St. Croix Valley Runners

Our favorite running friends meet at 7:00 am  every Saturday at the Northland Tennis Courts in Stillwater.  We three joined them for the first time this year, having had too many other things to do on Saturday mornings up to now.  With many of the other runners I ended up taking "Wayne's Route," a 5-mile combination that takes us on suburban roads and trails, circling around Lake McKusick and back to the cars.  It's far preferable to the more traditional but unnerving 5-mile route that takes us on the shoulder of 55-mph Manning Avenue for about a mile and a half.

Poison ivy along the Gateway
Trail (yesterday's run)

I ran without walking for the first two miles or so, but was breathing too hard, so I dropped behind the others and went to a 60/20 run/walk, running with Dave some of the time and finishing the five miles in 45:42, for a respectable 9:08 pace.

 I can do better, too - I've been training at marathon pace or a little faster for a long time now, and it's about time I did some training at a faster pace, maybe some short races, or intervals, hill training, cross training, resistance training, whatever.  When we know what other marathons we will do this year, I will need to establish a training plan and just do it.  I'll have more speed at shorter distances like this, and hopefully will build muscle for more endurance in marathons too.

Meantime, no whining today.  Nothing hurts, I feel great.