First race in the new singlet

Gave the new singlet a test today at the Earth Day half marathon (unfortunately on the roads, not the trails), but it helped me to a 40 second personal best of 1:28:50. The weather was PERFECT, and my training has been really good lately, so I thought I would go after a fast time today. My splits were: 6:33, 6:39, 6:34, 6:41, 6:43, 6:20, 6:35, 6:49, 6:28, (and here comes the wall...) 7:22, 7:14, 9:04 (for 1.1 miles), 5:44 (last mile big finish). It was a fun race, and I can walk a lot better right now than after last year's race (when I ran 1:32:22). Hopefully a sign of good things to come with my training and racing - I have 2 more half marathons coming up in Fargo and Grandma's.

Singlets are in!

The Finn Sisu Trail Team singlets came in today - just in time for the races this weekend. Watch out for Brent and James at the Trail Mix 25k, and I will be at the Earth Day 1/2 marathon. Hopefully in the future we will have even more runners in these very sharp looking jerseys.

Lebanon Hills

Nichole and I went for a gorgeous 60 minute run on the Lebanon hills trails yesterday. We made the short drive from our house to the Jensen Lake trail head, and from there worked our way out as far as Portage Lake before we made our way back to the start. In all we probably covered between 6 and 7 miles, with probably 2/3 of our time spent on the hiking trails and 1/3 spent on the horseback riding trails. The hiking trails are more winding with firmer footing, but the horse trails are wide enough to run side-by-side and are also a bit less hilly. Both were great for running.

This is a great time of year to be running on trails. It was 50 degrees and sunny (perfect running weather), the trails have pretty much dried out (the only mud was right along Jensen Lake where it is usually muddy - the rest of the trails were in perfect shape except for a couple of fallen trees), and the bugs are not out yet. I would highly recommend Lebanon Hills to anyone looking for trails to run on. They have 20 miles of trails if you count both horse and hiking trails, they are very well marked (although the trails do cross each other a lot - I print out a map and fold it so that it fits in a plastic sandwich bag so I can navigate on the run).

Get out and run!

This marks the start of the Finn Sisu Trail Team. Hopefully you will start seeing our jerseys at local trail races around Minnesota. Finn Sisu has been busy adding trail running shoes and accessories to outfit both skiers who are looking for a great way to train in the summer, and also runners who have discovered that trails are easier on the body and a lot more fun than the roads.