Bear Water Run recap

I wrote a big old preview of this race yesterday and decided to save it for today's recap instead. Read on for everything you ever wanted to know about my feelings on the Bear Water Run!

I'd been excited all week for this event, which is put on by the White Bear Lake Lions Club and offers a 10- or 20-mile distance. A lot of people approach it as more of a run than a race, though: it's always held three weeks before Twin Cities Marathon, so most people are running their last 20-miler before Twin Cities on this weekend anyway and so you get a nice crowd of fall marathoners.

More signs of fall

Do you ever have those memories of events that you only remember as fun and nice and you block out anything that wasn't fun and nice? That's how I feel about this race. I've run it twice before, once on my own and once with Molly, who I missed this year! It's lowkey but always draws a good crowd, is well-run, and offers a change of scenery (on a beautiful course, no less). It's usually the time of year when the weather turns wonderful, and I always picture this race as peaceful and beautiful and fun, thus completely forgetting about the running-20-miles part. I really like this one.

This weekend, my marathon training plan had called for 14 miles of the long run done at marathon goal pace. This is tougher than a normal long run, which you'd ideally run considerably slower than your goal pace, so I tried to find a half-marathon or longer on the race calendar. It's easier to practice racing in a race setting than all by your lonesome! I leapt at the chance to run Bear Water. My plan: 3 miles easy, 14 miles at goal pace, 3 miles "cooldown" to round out 20 miles.

Other basic details: Weather was perfect again, with temps in the low 50s. Breakfast: my fall pre-long run breakfast: oatmeal with peanut butter. Outfit: tank top, shorts, sun glasses, visor. (There needs to be a less-weird word for visor.) I arrived with just enough time to get to the check-in area, pick up my number, go back to my car to grab race stuff, and make it back to the starting line.

The first 14 miles or so went by really quickly. The course is two loops, essentially circling White Bear Lake, and the hills are pretty rolling (a detail I'd apparently forgotten). There are great cheer zones at the water stops, which are stationed every two miles. Those are always run by school or community groups and are always themed: this year included zombies, '80s and pool party/under the sea.

(By the way, the whole morning was a little extra-fun this year because I had just read Through No Fault of My Own: A Girl's Diary of Life on Summit Avenue During the Jazz Age - which, if you didn't already catch me raving about it in a previous post, is wonderful. Anyway, the girl in the title is Coco, and Coco's family summered on White Bear Lake in the 1920s, so I daydreamed a little about that in different parts of the race.)

I settled into my goal marathon pace three miles into the first loop and actually kept purposely slowing myself down to keep myself on pace. I felt great but knew it was a long workout, and I didn't want to get mentally tricked by running too hard to close the first loop with a big, long second loop waiting on the other side. The second loop definitely did get tougher, but I stayed on my goal pace and finished the 14-mile workout with an average about 10 seconds per mile faster than what I'd been aiming for. Hooray!

The last three miles were no joke, though. Luckily, I had a water stop to look forward to at Mile 18, and then it was an "eight-laps-around-the-track-left" kind of countdown that went by fairly quickly.  I crossed the finish line feeling pretty good.

Hi! All done.

Then I almost immediately saw my friend Meghan, who was there cheering for her husband. I got into the food line and remembered that this race includes jumbo pickle spears in their selection. (Yum. Don't knock it til you've tried it!)

I walked past one of White Bear Lake's beaches on the way back to my car, and the temperatures had warmed enough so there were a few people sitting on the sand. Minnesota in September can be so wonderful.

So there you have it! I can't believe I only have two more long, long runs before I start my three-week taper. I told Molly last night that even though my marathon falls several weeks after the big Midwest marathons (Twin Cities and Chicago), I kind of love training for a marathon later in October because I get to run all the way through the best weeks of fall in the Twin Cities. If today was any indication, I think those weeks are right around the corner.