9 days, 73 miles. Ahhhh Minnesooooota.

{the post that should have been published on Monday...}

It.is.so.good.to.be.home.  And I am talking my Iowa home here folks.  As much as I love visiting the great North, nothing feels as good as being home.  And I am home for a whole 11 days until I have get to go to MN again. Insane I tell you.

Let's take a gander at my visit to MN:

Friday:
Ladie's Wine Night hosted by the beautiful Leah. I've already done a recap - it was lovely and Leah had a great time throwing herself a birthday party disguised as a wine tasting. :)



Nic was kicked out of the house while we sipped on wine and got to see his bestie who recently returned from Afric, where he lived and worked with Architects for Humanity for 14 months.



Saturday:
One of my little sisters-who-is-not-really-my-sister got married. She was gorgeous as was her wedding. Nic and I were totally old and left the reception at 9PM. I think we are all wedding-ed out and thankfully this was our last wedding of 2010.


Maddie, Me, Mom


My sister and three other sisters, who call themselves MBGH.

Sunday:
Slept in. Made breakfast. Turned into a biatch because I wasn't able to run until 2PM. Felt horrible for telling Nic to "just leave already" so I could get my run on. Ran. Felt much better. Made dinner. Ate dinner with the fam + aunt and cousin.

Monday:
Maddie, Maia and I locked ourselves in the basement and worked. I had to prepare long and hard for my work presentation that would take place on Tuesday. I kept lied to myself and repeated, "you will do ah-mazing."  We locked ourselves in the basement because Doug the handyman was working upstairs. He was not a creeper, I swear!

Tuesday:
Auuugh. Tuesday was D day. But I somehow managed to survive.  What's more amazing is that I survived the car ride home - a crazy land hurricane ripped across the Midwest.

Maddie some how talked me out of running 10 miles that day...it took her all of about 2 seconds.

Wednesday: 
We were supposed to take Maddie to the airport, but the wind was still a bit crazy and we got to keep her for another day!  I tried to work but did not accomplish much.

Made a lovely dinner and some lady ruined it. Like she always does. Lame. Since Maddie was still home, I gave her the look and told her it was "her turn" to take Mom to the ER. All is well.

Thursday:
Finally got rid of Maddie.

Got my run on with my real bestie Nancy and met up with Leah for lunch downtown.

All the while, Nic was making his way back up to MN to join me at an awards ceremony for work.  Pretty sure I am ah-mazing at my job.  I have made it to the "CEO Club" three out of my four years with the organization.



Was ecstatic to see my favorite co-worker who has transfered out to the DC area, but was able to come back to receive her award. I taught her everything she knows.




Careful - the awards we received could be dangerous!  This is what Nic thinks of my job and how it takes me away from home many a night and a lot of weekends.

Friday:
Hang out with the hubs. Head downtown to pick up my race packet for the Monster Dash 10 miler and enjoy a beautiful walk around Lake Calhoun.  It was quite the beautiful Fall day.


















Oh Minneapolis, how I love thee. Someday soon I will live near you.









Saturday:
Up early to run the Monster Dash 10 miler. I seriously signed up for this race just to get the running fleece that was included in the registration fee. Seriously. Worth.every.penny.



Team Ortho got some grief on their Facebook page regarding the poor planning on the event, but I wasn't aware of any issues until I got home. Thankfully Nic was there to cart me around instead of having to rely on the shuttles, or lack there of, to get me back to my car.

I ran a respectable 8:20 pace. My goal was to run at marathon pace so I could get used to it. I did not go out to race as I had a 20 mile on the schedule for the next morning.



After the race we had a quick visit with Nic's aunt and uncle (I totally used them for their shower! Hey - I traded a bottle of wine to use it. That is fair, right?!)

And then headed to Spoonriver for lunch with Steph and Ali.  Food was AMAZING! If you are ever in Minneapolis, you need to stop here!  Fresh, local, organic - you can't really go wrong.

Of course the company was pretty good too!  It was great to be able to hang out with Steph and Ali one more time before they headed back East.

The rest of Saturday I spent with Mom making wild rice soup and spicy squash curry soup.  Nic ditched me to hang out with Greg. Sad.

Sunday:
Up uber early to get in my last (!!!!!!!!!) 20 mile training run.  The run was my best yet and I ended up running at 8:28 pace which is just 4 seconds slow of marathon pace. So needless to say, I am feeling pretty confident in my physical ability to achieve some of my goals for the upcoming race.

I should add, I spent about 5-10 minutes at a gas station at mile 12.  You see, when Nic and I do these runs, he bikes and we plan out several meet up points where we can touch base and I can get some water, fuel, etc (I left my fuel belt in Iowa this time).  However, at mile 5 we headed into a neighborhood to run a new-to-us trail, got separated and didn't meet up again until mile 12. (I actually called him from the gas station.)

Miles 7-12 were spent thinking about Nic and where the f*ck was he!!  Does he not realize that I just can not do 20 miles with NO water or fuel? That d-bag! He probably got too cold and decided to head home. Probably thinks he is being thoughtful going home to pack up our things before we have to leave for Iowa. I.am.so.thirsty. How can I possibly finagle a free gatorade out of a gas station attendant? Is it safe for me to run 20 miles with no fuel? WHERE THE HELL IS NIC? I am going to punch him in the face when I see him next.


Thankfully for Nic, he was just a few miles behind me and we were able to finish up the remaining 8 miles mostly together. Nic laughed when I told him what I was thinking.  Turns out he was thinking about me and was worried that I had gotten lost in the trail system. He ended up tacking on an additional 4 miles looking for me in that area before he decided that I probably wasn't lost and continued on his merry way.

(well that was a pretty good training run recap, eh?!)

After the run we made breakfast and power cleaned before we headed over to Nic's parents for a quick visit. They had just gotten home from a NY vacation at 2:30 that morning, so we were very glad we were able to see them before we headed out of town.

We made our nephew practice his trick-or-treating skills on us, after he put on his costume of course. :)  He loved the juice boxes we brought, but was not such a fan of the fruit snacks. How genius is the juice box idea for trick-or-treaters?!

We finally got home around 8PM. Not as early as we were hoping, but that never happens.

And so ends my chronicles of Minnesota.

Oh wait - 73 miles, you ask? Yep - that is how many miles I ran in that 9 days. So excited to start my taper weeks!