Lance Armstrong Thinks I Set a New Personal Best for the Mile!

A few days ago the S-word came into our forecast. That's right. Snow. In May! (I say booo!) While all the plants people bought too early may be harmed by frost, it's freaking perfect running weather.

I got up this morning around 8am (I love Saturdays) and checked the temperature. It's how many degrees?!? Thirty-six. It's thirty-six degrees. I got on the goose-shirt and then put on a long sleeve top over it, grabbed my snacks and off I went.


I read a while ago that I could supposedly run underneath 35W on Minnehaha Parkway again. I found this statement to be true and was delighted. I started planning my summer long runs around the lakes in my head now that I knew the path was clear for me.

And then I crossed Lyndale Ave and saw a fence across the entire path. WTF? It's worth pointing out that there's a path that doesn't even come up to Lyndale that's been closed for over a year so at this point they're closing the backup path too. (It's marathon training season and duathlon/triathlon training season too! I say booo.)

All my dreams of spending my summer running around the lakes on awesome long runs slipped away. And were replaced by visions of running along the river parkways (up one side and down the other), expanding the "make peace with the river" route to include some hills and other interesting stuff.

After that little detour I made it over to Lake Harriet and was almost literally blown away by the wind. I love Lake Harriet. I still remember the feeling the first time I made it there on a run. (I'd never even walked that way before so I had no idea how far it was.) The yatch club was out. It was a great day for sailing. I also saw several groups of what I assume are Team Ortho training groups getting ready for the marathon and half marathon next month. (Good luck everyone!)

I got lost for about ten seconds trying to find the path from Lake Harriet to Kings Hwy that would take me the to shortcut home, across 40th street. (I only meant to run about 8 miles, not the 11 the normal route would take me.) 40th street in this direction is way more fun than running from my house to the lake. It's mostly down hill this way. (This could be where Lance thinks I PR'd the mile.)

I got back home and stretched. (Because I can still hear Linda telling me, "If you don't have time to stretch, you don't have time to run".) When I stopped my iPod Lance told me "congratulations, you just set a new personal best in the mile". Ha, I think my sensors messed up dude 'cause there's no way I ran a 7:13 mile. I did feel great after the run though.

I measured out my run and discovered that Gmaps has added pedestrian paths alongside the bike paths to their site. There are no words for my joy! For a while I was just guessing where some of those paths went, and the 40th street bridge over 35W wasn't on there at all. That made me almost as happy as finding out Chipotle is coming to town!.

It was in the 40's (like 41*) when I got home. After I measured out my run I started shivering and decided I should take a hot shower. I ran out of hot water. FAIL. Ultimately it did warm me up a bit.

I tried to make breakfast and discovered that bad eggs really can turn green inside. Doh! I didn't eat that one, don't worry. I saw that I have some Goetta to make. I'm thinking maybe tomorrow for breakfast. I'm not sure if I should cook it all and then re-heat, or if I should cook it a little at a time. Any suggestions?

I think tonight I'm going to take a walk with Amanda and then get dinner. Tomorrow needs to be a weight lifting day and also starts the beginning of a step back week. (Yeah baby, only 17 miles to run the whole week.)