Florida 2023 - Adventure Day: Getting back on the horse (Feb 27)

 Today was a solo adventure day back at the CREW Flint Pen Stand Trails. 

I re-did the orange trail loop.  Correctly. I also had my location shared with Dungeon Master the whole time from my iPhone, should I try to do anything else exceptionally stupid.  Pictured is the crossroads where I started with the bad decisions last week.

On my way back to the car I met a couple from CO who are moving to MN this spring.  I thought the dude was going to hug me when I said "you know we're out door people right?  All year."  They were also happy to hear that there are hills.  "Like what's the highest that we can climb up and look around?"  No. Not those kind of hills, just regular bluffs.  Dungeon Master can tell you all about them.

I did also go back over to the Rookery trails and sit and watch the birds for a bit.  There was significantly less shade than I remembered so I didn't stay a super long time. 

After supper, Dungeon Master and I went over to Target and then to the BNN that is moving from one part of the mall to another.  They're almost out of books so they won't have a lot to move.

Florida 2023 - February 20 Adventure Day

I woke up, ran my mile, and had a small breakfast.  (Eggs and toast.)

Then I headed out on my adventure. 

Stop 1 was the Cypress Dome Trail, which is the furthest north of the stops I'd make.  I expected to like this one a lot.  I wound up doing a quick loop and heading on.  The paths are well kept and well marked, but the footing is super sandy and lousy.  It wasn't my thing.

 

Stop 2 - was easily my favorite of all the CREW trails, but also my biggest screw up of the trip as of this writing. Flint Pen Stand Trails are also well marked.  When I stay on them.  Sigh.  I meant to take the orange loop for a nice 2.9 mile walk.  Instead, I walked 8.5 miles.  Around mile 3, I thought I was getting close.  Around mile 4 I knew I had a problem.  

 It really was an amazing place. I saw all kinds of birds, some enormous (and far far away gators), and a snake skin.  Mercifully, I did not see the real thing. It was a little scary getting lost, or more like, I wasn't freaked out 'till I realized I was lost.  Once I got my wits about me, I was able to find my way back. That's when I stopped plodding along, and really did an exercise walking speed. I did have water and a little food with me, and it was all gone by the time I made it back to the car. Luckily, the only thing I had to show for it was a bit of a sunburn on my neck.  It could've been a lot worse.

Trail Run Wednesday

Plan: This has to be a fast run because of some timing issues.  So, run fast.

Route: Blue Hill Trail  and I find the elevation map on here to be the most accurate to my own experience.  Somehow, Strava is not doing this one justice.

Weather: High 70s or low 80s, slightly humid, crazy sunny, and there was a fair bit of wind later in the run.  Garmin is saying about 10mph, but it felt like more than that.

Wardrobe: Guys shorts, 2xu tank (the one where in theory the pockets are a good idea, but not so much in practice), hat, trail shoes, tall socks. It looked like this:

Execution: I tried to keep myself in check for a little while, because I did not have a long warm up, but eventually I just let it rip.  I had a blast.

Nutrition: The run was only 4.5 miles so I didn't carry anything with me. Instead let me tell you how happy I am that I did not step on this turtle: super happy.  PS - it's a boy!

From today, I learned: Running into the wind: don't force it.  Focus on form and keeping the movement fluid.
Running fast can be fun but exhausting.
Don't look at the pace.  The pace is for trails and without a solid warm up. 
Do a solid warm up on race day.

Bonus: Remember that year I had 'trail Mondays' and it was a thing?  That was also the year I found all of the ticks in the world.  I really enjoy this trail and I wish it were closer to me.  I'd solid bring back Trail Mondays just for this.

Blue Hill Trail - Sherburne Wildlife Refuge

Trail: Blue Hill Trail at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge.  Here's a map and some other info.  If the Mahnomen Trail is anything like Blue Hill, I want to explore it too.

Parking and Logistics: This trail head has a legit identifiable parking lot off 289th Ave NW.  It has pit toilets which are clean and well tended, just lacking plumbing.   It's good enough to check all the items on my list.

Hills:  Not really.  This route had a couple speed bumps but was pretty flat.  There was an optional quarter mile climb up a hill to an outlook which I did not do because of scheduling issues.

Ease of Running: This is one of the most runnable trails I've ever been on.  I wish it wasn't so far away.  This starts out on a semi-sandy part, goes to praire, lake shore, pine forests, and then oak/cottonwood forests before coming back to the parking lot.  Everything is wide and totally runner friendly.  I had a blast.

Nature: I did not see any Sandhill Cranes, but I may have heard them.  I heard lots of birds and all of the little frogs.  I saw a lot of what I believe is fox poop.  I had to google black bear poop to make sure it wasn't that.  I was all 'what would I do if I saw a bear out here on this prairie?  I would be dead.' 

 
Will I come back: I mean, I hope so.  That trail was wonderful, just the right distance, and utterly runnable.  There's another trail down the road I'd like to check out, and it's also close to Sand Dunes State Park.  I've been there, guess I should write that up too.

Before and After

Two pictures, taken from roughly the same spot on Medicine Lake.
One if from January 2016.  The other is from March 2015.  See if you can tell which is which.

Trail Thursday - A Surprise Winter Run

Trail: French Park/Medicine Lake Loop.  I have run here before but never done a 'trail review' because normally the thing is properly paved and not an off road trail. Today, however, felt like a true off road adventure, so I'm doing a proper trail report.

Hills: The hills here are hard.  I run this loop counter clockwise because it gets most of the hills out of the way right off the bat.  That last hill absolutely owned me today.  I let myself walk up most of it because I knew my heart rate was already way too high.  Whatever, I was cold.

Ease of Running: This trail was varying degrees of plowed.  Not sure what happened on the west side of the lake but it was not great.

• Inside French Park - totally plowed down to the black top.
• Path along Northwest Blvd - well plowed, packed snow, very runnable
• Path along Medicine Lake Blvd - has seen a plow at least once this year. Opposite of fun.
• Path near Medicine Lake Park -completely not plowed.  Absolutely off roading.
• Luce Line, the path around the east side of the lake, and 36th Ave - well plowed, packed snow, very runnable

How cold is cold: My face froze during this run.  Literally.  I wore shorts under my sweat pants, wool socks, and two shirts under my running sweat shirt.  I had a band over my ears and gloves on my hands.  It wasn't that it was soooo cold, it was that I was out in it for a long time.  I wished I'd worn tights under my sweat pants instead. Everything else was fine.

Animals: I saw other runners and walkers and maybe a dog.  Also, lots and lots of ice fishers.

Will I come back: I like this route very much.  It's a challenging distance and the hills are legit.  Bonus is that it has a place for me to park and change my clothes after work, so I've always liked it.  But I may wait until the snow melts off and I can see the pavement again. 

Trail Monday: WIlliam O'Brien 10 Mile Trail Race

It's race day, the reason I made sure I ran on trails at least once a week with pretty good regularity all summer. William O'Brien 10 Mile Race and 10 miles is a very sensible trail race distance.

Trail: We ran parts of the lower park and the camp ground by Lake Alice, and parts of the upper park which was mostly prairie and some woods.  The course was very well marked.  We had aid stations at mile 3, and then at the loop by miles 5.5 and 6.5.  I was happy for the water and Gatorade because I didn't carry any of my own. 

Hills: The hills are for real.  To recap, Pike Island has 144 feet of gain, all at the end up that big hill.  Baker has 178 feet of gain, and I whine about it a lot. Elm Creek actually has the most gain at 211 feet. For reference the Flying Pig Half Marathon clocks in at 696 feet of gain.  This trail had a whopping 709 feet of elevation gain.   Lesson for next time: I need to run more hills. 

Ease of Running: Absolute pleasure.  The only single track is up and down that ginormous hill at miles 1 and 3.  The rest of it is a mix of cinder trail and wide grass track.  I was so happy the grass was mown and fairly beat down by the time I got to it.

Nature: I did not see many animals.  I'm going to guess the 200 runners in the woods scared them off. My parents said they saw some butterflies.  I did see lots of flowers.  The course is straight up gorgeous.

Will I come back: FrontRunner put on a great race, and the course was great.  I would run this trail race again in a minute, if I keep up with the trial running next year.  My training plans for next year are definitely the wild card.

About the race: My parents were in town for the race and told me to only run trail races from now on.  Another friend joined us today, and they three were together spectating. While I was running, they had a visitors center to walk in, and they checked out some of the trails themselves.  At the end of the race there were leftover shirts and my parents scored them as out of town spectators.  Park entry, parking and packet pick up were all super easy.  The course was very well marked.  The volunteers were awesome (shock!).  I met some people who seemed to be running about my pace and wound up sticking with them.  I knew I would be slower than them on the up hills something to practice for next year.  I was really surprised how much faster I was than them on the down hills.  Something I should keep practicing for next time, because it earns me time on the courses. I was both crazy hungry and not wanting any food by the time the race was over. 

Special thanks to my crew: Mom, Dad, and Lucinda!

Trail Monday: Trail Sunday

Today was the final trail run before my only trail race of the year.  The most important thing this run did was help me make a decision about which shoes to wear on race day. It's not the ones I wore today.

Trail: Ft Snelling's Pike Island.  I've run here several times before this summer.  The loop around the island is roughly 3 miles, so it's the shortest of all the trails I've found acceptable.  The Anoka Preserve is technically shorter, but I'm divorcing that trail.

Hills: The island itself is fairly flat.  The run on the mainland from where I park my bike to the island is another story. This is the hill I use to identify my "max heart rate" for heart rate training.  174BPM may be a new record for me.  Is that good or bad?

Ease of Running: There was more gravel on the island than there has been in the past, and that's what hurts me in my itty-bitty minimal trail shoes.  It's clear gravel was added to some parts of the trail that had been flooded for a while, probably as a way to improve drainage. And it was those moments it was clear to me I needed different shoes for the race.  Shoe choice aside, this path is an absolute pleasure.  It's wide and clear and most runners don't even bother with trail shoes on it because it's so well done.

Nature: I saw road kill on the bike path.  I can't imagine being the biker who managed to run over a squirrel.  How does that happen? 

Will I come back: Likely.  I've liked this path for several reasons.  It's by far the closest to my house and the only trail that doesn't require me to drive to it.  I also like the excuse to add biking to the workouts.  The trail is short enough that I can easily do it, even when I cut back miles for the post-race season.

Trail Monday: Elm Creek Park x3

Last week I did not trail run.  I did lots of other running and just didn't make it to a trail.  This week, I thought I was going to bail on running, but headed outside on an errand and found it to be the nicest day ever.  I headed out to the trail after all.

 Trail: The horse trail continues to be brutal.  About 1/4 mile of it was mowed today.  That was the best thing ever.

Hills: I figured out today that one of my favorite down hills comes at almost the exact middle of the course.  I walked up most of the uphills and ran all of the downs.  The Larisa Danis plan is going strong.

Ease of Running: It's getting harder.  I can't even imagine what Baker is like.  The grass is getting way taller.  The woods are still generally a pleasure.

Animals: The number of frogs and toads I saw today was biblical.  I also saw deer, a hawk, wild turkeys and tons of butterflies.  The butterflies are my favorite though impossible to photograph.

Will I come back? My own personal challenge for the day was to go faster than the last time I did this course.  I managed it well, though mostly by utterly ignoring my heart rate.  My heart rate average was still 146 bpm for the entire time.  I needed a confidence booster in anticipation of the trail running coming up next month, so I went a bit harder than usual.

Trail Monday: Elm Creek Again

Today marked my second trip to the north loop of Elm Creek Park Reserve.

Trail: I did the horse trail again, and this thing is brutal.  It's well marked, and a very nice loop.  Total distance is around 7 miles.  Today was wild flower day.  There were clovers, black eyed susan, queen anne's lace, and any number of purple flowers I can't name.  This song was in my head the whole time.

Hills: Perhaps the most frustrating part is that the hardest section comes in the middle, and it's near impossible to get my running groove back after that middle rhythm section.  

Ease of running: I agree with my earlier statement for the most part.  This trail is really runnable for a grass trail.  In most of the places the grass is mowed or worn down from the horses.  There were a few puddles, though nothing as bad as the first time around.

Vermin: I am thrilled to report a tick free run. It was not mosquito, gnat nor fly free though.  Many good insects lost their lives today.  Jerks.

Other animals: This may be the first time I didn't see a deer.  I may have seen something drinking from the lake, but I felt like what I saw was too still.  I did see a falcon, eighteen million frogs, and all of the butterflies and dragonflies.

Will I come back: I now have a determination to conquer this trail. I am so slow on this thing.  I want to keep going on it until I get stronger and faster now.

Trail Monday: Elm Creek Park

This is an "after work" edition of Trail Monday, because I had an irregular edition of "working Mondays".  (Normally I work Tuesday - Friday.  I don't understand how people regularly function on 2-day weekends.)

Trail: I chose Elm Creek Park Reserve for geographical and logistical reasons. Last week I'd found myself unequal to navigating the walking trails at this park, but after careful study I decided if I parked at the Hayden Lake Road entrance, I should be able to pick up a horse trail and have a reasonably easy time following it.

Hills: The hills on the course are for real.  Both up and down.  Though, I found them somewhat fewer than Baker Park Reserve.

Ease of running: I found this path eminently more runnable than Baker as well.  I think even though there was a lot of grass, it was cut shorter or managed differently in some way.  The shorter grass was way more pleasant for running. I am still on the "Larisa Dannis Plan" and not worrying too much about running the ups, or even all of the flats.  But I felt like I ran a lot more of this one than Baker last week.

Nature Vermin: The ticks were crazy nuts here. I hate ticks. At one point I stopped running and pulled six or seven off me.  Only two had bitten, the rest were on my socks and shoes, and one of my belt.  I stopped a few more times and then was crazy careful at the end of my run to check and check and check again.  I learned from last week to pack a change of clothes and was glad I did.  I packed my running clothes up in a plastic bag.  When I got home, sure enough another tick was in there crawling around on my socks.  Gross.

Other animals: I almost stepped on a snake. Even though it was a wee tiny thing, it scared the crap out of me.  I also almost ran into a deer.  You think I jest.  Tons of dragon flies and surprisingly, toads.  I also saw a turtle at the end of the run.  Awesome.

Will I come back: We have really got to figure something out about those ticks.  I run in long socks but my knees were exposed.  I hate to come out here running in long pants in 85* but it may be necessary.  I'm considering it because the running was really good compared to Baker which seemed comparably tick free.

Trail Monday: Baker Park Reserve

I find myself accidentally registered for the William O'Brien 10 Mile Trail Run this September.  I originally registered for June 2014 which was flooded out and then I deferred my September 2014 entry because it was the week before Loony Challenge and I just couldn't make that work.

In support of surviving this race and not injuring myself, I decided that Mondays when I'm off work, I should head out to the trails and run on them instead of on the paved paths much closer to home.   Three Rivers has some great parks.  I've scouted out Crow Hassan Park though never really run there. French Park is one of my favorites, as the Medicine Lake Trail runs through it.  Though I've never gone off road in that park either.  Elm Creek is another absolute gem, but when I looked at the map I found myself unequal to deciphering a route I could take. I wound up at Baker Park Preserve because I knew where to park and following the grass trail looked fairly simple as the grass trail parallels the paved trail basically the entire way.

Thoughts on the run:
Nature: This run was straight up gorgeous.  There were lakes, deer, turtles, all kinds of birds.  Some places, all I could see around me was the park and it was wonderful.  Though Minneapolis has some world class parks, it doesn't have anything of this size really.  It was wonderful to spend time here. 

Hills:  There are some for real big hills, but lots and lots of little speed bumps as well.  I decided to follow what I'll call the Larisa Dannis plan.  I focused on running the downs.  I ran up whenever I felt like it but didn't focus on that so much.

Grass: It's kind of hard to run in long grass.  I'm not talking about prairie grass.  The path I was on is primarily groomed for horses in the summer, so the grass does get mowed from time to time, but it was about a foot tall in some places.  The footing was a bit uneven and the going was slow.  I found myself very glad I started practicing the trails now.

Woods: Running in the woods was an absolute pleasure because the footing was utterly stable and solid.  Later in the run, I found myself walking more on the grass, but any time I got packed dirt under my feet I really enjoyed it and moved pretty well.

Clothes: I ran in my trail shoes and ProCompression Socks.  I found some of the grass dewy as well as a couple legit mud spots.  My feet were soaked but blister free when I got back to my car.  I packed a pair of flip flops but almost wished for a complete change of clothes.  Glad I didn't take a dive in any of the mud!

4 Miles and a finisher

I think I'm on a quest to see all of the Anoka County Parks and Trails.  Today I finished my day pretty close to Rum River North County Park.  I found a library to use the restroom and change clothes and then headed over to the park.  Apparently I'm also on a quest to see all of the Anoka County Libraries.

The Park: Rum River North seems to be a tiny strip of land along the river bank.  I'm sure it's normally a much larger strip of land but much of it was underwater today.  The big attractions seem to be canoe access points and a canoers only camp ground.  It doesn't have a super lot of trails and I had to run one loop a couple times just to get up to four miles.  What it lacks in mileage it makes up for in variety.  I had a paved trail most of the way, crushed limestone/gravel, dirt and grass, all within four miles.  I also had lots of hills, up and down, which I'm making peace with.

The Finisher: Today's finisher was Single Leg Front Raises and side steps.  I didn't use a band, but legs were on fire afterwards so that probably means I worked hard enough.  I started at 15 leg raises on each leg and then 15 lateral steps on each leg; 14 on each, all the way down to 1 on each side.  That's a total of 120 of each element on each leg, in 11:25. I did some dynamic drills and then headed back to the car, hips aching.

Bottom Line: The short mileage of the trails means I probably won't go out of my way to come so far north again.  If I'm nearby at the end of my day, I'd go here again.  It's close to a library and gas station for changing into workout gear. It has nice trails, lots of portopots and even a drinking fountain.  The trails were in really good shape, except for the far out grass trails which could've used a mow but were ultimately easily avoidable.