Long Run in Northern MN

A week ago, I was starting a 4-night stay up in Lake Vermilion with my sons, niece, and nephew. (I've only posted a quick video so far.)

On Monday morning, I got up early for a long run as they still slept. It was just starting to drizzle as I took off:

After 3 days of eating crap AND knowing that this would be a hillier-than-normal long run, I was ready for this to hurt. And it started SLOW with my 2.5 miles of warm-up averaging over 8:00 pace... I don't think I've EVER done it THAT slow before! But I was about to kick it in gear.

Finishing my warm-up up this gentle hill on the trail, then ready to go hard down the far side.


I saw about 6-8 wolf turds...


... and one pile of black bear poo. But no ACTUAL wolves or bears.

I hit that first half-mile split of my "harder 6 miles" nice with a 3:04! I had a slower uphill split 2 miles later or 3:20 which was rough, and then a 3:14 on a hillier section on the way back. But my splits were decent! The big uphill with 1 mile left (the same downhill that started my harder miles with a 3:04) was 3:13, and then I kept up the effort after that for the final mile. I finished a hilly 6 miles in the middle of that long run in 37:48, which was 6:18 pace.

On the road back into the campgrounds.


I turned here and added in some extra hills.
(I'd come across a black bear near the top of that hill on the following morning!!)


I got rained on a bit on the middle of my run, but it wasn't bad.
The sky was still threatening when I got above the campgrounds.

My calf held up, and I ended up going 11.86 miles in 1:25:42 overall (7:13 overall pace, which is SLOW because the warm-up and cool-down were rough). On this Garmin map, I went hard from splits 5-17, then cooled down with an extra 1.5 miles toward the campground to the east (splits 19-22):

Splits 3-17 were all on nicely paved trails - I saw NO ONE else.

Working back into my normal fitness after a January glute issue and an April calf issue.