Half-Assed Runner

I checked out this trail series earlier in the year.  I really want to do trail runs because that’s the type of running I enjoy the most.  We are blessed in Minnesota with tons of different wilderness trails.  I love running through wooded areas and along some of our 10,000 lakes.  I rarely get bored while on wilderness runs.  When I checked out the LifeTime Trail Series I balked for a couple of reasons: I’m not a member of LifeTime fitness, the distances seemed pretty long to me, and the results for last year’s races showed very small attendance.  I’m still a crappy runner and I really didn’t want to be an anchor for the experienced trail runners.  

I was checking out Active.com for local runs and saw a Thursday night run in Maple Grove.  I work in that area and an evening run after work appeals to me much more than waking up early on weekend and driving into the Cities for a race.  I checked the race website and found that it was the last of the 5 Lifetime Trail runs.  

I almost passed on the run again.  After the debacle at the Granite City 5K (my worst run and the closest thing to a trail run I’ve done for a race) I pretty much decided that I’m not a trail runner.  The previous race results (they’ve already run 3 of the 5 races) were posted to the site, so on a whim, I checked out the results.

First of all, the distances aren’t nearly as long as I remembered them being (I swear they were all 5 to 9 miles long) as they are all around 5 miles, with one race at 5K.  Probably more importantly, they had around 200 runners for each event.  I remembered (my memory is probably faulty) the fields being 30 or less for last year’s races.  Finally, there were a number of runners with paces that I am confident that I can match.  I might still be an anchor, but at least I’d be part of a gang of anchors.

The Thursday night schedule was too good to pass up.  Plus now that I’ve finished a 5 mile race, that distance – while still challenging – doesn’t frighten me the way it used to.

It turns out that you don’t need to be a LifeTime Fitness member to participate in the runs.  The pricing is $20 for non-members and $15 for members.  The site is a bit confusing as to whether that price is for all five races (amazing bargain) or just for each race.  It’s for each race (includes a shirt).

I signed up for the 08 September run.  The other cool part of the series is that each is in a different park.  This week’s run is in Carver Park – which is a beautiful park in a gorgeous area.  The site has maps available detailing the course for each run, so you can scout them out in advance, which is what I did for this first run.

If I have a good time on this first run, then I’ll sign up for the next one at the end of September (in Maple Grove – another gorgeous park).  The only downside is that the NFL season starts this Thursday, so I won’t be hitting the bar after the run (not going to punish everyone with my sweaty mess) but I should be able to watch the Saints crush the hated Packers after the run.