"Candenza Music Run" North Loop

At Mississippi went right (or north) instead of left. Ran along the Town and Country Club on both its western and northern edge. Then along the freeway through Desnoyer neighborhood. That must sound rather drab, but it is much more quaint and quiet compared to the southern loop along Summit.


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Snelling to East River Rd. or the "Cadenza Music Jog"

This is a stretch I run when James or Colin have take their music lesson at Cadenza Music (the "dungeon of music") on Snelling, across from O'Gara's. Now I could be going to O'gara's to read a book and have a couple of cold ones while waiting for the boys to be done, but besides being publicans they are also REpublicans and I only give them my business when I have guests from the Old Country or when Mischke is playing. More to the point, it would also get expensive to drink a beer instead of just waiting in the car--or going for a run.

There are a couple of issues with this stretch:

1. Three fairly busy roads intersect the run: Fairview, Cleveland and Cretin. And since they each intersect the entire city, I am hitting them twice each. They do provide a nice way to introduce some variation in speed: slow down for a red light or put the pedal to the metal when it's green.
2. There is downhill and return is uphill. No big deal because it's very gradual but there is a psychological effect. I guess this needs to be part of training, too.

Today it was cool and blustery. the Mellster was perky and wanted to check out every squirrel. On the other hand she was very good with her fellow running dogs, i.e. she kept going straight when crossing another canine companion runner.

For a variation I ran Exceter Pl. and saw Max, waved at him and he waved back.

Here is the stretch:


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Orienteering Sand Dunes State Forest

I did the red course, 13 controls 6.6 km as the crow flies. Super weather and leafless trees made this much easier than usual, but I was slow, as evidenced by the results. Nasty prickly ash brought some scratches on my forearms. Only had trouble with #10, which was only 200m from #9. I ended up starting over from #9 and carefully walking the stretch, counting steps. Even then it was not evident.

I used my new thumb compass for the first time. Until now, I had been using the Suunto Arrow 5. I did not like the Suunto because it would stick if not perfectly level. I decided to try the Moscompass Competitor Model 9 short thumb plate left (9XL). I found the short thumb plate very comfortable and after being taken aback by the size of the compass (it is "full" size, like a regular base-plate compass) liked that IT DID NOT STICK, which helped orienteering the map very much! Very happy with my purchase at http://www.866gaiters.com/, which also has a ton of links to useful and free orienteering information.


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