Sunday Saturday Long Run

Plan: Run up one side of the river and down the other, and find just a little bit more mileage than this run for a total of 13 miles.

Actual Mileage: 13.13 miles becuase I decided I wanted the 'half marathon' distance

Route:
Planned: Run up the west side of the river, go into downtown a bit, then cross over to the east side of the river and head south back to my starting point.
Actual: Run up the west side of the river, go into downtown a bit, then cross over to the east side of the river.  When I got into the St Paul portion of the trail, it was bad.  Everyone says St Paul is better than Minneapolis at managing the trails, but my experience so far says this is a lie (much like Weather Channel forecasts).  There was a much thicker, slushier, lousier 'snow crust' on this part of the trail and the footing was lousy.  So, at Lake St, I crossed back into Minneapolis and its well plowed, predictable, snow crusty trails.

Weather: Started around 15* and ended around 20*.  There were some winds, stronger while I was heading south, but not too bad.  There was also something called sunshine.  I think I turned to stone for a minute. And then once I stopped running, I absolutely froze.

Wardrobe:
Top: Wool base layer; Loony Challenge Vest, Purple sweatshirt. That vest was a pleasant surprise and SUPER warm.  I had the vest and the sweatshirt unzipped for the northbound miles.
Bottom: Running tights, running sweat pants
Feet: Wool compression socks; poly pro sock liners, Altra trail shoes
Other: Nathan hydration vest, filled with water bottles and goodies.  Gloves that I wore only briefly, a fleece ear band that I wore on its own for a while, then a wool hat that I wore on its on, then at the end of the run I combined the hat and the headband, and ultimately added the hood, because I was getting cold.

Execution: I told my coach I felt like there was no oxygen in air this cold every time I had to run up a hill, but otherwise the run felt really good.  I'm liking the "don't look at the watch" on long runs. That big down, and big up between miles 2 and 4 are real.  And that bid dip after mile six, also real.

Nutrition: I carried two water bottles today, different shapes but both around 10oz.  Neither one of them froze.  My larabar tried to freeze, but it thawed quickly if I held it in my paw for a minute before I nibbled.  Also, this was not a fasted run as it happened in the middle of the day. I woke up and had a 'light' breakfast, took a nap, and then headed out around noon.  (It was too cold first thing in the morning, and it will be snowing tomorrow, this afternoon was my window.)

From today, I learned: I 'listened' a lot better to plan and execute this run.  Meaning, I checked the weather forecast and paid attention to it instead of running in a damn snow storm.  Also, when I got to St Paul and the trails sucked, I quickly made a correction and got over to the other side of the river.

Bonus: In a rare move, I told myself I could listen to an audio book for this run. I started The Bully Pulpit.  This is a book Mom recommended to me and it's another one I absolutely fell into. William Howard Taft was from Cincinnati, and parts of the story deal with what was going on in Cincinnati at the time.  Listening to these things just makes Cincinnati come alive for me (though I was also keenly aware that only certain parts of Cincinnati were coming alive, the white well educated parts powerful enough to be lawyers or have similar influence).  It also made me think of an aunt who was a reporter and then an editor for a newspaper because the press is almost like a third character in this book.