13 miles and the training "plateau"

It's been awhile since I've updated this blog - my apologies. These days seem to just zip by.

First, a belated thank you to our latest donor! Eleonore from Minneapolis donated some time ago, and I have been woefully late in thanking her - thanks, Eleonore!

The good news: yesterday, I completed our team run of 13 miles - a whopping 0.1 miles shy of a half marathon. I completed it in about 2:53 - a smooth 18 seconds under the minimum pace for the Twin Cities Marathon. Woohoo!! Even with the distance, it was quite the route - we started on Mississippi Boulevard in St. Paul, crossed at the Ford Parkway bridge and commenced up the river on River Road. What we didn't know was that a good two to three miles of the River Road path was under construction! Much of the trail had to be run in tire tracks, on a small dirt path (where it existed) or just on the road (which made me uneasy, as that's not an especially safe place to run.) We finally just crossed the road and ran on the other side on an informal footpath.

On our way up the River Road trail, we also ran past what I can only assume was bridge infrastructure wreckage from the 35W bridge collapse, still on the riverbank, fenced off from the public - a sad reminder. We continued up River Road to cross the bridge at Washington Avenue (close the University of Minnesota) and back to our starting point.

In other training news, I think I've also hit a training plateau. This is apparently common, and especially for people new to running. Training felt so good that I was regularly going above and beyond my training schedule - a classic first-timer mistake. In mid-July, though, I found that what were easy runs before now became much more difficult. This was probably compounded by a busy schedule that didn't allow me to run as often as my training schedule required (even though I was still running!) I'm hoping that being able to attend more of the team trainings and a running club that one of our mentors attends, along with adherence to my training schedule, will help me get back on track.

Onward!