Thursday, May 31, 2007

Vandal With A Cause

AM: 9M

An easy jaunt around Lake Nokomis this morning. Weather was perfect. Boy are we getting spoiled. I can feel the humidity, but at least the temps have been cooler. I am not looking forward to July and August. Heat is not my friend.

After dinner tonight I headed out on my bike to mark of the miles along the River Rd for my marathon/tempo workouts (first one Sat). Katie declined to accompany me because she was certain I would be arrested for vandalism. She did say she would bail me out when it happened though. How nice.

My first stop was the track at Minnehaha Academy to see how accurate my bike computer is. I walked my bike around Lane 1 and it came in just shy of .25 miles. That seemed pretty close since 400m isn't quite .25 miles (1 mile = 1609 meters).

I biked down to Minnehaha Park and marked the start. It is an underlined "S" on the bike path just after the roundabout. I marked .5 miles so I would be able to adjust my pace early on (avoid going out too fast or slow). The rest of the full miles I marked both out and back. They are bright yellow, underlined marks on both sides of the path (ex: 1.0 on the right side going out, 19.0 on the right side coming back). They go from Minnehaha Park up to Franklin Ave, across to the east side, back towards Lake St down to approx Cleveland Ave.

There are some other people's marks out there, but it should be pretty clear which is which. Just note: whoever marked miles along the east side of the River must have been guilty of M.U.I. (Measuring Under the Influence). They are yellow marks in the "1.0 miles" format and they mark every 1/2 mile from Ford Parkway to just past Lake St. They are very, very wrong! That is unless I was just out there jogging 5:15 pace the other day.

My markers are in the following approximate locations (10 miles worth, 20 miles out and back) and all on the bike portion of the path (just tell the bikers that they aren't biking 10 mph either, so screw off):

Start: Minnehaha Park; just east of the roundabout (~TCM 15)
.5M: Just past the parking lot for the Lock and Dam
1.0M: Just before 42nd St (Minnehaha Academy)
2.0M: Just past the porta-potty around 36th St.
3.0M: Halfway between Lake St and the Greenway/Railroad Bridge
4.0M: On the bike path going up to Franklin Ave bridge
5.0M: St Anthony Ave stop sign (railroad bridge)
6.0M: top of hill just after Lake St (~TCM 21)
7.0M: Just past the bridge after Summit
8.0M: a couple blocks before the bend before Ford Parkway (thanks for the correction Matt)
9.0M: Just past the parking lot across from the Ford Plant
10.0M: A couple blocks past Elsie Ln

Now, I'm not going to vouch for the accuracy of these marks. I think they're close enough for government work. So if you're out doing a long run/workout and need some measured miles, they are there for the time being. And I'm not going to jail. See Katie.

3 comments:

Chad said...

"That is unless I was just out there jogging 5:15 pace the other day."

Some how this wouldn't surprise me.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I'll look for your marks the next time I run those roads. I've done the same thing on some of the paved Hyland Park trails.

Anonymous said...

I would have bailed you out! I run those roads often for workouts, and just never got round to "vandalizing" the same stretch of road last summer. Maybe my wife's similar reaction to the idea put me off ...

But it is nice to hit those MUI miles and jog 6:00 minute pace up the hill from mile 20 to Lake St bridge.

Matt said...

Many thanks PR. I'll be a heavy user. The mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul should give you an award for bringing the communities closer together. Two cities. One workout.