Take me to the River - Part Deux

OK, I THOUGHT it was a river. I am in Minneapolis, MN and was fortunate to be done early enough to go for a daytime trail run. Right near the airport, and near the Mall of America area, there is a trail system I am familiar with that is very accessible from the hotels we stay in. My plan was to go out for a two hour run, whatever distance that turned out to be. I would run one hour out, turn around and run back. The temperatures were somewhere between 85 and 90 and fairly humid so this was another perfect opportunity to get some "heat" training in for August.

It was real hot in Minneapolis, so I thought I should REALLY hydrate! Look at the size of the water bottle they sold me! Kinda hard to carry though.

The trail I was running goes along Long Meadow Lake, which actually does come off of the Mississippi River, so I was KIND OF running to the river. The first few miles are more of a dirt road, although when I ran them 6 months ago or so there was more trail and singletrack. Once I get to the bridge where I took these photos, the road turns into strictly singletrack trail with occasional shade, and sometimes a sandy base.

The "River"

Archibald

This little guy caught my eye, so I decided to make him famous. For some reason I found myself thinking his name was Archibald. Archibald the tiny toad. I put him down and watched him hop up the bank for a bit before heading back up myself and back down the single track trail.

I managed to pee like Dean today! Some who have run with me know right away what I mean. Those who have read Dean Karnazes book "Ultramarathon Man" also will get it. I have tried to pee on the run several times before when I just didn't have to go bad enough, and it never worked. Dean wrote about learning to pee while running, without stopping, and I like that kind of thing, so I have been trying myself. Today, I got it done! I guess in a 100 mile race it could save me a few minutes to be able to do this without stopping. I still plan on stopping whenever I have to poop though.

I used the Chef Bill Bailey photo trick and hung the camera from a tree for this shot:



Coming back down the trail, I found this on the ground. It was empty with a hole on the backside. Robin's egg I believe.

I only saw one person on my way outbound, but on the way back I saw two runners. A lady and then a guy. He was running shirtless, and I continue to be jealous of this as I wish I felt comfortable with mine off. Another little while maybe. I did think twice today as I was very motivated to get that shirtless body, that I need to work hard enough to make Kim forget about David Goggins. :-)

I really was wishing I had more water on the way back due to how hot it was. This is part of my learning curve. I should have already known to bring more, but now the message is sinking in a little more. I tried to run in the sunlight (instead of shade) when there was a choice on the trails and road, to keep my heat acclimation up. My return trip ended up being two minutes longer than the outbound trip. This is both because of the heat, and because of the slope. Outbound was more downhill overall and returning was slightly up. I was thinking on the way back when I was feeling the heat about the phrase from the TV show Fear Factor where Joe Rogan says: "Apparently fear is not a factor for you." In my case, I was saying: "Apparently heat is a factor for me, and a big one."

Total time was 2:02 in the heat.