I'm a little embaressed to admit this was a race. Unfortunately, the race is a straight shot southward and there was a headwind coming north, but I thought it would be pretty mild. Was nice weather. You could tell it was really humid out there, but it was sunny and not super hot. I think I assummed I would win it by so much that I felt the need to run the first mile faster than I would if I should have. Unfortunately, this was another race with wonky mile markers- I hit 1 mile feeling a little gassed in 4:42, but that made me stoked to see what I could do. Apparently my next mile was 5:11, which ruined that excitement. When Mile 3 was a 5:00, I realized M1 had indeed been too early. Anyway map my run says it was 250 feet of elevation gain. That felt like a lot for me, near the end when most of it was at least. I kind of gave up a bit. You link up with the 5K runners (I was passing the walkers at first) on a bike path. Normally I love bike paths, but I don't like dodging and weaving through clueless walkers on an already windy, hilly, bumpy path. 31:15 is not the time I wanted. The 10K they planned didn't consider taking the bike path, so it may have been closer to 30:50 for 10K in my calculations. Not the confidence booster I wanted prior to the 1/2, but it was still fun to hang out in Stillwater after with my family. I solidified a few conclusions: A) The east side is my favorite part of the metro to go to. You can get all the way to Stillwater on a chill highway in 30 minutes. B) Stillwater>Duluth. The former is much prettier than what I saw of Duluth last week. Also, I know people go up there to go camping, but if we go camping next year, I'd like to try something around Stillwater because I think it could be just as fun in some ways, and a lot closer to home.
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