Week Ending March 29

This was a recovery week, as intended, so there wasn't much in the way of running or workouts for the week. After some consideration, I also decided, once again, to abandon my plan of a running streak. I don't know why I keep going back to the idea of running everyday when I've had much luck doing so. Perhaps is just the elegance of running every day. Nonetheless, with even one rest day a week, I feel a thousand times better than I do if I run even a mile on that off day.

Given my goals for the year, taking a rest day ever week just makes sense.

Weekly Summary:  ~23 miles, ~3 hours.

I did manage to get one good workout in this week, however. On Friday, I was feeling all out of sorts, mentally and physically. My legs were not feeling great, despite several days of short and easy runs. Mentally, I was feeling down, and worn out after a hard week of work (without enough running to offset it).

So Friday morning, I opted to head out mid-morning for a run from the River Gorge down to, and possibly around, Pike Island in Snelling State Park.

Feeling good on the first section of trail, I ended up hitting a decent pace even on the difficult trail section. Across the bridge, my route ran along bike paths and sidewalks, and I found myself hitting sub-7 pace without breathing hard on the slight downhill. I cruised though the off-leash dog park (sorry if I startled anybody), hitting 6:30s on the downhill trail, and finally (after a slight bushwhack) down into Snelling proper on the bike path.

By this point, I was over 5 miles into my run. A lap of Pike Island would have made the whole run over 13 miles, but I didn't feel that was a good idea. Rather, I decided to make the second half a good tempo run, pushing myself to the uncomfortable stage.

Retracing my route back up the slight slope to my car, I hit a fairly steady effort, with paces ranging from 8 minutes on the steeper hills to low 6-minutes on the flats and shallow grades. All in all, I hit 10.5 miles in about 1:15, for a decent outing.

And now, since I forgot these last week: pictures!

Morning shot of St Paul from Battle Creek.

Cobbler flavor gel . . .

. . .at Pi

I have an obsession with odd trees.

And finally, good running advice from Old Navy