Days of Old Track & Trail 10K

Today was the 2009 version of the Days of Old Track and Trail 10K in Maple Lake.... aka "last dance before Lean Horse."

Woke up about 2:30 am with a horrendous cramp in my left calf. Never really did get back to sleep - until about 15 minutes before the alarm went off. Hauled myself out of bed and halfheartedly decided to go ahead and run the race so that I'd get another run in towards the 2009 MN Trail Run Series. My calf was still a little sore from the middle-of-the-night cramp and I was feeling a little cranky. More stress related than anything I think, since I've really been feeling like I've bitten off too much too soon by signing up for a 50 miler next week on my ridiculously low mileage.

Got out to Maple Lake, picked up my shirt and race number, and decided that I'd try running with a hand held containing Succeed Amino sports drink to test out for next weeks ultra. After 4 swigs of the most vile tasting sports drink ever created, I dumped it out in the grass and went sans fluids. Even with the high humidity, it was the right choice.

Same course as last year... a 1.5 mile run on asphalt/gravel roads to the park, then a 3 mile loop on a nice, relatively flat trail through the woods that had just about every root and rock spray painted to alert the runners that there was (gasp!) an obstacle on the trail. Return trip on the 1.5 miles of asphalt/gravel roads back to the school. Beautiful morning to be out running, even with the high humidity :) Finished a minute slower than last year, but didn't really care. It was fun to catch up with Brook, John, and Marise afterward, but I think the best part of the day was watching the kids take on the 800 meter track run with the promise of ice cream cones for their reward. There are some "up and comers".... wonder how many of them will become trail runners a few years (or more) from now?

Thanks to RD Ben and all of the volunteers who did the work so that the rest of us could have some fun on the trail! Hopefully they raised a lot of money for the Maple Lake high school cross country teams :)

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As I mentioned, I've been experimenting with lots of different sports drinks lately in preparation for Lean Horse. Some work, some don't - at least for me. I've got extras of the following up for grabs - if anyone wants them just let me know and I'll bring them to my next race/training run:

Succeed Amino - 4 single serving packets
Succeed Clip 2 - 4 single serving packets
Nuun - partial tube of Lemon Lime

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The current weather forecast for Lean Horse is sunny with high temps in the 90's.

This one's gonna hurt.