Today was so humid that at the end of my run my fingers were starting to prune up a little bit.  At least it was relatively cool through the whole run!  I picked a route that I’ve ridden before but never run and when I’ve ridden it is been 12 miles.  So I thought it would work for 13.1.  I was quite off and needed to add a good amount of trails at Wirth to get there.

I started out running from my house and ran to the Mississippi River.  I haven’t run along the river in a long time. Especially this section.  The run was a Time Trial, so I wanted to find the balance of going fast, but surviving the entire 13 miles.  I set my Virtual Pacer for 9 minute miles and thought that would be good.  I was a little shocked when I came through the first mile in 8:13. Ok, no problem slow down a little bit… Crap.  I came through the 2nd mile in 7:52.  That was not going to be a sustainable pace for the whole thing. I turned off the River onto Cedar Lake Trail and my pace finally slowed down to 8:37.  I haven’t run on such flat easy places for awhile and my body wanted to move!  The Cedar Lake Trail is pretty straight forward urban trail that turns into a prairie trail.. I did 8:15 and then 8:34 for mile 5.

I wanted to run the dirt trails on the East side of Cedar Lake and to add some distance I ran all the way to where they actually start on the southside and ran back around the lake.  I never ran these trails enough to know what the best routes are or an easy way to add a nice loop.  One time in there I had to backtrack quite a bit.  I ended up running less than a mile in the dirt trail section.  Mile 6 was 8:48.  Running on the paved trails around Cedar Lake are so nice with the sun coming over the trees and downtown sparkling. I ran past all the beaches and extended the run by going out onto the points when possible.  Mile 7 was 9:25, 8 was 10:23, and 9 was 9:38.  I was definitely feeling tired at this point.  I had been drinking some, but the food I brought wasn’t very good and was hard to eat.

It was right before mile 9 that I turned off the pavement and was on trails for most of the rest of the run.  I knew that from Cedar Point beach home it would be about 3 miles on the Parkways. So when I ran past it before hitting 8 miles I would need to make up a lot of miles somewhere.  I’ve not run around Brownie Lake, but I probably should have tried today!

Obviously being back on the trails at Wirth was going to slow down my pace unless I tried to pick it up. Feeling tried at that point wasn’t ideal, but I kept pushing on.  I ended up walking some of the uphills. Mile 10 was 12:55, 11 was 12:19, and 12 was 11:20.  Mile 11 was the end of the dirt trails and back on the parkway.  I went past the Trailhead at around 11.5 miles.  The Trailhead is only a half mile from home, so I had to keep going!  It is always sad to pass my road and know I need to keep running!  I hit Mile 13 at the top of the hill on Golden Valley Road in 13:31 and then knew it was all downhill from there on out!  I stopped about 1/4 mile down the road and hit 8:33 pace again.  I decided to stop my watch and walk the last few blocks home (uphill).

My plantar fasciitis foot was really hurting at the front of the arch.  Hopefully it recovers quickly.  I also need to get my nutrition figured out for the race.  I did order some gel packets and will bring a bar or two to have during the race.

Just a few more weeks to go!