St Croix Valley Recreation Center

Stillwater Bubble again, nice easy 8.3 miles. I was going for 10 miles, but time ran out and I had to head home. Pace was 9:15 the one time I measured it - I’m assuming that I slowed some and the overall pace was about 9:30 for about 1 hour 19 minutes. No pains or problems.

Several other runners in the dome today, ALL of them running faster than me. One woman was running when I got there and still running when I left - good for her! Most ran for shorter times. With an outdoor actual temperature of minus 8, the dome was the place to be.

I’m the only person I’ve seen running in there without leg cover of some kind. Most runners are in tights. The long-distance woman runner today appeared to be wearing panty hose with shorts over. My only tights are pretty warm for inside the dome, I’m guessing 45 degrees, but I suppose I could try panty hose. Probably won’t, though, because my legs really don’t get cold. I worry about my knees, but they haven’t complained at all.


Breakfast. There is oatmeal under there:

Welcome 2010

Sunday, January 3, 2010:

First run of 2010. Do you ever wonder if, for some magical reason, everything could change at the turn of the new year? Maybe I wouldn’t be able to run at all, but I’d be able to do something else, like lose 15 pounds overnight, or write with humor.

Didn’t happen. Good run today, though, on the upstairs track at the club. Eight miles at a pace just faster than 9 minutes/mile. I ran with friend Norm for the first two miles, and might have mis-counted laps, thus running one too few. If so, the pace is still about 9. One lap is 40 seconds at that pace.

Slight pain in the right knee before, during, and after the run, especially on stairs after the run.  But I think it's temporary - slept wrong on it last night or something.

Grandson J is back in Portland by now, despite Delta Airlines’ several screwups. The house is a lot quieter, but we miss him and his dad & mom.

Splits: 17:32 (2 mi), 8:53, 9:02, 9:04, 9:00, 8:53, 8:54, total 1:11:20, pace 8:55. Good enough!

Thursday, New Years Eve, 2009:

Last run of 2009, in the Stillwater Bubble again. This time I ran for a little over an hour, going about 6.7 miles I think, and then the family showed up, including grandson J, who is four. What a runner HE is! For a full hour he ran and ran, mostly at full tilt, much to the amusement of most of the others in the bubble, not to mention his grandparents and his dad. Too bad J has to go home soon.

2009 is a masterpiece! See you next year.

Organic lunch:

Two Runs

Tuesday, December 29, 2009:

Stillwater Bubble this morning, just trying to get in some quality miles. No sprinting, no walking, just running. I measured the pace twice, and both times it was about 104 seconds for a full loop, which calculates to a pace of about 9:11. So I say the overall pace was probably about 9:20, and I ran for 73 minutes, for a distance of about 7.8 miles. I was shooting for 8 miles, but time ran out. This was close enough! No pains, no soreness. It’s a masterpiece.

Then it was 10:00 am and the softball guys’ turn to have the bubble. I watched a little as I cooled off and did my stretches, and was surprised to see that it took more than three outs to get a side out. Turns out that they play two innings per side, just to save the time required to change teams on the field. If a batted ball hits the ceiling of the bubble or one of the wires that go across the middle, the ball is playable nonetheless, but very difficult to catch and therefore good luck for the batter. "Just a bunch of old guys having fun," said one of the players. They sure were enjoying themselves, and not all of them were old. What a great use of that facility. I’ll just have to get there early enough to finish my run before 10:00 am.

The outdoor temperature Tuesday morning was about zero, but the bubble is partially heated and I suppose it was between 40 and 45 degrees in there. Someday I’ll bring a thermometer. I was comfortable in shorts and two technical shirts, one of them long-sleeved, plus gloves. Most of the runners wore tights, and the walkers were mostly dressed in their winter coats. The temperature got boosted a bit for the softball games, to maybe 55-60 degrees.

Saturday, December 26, 2009:

St Croix Valley Runners after the snowfall. We got about a foot of snow, mostly Christmas eve and Christmas Day. So we ran the normal "old" route, which is mostly on plowed roads. No problem. I picked up Jim and we ended up running together, with Gauss and Dave following behind at a much slower pace. Five miles in 47:25 for us, which comes to a pace of 9:29. I thought it would be a little faster, actually, because it seemed like a lot of work, but it’s hard to make good time in winter clothing and on ice and packed snow. It will do.

These days we get to watch the sunrise as we run, and this was a pretty good one. It’s a masterpiece.


Would you believe mac n' cheese?  Gluten-free and mostly organic.

Merry Christmas

I’ve been thinking about doing some speed work, and I can't really do much at the "club" where the track is pretty short, so I asked my friend Don Dornfeld where he did his. He uses an enclosed soccer field in his town, open for walking and running some of the time. That sounded like a good idea, so Thursday we three shoveled snow for an hour or so and then went to the St. Croix Valley Recreation Center in Stillwater.

Part of the complex of buildings is an inflated dome enclosing two side-by-side soccer fields. We three call it the “Bubble.” It’s open to the public on weekdays for walking or running, from 6:00 am to 10:00 am, free on Wednesdays, $2.00 other days, $0.50 for seniors. It’s heated, but not much, perhaps 40-45 degrees or so. I was comfortable in shorts and two technical shirts, one of them long-sleeved. Gloves felt nice. There is no wind, of course  :-)

The bubble has plenty of room to walk or run around the outside lines of the fields, almost exactly 1000 feet per loop, about 300 meters, 5.3 loops per mile. The diagonal is about 358 feet, or 109 meters, and the long sides are 285 feet, or 86 meters. Those are the longest straight-line sprints available, and the diagonal is not always available because of dividing nets between the soccer fields.

But the diagonals were available Thursday, and I ran them a half dozen times at full sprint, or nearly so, plus a few sprints on ta long side. Quads were still a little sore from Sunday’s races. In between I jogged at a pace of about 9:15 minutes/mile or so, for a total of 47 minutes, so probably about 5 miles. I need to read up on speed training, because I have no idea what I’m doing.

During the run we were amused by patches of snow sliding off the bubble. The roof was translucent enough that the previous night's 7-inch snowfall was visible as a dark area above us, and every now and then we would hear a swoosh sound, rising in pitch, and we would look up to see a dark patch accelerating off to the side and then toward the ground. Pity the person standing there. :-)

I was unusually tired Thursday after all that. Christmas eve, and we went to bed at the normal time but slept in Christmas morning. Nice. Feeling much better. Merry Christmas to all.


Christmassy breakfast. Oatmeal underneath.  The red is pomegranate seeds:

Sore Muscles

My quads are sore from Sunday. That’s a good thing, because it means that those muscles are learning a lesson about speed. But it also meant that today’s run should be a recovery run. Now I don’t really know what “recovery run” means except that I probably shouldn’t push those muscles very hard or run too far. So the rule for today was to run six miles at a pace SLOWER than nine-minute miles. I almost made it - the last mile was one second too fast. Tsk.

Splits: 9:42, 9:02, 9:01, 9:04, 9:03, 8:59, total 54:50, pace 9:08. I’ll take it. Muscles feel better than they did before the run.

This morning's post-run brunch. Pears are a Christmas gift from our West Coast son, delivered through Harry & David. We found two different brands of organic kefir at Fresh & Natural on north Lexington. That's the white stuff. The Christmas cookie is gluten-free, of couse.

Indoor Track Racing

Indoor Track Races by Charities Challenge at Bethel University, Snelling at I-694. We enjoy these events and wish there were more than five per year. Two have gone by now, including this one, with three left in January and February 2010. We missed the first one because we were in New Orleans, but glad we made this one. The deal is that you pay a single fee for running the first step, and then you can run to your hearts content (being careful not to be in the way of racers) and you can enter any number of the events.

Today there were races for 60 m, 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, one mile, and 1-mile race-walk. Most of those races had more than one heat, and if so, you can enter multiple heats if you’re a glutton for punishment. One guy who did that says "train by racing!" Indeed.

There is a good spirit in that place. People are very, very supportive and there are plenty of spectators. Todays racers ranged in age from 5 to 71, including some of the best runners in Minnesota. I mostly just ran around the track today, both directions to reduce the annoyance on my adductors, but I did run the 200 m in 39 seconds, four or five seconds longer than my best time in 2007. I also ran an untimed 60 m dash by myself, just to see how it felt. Felt good!

Otherwise, 8 miles of running, not all at once but also not including any walking or racing. Most of that was at a pace of 9:15 or so I think. It’s a masterpiece!


Breakfast with a Christmas theme.  Indeed there is oatmeal under there.  The milk is actually organic kefir.

Feel-Good Run

Is it real, or is it psychological? I’m off the DEX and today’s run felt very good. Five runners today, I hung with the back two for the first four miles and then found myself out ahead by several paces so I moved ahead to the first two runners, George and Kent, catching them with less than a half mile to go. At that point George wanted to drop back, so Kent and I ran for the finish. He’s much faster, but I went as fast as I could and he just kept pace, for a lovely sprint to the finish line. That is so invigorating! What a treat. I know it’s risky, but it sure felt good, and I got away with it.

My overall time today wasn’t impressive, really, 47:28 for five miles, pace of about 9:30. I ran a lot faster than that on the indoor track this week, but then I wasn’t slipping around on packed snow or wearing several pounds of winter clothing. This felt good, and it IS a masterpiece!

Wild-caught Alaskan salmon with yogurt & a little cheese, organic plum, organic greens, organic peas.