 - Light at the end of the trail"

Update: Greg suggested that it would be cool to play a random Audio Clip, and we aim to please...

You can now Click to play a random Audio file!(Audio will start after a short delay... )

The Janesville Gazettekindly provided PDF's of their story since it did not make it to their online version. Here is the front page, and then page 8 where the story continues. Story courtesy of the Janesville Gazette and Anna Marie Lux.

Photo (pdf) from May 1 Capitol Times (local archive)


Continue reading "More Audio & Janesville Gazette"

What a great day! 943 miles done, 136 miles to go. ADDENDUM: Photos added.

Timo writes: With another 49 miles behind him, today Jason had yet another good day on the Ice Age Trail.

The temp was 45 degrees when Jason started out from a point west of Slinger, WI. Robert saw him off at 6:29 a.m. Some roads to cover today, but mostly some of the best trails. The skies were sunny all day, and there was a pleasant cool wind from the east (the direction of nearby Lake Michigan). The high temperature was 61.


Continue reading "Day 20, it doesn't get much better"