Lake Nokomis and Ft Snelling - an ugly ugly marathon training run

It all started yesterday when I lost my mind and thought I was going to do marathon training inside.  I ran a 6 mile track workout and then got on the treadmill for a 5K.  That was stupid.  By the time I got on the elliptical I was dead.  I decided to give up and try again the next day.  Lesson 1: the point of marathon training is to keep a constant heart rate.  A 6 mile interval track workout is a stupid way to do that.

The dilema got even bigger today when my choices were:

• Go to Zumba at 945a and squeeze the run in either before (so early) or after (not likely)
• Go to Pilates at 1pm, run must be done before hand and there must be time to cool down after. That timing sucks more than you'd think.
• Skip both classes and just go for a run.  I will never get out of bed to run if I don't have a class to aim for later.

Ultimately I picked Zumba and run before hand which lead to a 5am wake up call. No joke.

I knew my legs were shredded from the workout yesterday so I didn't have a specific goal for the workout.  Lesson 2: have a specific goal for the workout.  It minimizes blow ups.  I was all "I'll run, at least a mile or two, probably around Lake Nokomis, then probably keep running along the falls and down the hill, and then my usual up the hill,  then I'll probably start doing intervals but I don't know which interval ratio I'd like to use"  And so on.  I should have said "run this far at this pace, then switch to this interval".  It would have been easier to focus my mind that way.

Some of the pacing and what appears to blow ups were not actual problems.  I had a stop light around Lake Nokomis.  I stopped for two gus instead of one (may need to introduce that into the fueling program) then there was the hill, then there was an emergency bushes stop, then I had to stop twice to get a rock out of the same shoe (apparently I didn't do it right the first time), then somewhere after mile 10 I started doing intervals of 90 seconds walking and 30 seconds running.  That's actually a good interval even though I was super slow.

I was right that my legs were shredded, as was my brain and ability to concentrate.  Ultimately this run sort of chipped away at my confidence since exactly none of the mile splits were at my desired marathon pace.  It also in some ways encouraged my confidence because it helped me see I can keep running and I can move tired.  I also found an interval pace I liked for the end of the marathon, should I suffer any blow ups before then.
A couple more pics for the road.  One from my good side (the ground is apparently my good side today), and one of my collapsed on the ground after the run.