A morning run trying to beat the rain! In the woods at Wirth I didn’t feel anything, but the pavement was wet when I got back out.
For this run I pretty much stayed to the perimeter of the park as much as possible. This included a new section of trail I’d never run that popped me out by the CenturyLink building. It wasn’t where I had intended to be, but it worked out ok.
4.7 miles in 47:06.
My first run since the race. I took it nice and easy. I had thought I’d take Amber with me, but she didn’t want to get off the bed! I tried the North part of the Wirth behind the golf course and unfortunately the Luce Line is still flooded. It wasn’t too deep though and I was able to skip/run across it and not get too wet. The trails were mostly dry.
3.20 miles in 31 minutes.
Race completed! The Superior Trail Series 12.5K is in the bag and it was a fun event! The weather ended up being perfect – about 50’s. It was cloudy and windy which wasn’t super ideal but the temp meant that it didn’t get overly hot while running. It may have sprinkled a little bit, or it could have been water falling off leaves from the overnight rain.
The quick details:
12.5K – 1:23:49 40/228 overall
My race plan had essentially been to take it easy until around mile 6 and then start pushing the pace. I executed that fairly well, except that in mile 5 we hit our first (and really only) major climb! That explains the sudden drop in my pacing. One thing I had forgotten was how rooty and rocky the trail is. There were quite a few sections where the group slowed down to make it through a section of roots, especially on the downhills. The Superior Hiking Trail Association has done a great job of putting bridges or planks over the worst marshy areas, but given that it is spring there are still some muddy sections throughout! The section of trail was amazing! If I wasn’t running the race I would have taken a ton of pictures.
Starting at Cathedral of the Pines was beautiful, running along Agnes Lake and the Poplar River were spectacular and of course some of the views from the peaks were amazing! I didn’t stop or really get to look at them – so I will be coming back to hike this section still. There was still snow on the ground – but only where Lusten Mountains had created man-made snow for the ski hills. We never got close to it, but I did see it once and think – yay we are getting close to the finish!
My only complaint – and it was already addressed by the race director – was that it wasn’t super clear that we could bring sweats to the starting line and it was chilly standing around for 30 minutes waiting. This was a point to point race unlike the other two that were out and backs. We got taken by bus to the starting line. Otherwise it was a well produced event! I got some video of the 50k and 25k starts that I might get around to smashing together! Part of me regrets not taking my phone or a camera on the run, but it was also nice to just focus on running and racing again!
Given that the race was almost 4 hours from home, I went up the night before and camped at Lamb’s Resort. They have some nice campsites right on the lake if you want to pay a little extra. I opted for my little backpacking tent and I to stay at nice site where you could still here the waves crashing even in the woods! This is the first time I ever remember camping the night before a race. I will definitely do some things differently next time, but I think that camping added to the overall experience of a trail run. I can’t imagine being one of the many who stayed in the Caribou Highlands – such a pampered experience!
That’s a quick recap. Maybe more thoughts later! All in all it was an excellent race and a great experience!
Miss me?
Man that sinus thing knocked me out. There were a few days where I just came home from work and laid on the couch. It wasn’t until this past weekend when I was able to rest a lot that I finally felt significantly better.
I think that if it hadn’t been so close to race day I would have ran or biked earlier. But since it was a week out I didn’t want to risk getting worse.
This is taper week. I haven’t worked out since my mountain bike ride on Cinco de Mayo. Ouch.
Today’s 3 mile run felt fine. Started out a little stiff and by the end I was feeling almost normal again!
3 miles in 28:19.
1000’s on the dike were always one of those hated workouts in college. Something about running 1,000 meters over and over again isn’t really fun!
That was the workout today, 4x1000m with 3:30 rest in between. 1000m feels like a long way, especially when you run the same routes over and over. I tried to mix it up a little and was rewarded with two huge mud puddles that were hard to get around during an interval! In a race I’d totally run through it, but early in a run…
Overall 5.36 miles in 56:01. The four intervals were:
6:00
6:14
5:27
5:18
Do you like 1000m intervals?