Lebanon Hills - Center Section

I decided today to run the center section of Lebanon Hills. It is an often overlooked section (at least by me) as it's more of a pass through from the east section of the park to the west. I was planning on running 4-6 miles depending how I felt. Initially, I felt ok, I was going at an easy pace, after two miles I decided to go ahead and try and hit every trail in the center section as I was enjoying the run. I do like running in the center section, it's a bit hillier than the eastern section, most of the trails are horse trails with a couple of miles of hiking trails. Since I don't run it quite as often, some of the trails I have forgotten but as I re-discover them its like visiting an old friend you haven't seen in a while and picking up where you left off. I knew that running every spur would get me up to 6 miles or more but it seemed like a good idea and I was in kind of a cruise mode. I figured a Garmin map of the park with every spur would be kind of neat to have. My thinking was today, the center, then I would do a long run and click off every trail on the eastern side and finally run the western section. I was just plodding along kind of enjoying myself as I headed towards one of the exits when as I was slowly going up a hill, I felt a muscle pain in the groin. I kind of thought to myself I wonder if that is what a groin pull feels like. I have never had one before so it was kind of interesting, it was like I could feel it getting stretched beyond what it should. I took a few more steps and stopped. I thought to myself, just what I need. I decided to walk the rest of the hill, tried to run the downhill and I had pain. Great. I then decided the smart thing to do was just walk it out and if it eased up, resume running but if it didn't head home and ice it and hope that it's nothing serious. I wish I had been pounding up the hill and that caused the strain, I was hardly moving, oh well, it's hell getting old. The nice thing was that after it hurt I no longer worried about my ankle or my achilles, proving the hammer theory once again. I ended up walking it in and icing which left a few trails undiscovered, I guess that will get me back real soon, as of now I am sure the strain is a minor issue, just another distraction for this summer. Activity Route: -- Elev. Avg: 989 ft Location: Eagan, MN Elev. Gain: -3 ft Date: 07/25/09 Up/Downhill: [+649/-652] Time: 03:06 PM Difficulty: 3.7 / 5.0 Weather: Mostly Cloudy 77 F temp; 46% humidity 78 F heat index; winds NW 16 G 26 Performance Distance: 4.96 miles Time: 1:11:48 Speed: 4.1 mph Pace: 14' 29 /mi Calories: 781 Map Elevation (ft) Pace (min/mile) Splits Mile Pace (min/mile) Speed (mph) Elevation Gain actual +/- avg actual +/- avg 1 12' 52 -1' 37 4.7 +0.5 +53 ft 2 12' 57 -1' 32 4.6 +0.5 -79 ft 3 14' 27 -0' 02 4.2 +0.0 +46 ft 4 14' 31 +0' 02 4.1 -0.0 -36 ft end 17' 41 +3' 12 3.4 -0.8 +13 ft Versus average of 14' 29 min/mile

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