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so today mare and I woke up at 6:00am to go run in the Medtronic 5k race at the Capitol (part of the Twin Cities marathon). Needless to say 6:00am is just waaaaaay too early for me. Mare’s old coworker (Jason) came over at 6:20 and her friend (Jen) came by at 6:30 to pick us up and drive us to st. paul. We got there really early since we thought the race started at 8 instead of 8:30). We arrived near the capitol and Mare’s coworker jason got registered and I got a free coffee from caribou. We chilled (literally, it was kinda cold) for an hour or so.

funny story…while waiting I noticed this lady walking nearby who’s gray pants were all wet in the front. I thought to myself “I think that person pissed their pants! (Where’s Mare, I need to tell her!?).” Seriously, this lady really did pe her pants I think. Her pants were wet down to the ankles and there’s absolutely no way spilling water or anything else could have caused it! As it turns out, this lady came to talk to us and started telling us about all the marathon’s she’s been in. Keep in mind that this lady weights 200+ pounds and does not look to be in the best physical condition. She continued to tell us how she’d been running the TC marathon since 1978 and Grandmas’s marathon since 1980. I _really_ wanted to give this lady the benefit of the doubt and thought “maybe that’s possible”. Then I started doing the quickmath. 1978 - 2006 = 28 years. This lady looked to be in her mid-late 30’s…that means she’s been running marathon’s since she was like 10 years old. AMAZING! She went on to talk about running the Boston marathon and being in the Guiness Book of World Records for running in the New York with more than 40+ thousand runners! She wished us good luck (and we all shook her hand…probably not the best idea) and said goodbye. hahahhaahahha. When she walked away, Mare said “and I’m an astronaut!” hahaha…yep, on the challenger!

The race finally started around 8:30. There were a TON of runners/walkers in this race. Jason was number 1500-something. It took a minute or more just to pass the Start Line! The race was beautiful. It was along Summit Ave along a portion of the same route that I ride home when biking home from work. Jason and i quiclkly passed Mare and Jen and started weaving our way through the crowd. It was FULL of people and we burned a TON of energy right off the bat. Jason pulled away and I tried to keep a decent pace. At the 1 mile mark I saw a clock that read 8+ minutes. I was kinda bummed thinking I had run a very slow first mile! The next 1/2 mile went pretty well and I was happy to hit the turn-around point. After turning around I made it another 1/2 mile starting to hurt. My stomach wasn’t feeling well but I met Mare and Jen and Mare yelled “it’s all downhill from here!”. that actually turned out to be a great encouragement for me. I was very happy to see the 2 mile marker. The last mile was tough. I’ve been sick and haven’t worked out for like a month so my lungs were killing me! I wanted to walk sooo bad but just kept telling myself I couldn’t walk. Finally we turned the corner and I saw the finish line about 1/4 away. What a nice site! I finished in 23:30 but my actual time was probably around 21:00 minutes since it took so long to get to the start line (i’ll get electronic results soon). I saw Jason waiting at the finish line. He ran a great race. Jason’s 16 year old son is running cross country and Jason was hoping to beat his son’s best time. He was probably pretty close! Jason runs 3 x 8 miles, 3 x 4 miles every week for the last 4 weeks though, so yeah, he’s probably in better shape than me!

After the race we went to Roseville and had a fantastic breakfast at Key’s Cafe. A nice FAT breakfast after a long run was awesome. Jen dropped us off at Mare’s place and we took a nap, then went to the gym and sat in the hot tub….nice

We took it easy for the rest of the night and Mare gave me a haircut. I bought a $20 clipper from target which has already paid for itself

Tomorrow I’m running screens at church then going to the capital again to watch mare’s friends finish the Twin Cities Marathon. Jon and Erin had been training hard so it’ll be fun to see them finish.

At 2pm tomorrow I’m going with my friend Matt to shoot some guns. He’s _totally_ got the Gun Fever and we’re meeting up with some guy he knows and heading to the range. I’m really excited to pop off some rounds with a few different guns. Should be fun! I’ll post an update tomorrow