20 miles
lake harriet and back
55 degrees
humidity: 91%
20 miles. For the first 10 miles, I listened to creek water and foot strikes and the rush of traffic — so many cars out there on a Sunday morning! For the second 10 miles, I put in a new playlist that I made yesterday, called 20 miler. I created it by looking through Apple Music playlists for the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s. I put it on shuffle. I recall that Tribe Called Quest and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” helped me get through my tough moments.
I’m proud of myself for what I just accomplished. Not because it was particularly fast, although it was 16+ minutes faster than my 20 miles from 2024, but because I did it at all. When I woke up this morning, my left hip/IT band was sore. I decided I’d run to lake nokomis and around it, then do the franklin and ford loops for the rest of the distance. If, at some point, my hip felt too sore, I would be closer to home so if I cut some of the distance, I could get home easily. Maybe this plan would have worked, but I imagine it would have been too easy to decide my hip hurt too much and to stop.
This was the plan, but when I got to the creek, which had been almost completely dried up in my past runs, and saw (and heard!) that it was full because of recent rains, I decided I wanted to keep following the creek to see what it looked and sounded like on the way to lake harriet.
A little bit later, I might have turned around before reaching lake harriet, but when I got to the part of the trail that had been closed, it was open. So I decided to keep going. From there, I just kept going until I reached 10 miles, which was deep into the lake harriet trail. Then I took a short break and turned around and headed back.
On the way back, my knees were stiff and sore and my feet hurt. I wondered if I was pushing it too much and should stop — a brief thought: I could call FWA and have him pick me up. Then I wondered if I should just walk the rest of it, or at least the next mile. Instead, I switched to running for 90 seconds, walking for 30. And I just kept going.
When I got to mile 18, I thought I would have to run beyond the turn off to my house to get the full 20 miles. A flash — it’s okay if you only run 19; that’s good enough. But, I didn’t stop at 19. I kept moving, 90/30, until I reached 20.
Lots of fortitude practiced today, which makes me happy because building up my fortitude — not giving up when it’s hard, pushing past what I think I can do, just putting one foot in front of the other even when I think it’s impossible — is one of my top reasons I wanted to train for and run another marathon.
20 Things
- leaves: mostly green, but a scattering of yellow and red, some orange too
- crossing over the duck bridge and seeing all the water in the creek — no dirt bars or aquatic plants, just water
- the part of nokomis avenue that was closed off for road work is open again
- the giant images of monarch butterflies are still on the fence of the pickleball court
- a full house of pickleballers — a mixture of loud thwacks with cheering
- a spot on the trail, just past lake nokomis, that I’ve made note of before: wind rushing through leaves almost sounding like falling water
- stretch of the trail that follows the other side of the creek and goes under chicago was open again — hooray!
- part of the path and certain slats on the small wooden bridges were slick from friday’s and yesterday’s rain
- running under the freeway bridge, wondering if there were any bats up there today — a sudden flurry of movement, something too big to be a bat and gray swooping down and landing — a pigeon?
- the bronze bunny did not have a scarf or a garland or any decoration on it
- another section of the path is closed — the detour requires you to climb a steep hill then descend it a few minutes later — I walked up it, then ran down it
- crossing a bridge, looking down at the creek water as it rushed over a row of small boulders
- reaching lake harriet: crowded paths, mostly pedestrians several people wide
- a beautiful beach — the buoys are still in! — calm, blue water, an unbroken surface
- shshshshsh the feel and sound of feet running on loose dirt on the side of the trail
- running into wind on the way back
- as part of the detour, had to run on a section of the bike path where bikers can’t see well and often bike very fast — on the way back, noticed a dirt trail cutting through some grass on the hill — took it to avoid fast bikers
- darkish sky with wind, then bright sun, then dark sky again
- groups of people hiking on dirt trails beside the creek, between chicago and bloomington
- 2 dogs encountering each other near the mustache bridge — one of them big and excited, the dog’s owner, a guy who was big and looked strong, struggled to hold the dog back
It is now a few hours after I finished my run. I’m wiped out and sore, and relieved to be done. Time to taper! As they (pro runners) like to say: the hay is in the barn.