TC10Mile, ugh.

First, let me start out with, that was dumb.

I hated it, just about every mile after 5.  I have completed the 10k, and I have finished plenty of 5K's.  But this one sucked butt.

For real.  Yes. I will never do a 10 Mile ever again.  I honestly haven't run that much since the 10K.  I completed the 10K and the 10Mile with the same lady, whom I greatly adore.  I also completed the Color Run in July with her too.

For the 10 Mile, we walked, jogged and walked some more.  From Minneapolis, to St. Paul.  No thanks, next time, I will just jump in my car, catch a bus, or take a cab if I ever need to get from the Metrodome to the State Capital.  For the record, it is also not the shortest distance to the Capital.  I am almost sure of that.

But, I completed it.

I also received my very first medal!! That was exciting too!!

And because my friend is such a good socializer (I am not) she scored us a couple of passes to the special Medtronic Tent.  After we finished, we grabbed our shirts, and our medals, and headed over to the tent for some refreshments, they had sandwiches, and water, coffee (it was darn cold - it was SUPER windy too) and we got some sacks to put our loot in.  While we were there, they awarded the 1st place for men's, women's, and Marathon runners.  Literally like 10 feet away from where we were standing, trying to soak up some sun. So that was kind of cool.

Here is a mash up of some of my photos - notice the hat? My gloves were in my pockets. 

And this is right before the finish line, like literally 30 yards before I was done. Ugh. Again, never will I ever do another 10 Mile.

Have you ever signed up for something that you perhaps should have prepared a little better for?

Duluth! Big things!!

Saturday I did the Women Rock 10K, with my friend Karen. She is also one of the girls that I did The Color Run with too. I am not sure how I talked her into it. My friend Sonya hurt her ribs awhile back, and decided she didn't want to do it.  Karen and I are doing the TC10 Mile in October, and according to the training plan, we were supposed to be running that distance anyways.  I mean, I ran 20 minutes straight on Thursday, I can do this.. Right?

I will say this, I am not quite sure we should have done it.  It was long. But she did make it better than it could have been, and it was the first time I had ever done a race with anyone, like, running/walking with someone, on purpose.

But we got a glass of champagne (warm), a 'W' Necklace with a real sapphire, and a jacket.  If we had signed up for real, we would have gotten a calendar of the half dressed firefighters.  But, at the end, we did get our picture taken with one.

Finished!

So after we were done, I went and visited my sister's kids, she has 3 now.  I went to see my niece who is 12, and nephew who is 6, they now have a littler brother who is like.. 2 weeks old or something.  I don't have a relationship with my sister. She is evil, and my life has been better without her games in it.

But we went to the little city wading pool, my niece told me about her new school (she has a new one every year) and about the uniforms that they have to wear.  She says she misses me, I miss her a whole heap too.  I was like her second mom until she was 5.  Literally.  She was born in April my Senior year of High School.  That summer, if I went shopping, so did she, people thought she was my baby.  Which I thought was dumb, since she had been to my final band concert, and I had shown her off then.

At any rate, it sucks for her, because she is put in the middle of everything, only hearing the evil and half truths her mother spews.

Changing gears.

On Sunday the the Boyfriend and I went to Duluth!  We like to go once a year, and we hadn't made a trip up there yet.  So we packed in to the car, and started up.  The Boyfriend doesn't really like breakfast, allegedly.  But one of the things you do when you make the trip north, is you stop at Tobies!  They make delicious caramel rolls.  They have a gas station and gift shop and whatever else.  But we go to the restaurant portion of it.  So yummy!

Tobies Caramel Pecan Roll

Once we were stuffed, we hit the road again, and onward to Duluth!  It's a little bit of a drive, about 3 hours from where we live now.  But we did it.  The last time we went there, it was July 4th, and quite fun!!  They had live music in a band shell, and a carnival, and beautiful weather.

Any who, we went up to the rest stop on Skyline Drive.  It's always a nice view from up there.  As a child, we would pile out of the car, and stretch our legs, knowing that it would only be another 20 minutes or so before we got to our Aunt and Uncle's house.

After we stretched our legs we went to Spirit Mountain, just on the other side of I-35, and we took a ride on the Timber Twister, and the Zipline ride.  I will say, the Timber Twister was way more fun!  We rode down once together, and then we each went two more times on our own.  We bought a package that included a trip on the Vista Fleet down in Canal Park on the shore of Lake Superior.  So once we were done with our ride tickets, we headed down to Canal Park.

Once we got to Canal Park we checked in with the Vista Fleet Cruises, and it turns out the only cruise that had any openings, was the 8pm Sunset cruise.  Well, it was only 3, so, we had awhile to walk around.  It was apparently Gay Pride time up there this weekend.  We didn't know, but we saw the stereotypical sailor.  It made me laugh.

We went and signed the log book in the Maritime Museum, dropped a dollar in for a donation, and walked along the park.

We ended up taking a tour of the William A. Irvine, our tour guide, was a college girl, but she had attitude the whole time.  It was one of the worst tours I had ever been on, and what sucked even more, I actually wanted the tour to be good.

After the tour, we walked around figured we should eat something, so we headed over to Little Angie's Cantina.  The food was really good, and relatively inexpensive too!  But while we were eating, it was getting cold, the wind was picking up, and the sun was starting to set.  It was about 7, so we got up and tried to find a couple of cheap sweatshirts, since neither of us thought we would be up there that long.  Our cheap sweatshirts were $35 a piece.  Bummer.

Once we had the sweatshirts, the Boyfriend had to go back to the car to drop off something, I didn't know what, but he insisted I wait in line, we still had a 20 minute wait.  So he headed back to the car, I went in to the store to see if I could use the bathroom, they had closed it already, they really only had the gift shop open to sell any last tickets. The Boyfriend got back just in time for us to be herded up on to the boat.

I used the bathroom on deck, and then joined him on the upper deck which was open air.  It was a GOOD thing that we had sweatshirts, because it got darn cold.

While we were on the sunset cruise, my cousins asked us to stop by, they were camping at a campsite on our way home.  We decided we would stop by for an hour, at least make an appearance.

When we got off the boat, the Boyfriend wanted to take the long way back to the car, and walk along the sidewalk to the amphitheater that we had listened to the bands on the 4th of July when we had came up 2 years ago.

And I was reading a little plaque, and he pulls on my shirt, and I turn around, he's down on bended knee, and he asked me to marry him!!

I said yes.  SO now, I have a ring!! :)

Very fun!  BIG THINGS!

Duluth Skyline from Lake Superior, and my new RING!

To tie up this post, we did end up visiting the cousins at the campsite, drank well into the night, and basically got outed by my cousin's wife, so had a lot of congrats from the seasonal campers.

We got home, and we didn't want to do anything today, besides sleep.  And soak my feet again.

Time to plan a wedding!!

Did you have a great proposal or were you kind of like.. well I totally knew, and it wasn't a surprise at all?
I think as people get older, they, unfortunately, are not granted the opportunity as the young'uns are, I think older people tend to date longer too.. not old, but older than 18-26.

AMAZING WEEKEND!

Let me tell you about my weekend!  On Saturday night the Boyfriend took me out to Murray's for dinner.  Home of the Butter Knife Steak.  Which we had. We both had cesear salads too - they serve them with a fancy parmesean toasted cheese thing.  It is so good!



The Boyfriend and I at dinner.

Then we went home, it was late, our reservations were for 8 o'clock.  And I had The Color Run the next day!!

It was so fun!  I met up with my work friends in a parking lot, and we car pooled down to the race.  It has been super hot in Minnesota, and today was no different.  It was like 90 degrees fahrenheit.  Too hot to run, so we walked together.  It was nice to catch up with the ladies.  We work at the same company, and we all started in the call center, but now that people have grown in different directions professionally, it makes it hard to just have lunch together.  Every one has moved to different buildings and what not too.

If The Color Run ever makes it to your town, I reccomend you participate.  Each kilo marker had a different color.  Basically what you do is jog/run through the color 'zone' and there are volunteers that hit you with some colored powder.  It was hot, and sticky so- a great deal of it stuck to your skin as well.

At the end of the race, there was a mass color toss.  They did this every 15 minutes or so.  Once you finished - you gathered in with everyone else, and at the count down, you threw the packet of color you got with your packet and threw it in the air.  It was SUPER fun.  Like I said before though - if it comes to your town, make sure you sign up FAST!  Registration filled up super fast for Minnesota, and they ended up opening up more slots.  A total of 19,000 people did The Color Run.  The Minnesota run raised money for Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless.  Quick tid bit - did you know that in Minnesota 1 in 10 families are considered 'food insecure' - meaning they are unsure of where their next meal is coming from?  That is astounding.  And kind of sad.

Color Runner Mashup

After the run, I drove to Hopkins, to watch the Raspberry Grande Day Parade.  This Parade was 2 hours long.  Literally.  And it was hot.  Once I stood up, I realized that my whole back was soaked.  So gross. 

The Hopkins Raspberry Festival is fun.  We missed the fireworks because we were out having dinner.  I had wanted to participate in the 1 Mile run, but didn't make it in time.  And probably wouldn't have been happy had I signed up anyways.  Did I mention it was HOT?!  

I have a special spot in my heart for all the POW/MIA's out there. 
My grandpa was a POW.

After the Boyfriend and I watched the parade, we went to support the Hopkins VFW and partake in the pulled pork BBQ sandwich plate.  Not a bad deal for $6.50.  We got a HUGE pulled pork sandwich, baked beans, and some potato salad.  After that we came home and both took a nap.

We woke up in time though to start watching FOX's Animation Domination.  I took a shower, and most of the color came off.. It will be fun tomorrow!

Have you participated in The Color Run - do you have any photos to share?

Do you and your mate have any long standing traditions?

Let's Learn about Running

At work, they offered what they call a 'Lunch and Learn' about common injuries related to running, and what I thought, ways to prevent them.

These happen over the lunch hour with the idea of bringing your lunch and learning.  I think it is a good idea, but the thing where they fall short, is they have it set with just chairs, and no where to put your lunch, other than your lap.

This time around - they did have tables, which was great.  Except that based on previous experience, I didn't bring my lunch.

This session was okay.  They talked about the different issues runners have, those shin splints people get, and I have now diagnosed myself with Plantar Fasciitis.  But please note, they acutally didn't offer any solutions to get rid of it.  Thanks WebMD for your help. 

I had foot surgery back in December 2011 for bunion removal where the doc removed a portion of the metatarlsal, and then removed part of my pinky toe and I had him remove some ingrown toe nails on the big toes while I was out  Mind you, this was on both feet, at the same time.  My feet are now super sexy, especially with the scars.  The foot doc mentioned the plantar faciitis on the write up for the surgery.  I honestly didn't know what it was.  But now that I have been trying to run about 3 times a week (putting in a grand total of about 6.5 miles total).  My feet have been hurting a little more than I would like.  I mean, they are sore a lot, but they hurt now.

Basically, I should wear better shoes, and stretch the calf muscles and do some toe lifts/stretches or something every morning.  I really  should do that..

I will look into buying new shoes after The Color Run - the Happiest 5K on the Planet.  I am very much looking foward to doing this!!  My good friend D didn't sign up in time, but I am doing it with some other co-workers, the evil ones that suggested I sign up for the Medtronic TC 10 Mile in October, so I did. 

Do you have any running injuries/pains that bother you?  Have you been cRaZy enough to go through with surgery to correct them?

Are there any races you look forward to participating in - or know of fun ones I should?