3.1 miles
2 trails
69 degrees
A sunny afternoon. Warmer than I thought it would be. Not an easy run, but I did it, and I got to travel on the winchell trail, which was shaded. Mostly the trail was in complete shade, but occasionally some sun came through. In a few spots it glowed so much that I wondered if it was white paint. Nope — I double-checked, just sun. I heard some kids above, then a person sitting on the 38th street steps having a disturbing conversation about someone being shot in the head. I hope they were talking about a movie or a tv show.
5 Run and 5 Swim Things
- the path was thick with bikers
- the road was crowded with cars
- the two benches that I recall noticing were occupied
- puddles on the trail from last night’s rain
- 2 kids on the dirt part of the winchell trail — the younger kid to the older one: do it! the older kid’s response: that’s mean!s
- several military jets flying above the lake
- water color: a pale blue-green
- little spirits at my feet! (minnows near the shore)
- a few friends: sediment and bubbles
- the water was so low — near the shore, it was far from the lifeguard stands and there was a little drop-off near the water
swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
70 degrees
A great swim! Again, I swam straight to the buoys without seeing them. And when I couldn’t see anything but water and trees and sky, I didn’t panic at all.
A few silver flashes below. 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left. Sometimes, 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right. Steady strokes. Sometimes I was sore, sometimes I was worried about my heart rate1, and all of time I was deeply grateful to be swimming in this lake with my strong shoulders and back.
Some dog updates
First, on Saturday, Delia the dog started limping and not putting any weight on her back left leg. On Monday the vet delivered the bad news: a torn ACL. Major bummer! Delia is in good spirits. In fact, she’s managed to figure out how to hop on that leg pretty effectively. It’s hard having to stop her. Currently we’re trying to decide between surgery or not. If she were a bigger dog, there would be no question: surgery. But, with smaller dogs, taking it easy and rehabbing might be enough. Surgery is expensive and traumatic, but so is not being able to run and jump and do much of anything for many months.
Second, it is seeming more likely that the off leash dog park will be closing by the end of 2026. It is on sacred Dakota land, I support the returning of this land (see this article for more info). At first, I was sad about losing it, but then Delia tore her ACL and we think it might have been at least partly due to an aggressive and unsupervised dog at the park. Many dog owners are great with their dogs at the park, but some use it as daycare, ignoring the rules of keeping your dog within sight. Even if the dog park stayed open, I don’t think we would taking Delia back there.
- last night at cedar lake, my average heart rate for the swim was 160, which was alarming. Usually it’s under 130. Combine that with my anxiety over any anomaly in my watch data, and I was a little worried. Checked my heart rate after I was done: 126. Phew. Back to normal. ↩︎