My First GREAT nephew!
Born October 9, 2017
8lbs 6 oz.
19.75 inches

I'm in love

Friday afternoon, Eric and I went to the TC Marathon Expo and decided on the whim to run the 5K on Saturday. I didn’t need the race to get to my 40 races this year but I want to see the logistics of Sunday morning and what better way than run a Saturday race.  After driving to the airport at midnight to pick Eric’s brother, Phil, we got up kind of early to head over to the Capitol for our 5K race. 

TC 5K

We start and finish at the same spot so we dropped off Mom and Phil and went to the starting corral. This race was surprising a good one for me. The first mile is almost entirely up a big hill. My first mile was barely under 13 minutes at 12:50. Mile 2 was a little faster at 12:41. Mile 2 is mostly flat. Mile 3 runs down the hill that I ran up for Mile 1 so this was my fastest mile at 12:07. I haven’t ran a 12:07 mile in a very long time so that made me feel awesome. Overall my time was 38:30…my fastest 5K this year.

TC 10 Mile

Another early start for us as my race started at 7. Well my corral started closer to 7:15. We parked at CenterPoint Energy’s River location parking lot. Thank God Eric can park there as parking anywhere in the area was over $40 since it was also Vikings game day. We quickly walked to the starting area so I could us the porta-potty before the race. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this race. I knew it started with a great downhill but after that it was a 5 mile climb to Summit Ave. Oh and it was raining…hard. 

The Start
The start was on downtown streets, past the Guthrie Theater and Mill City Museum and down the long hill to the river bottoms. I really like the first 2 miles. My pace doesn’t reflect it but I was having fun. Mile 3 was the long up hill to Franklin Ave. bridge. It was over an 80-foot climb. And it was the start of the 5 miles of climbing. 

The Middle
Once we got to the Franklin Ave. bridge, we were on the official marathon race course. It was at this point we started to have spectators. Prior to this we were alone. Somehow I managed to have a speedy mile 4, it was on par with my first mile. Miles 5-7 were just awful. I walked a lot. It seemed like we were always running up hill. I walked one hill during mile 7 because my legs were toast by then. 

The Finish
We finally made it to Summit Ave. with the nice rolling hills. I continued to run intervals but shortened the run portion. It must have worked as mile 8 was much faster than miles 5-7. Mile 9 slowed again, I’m not sure why. There was a hill but not a big one. Mile 10 is what I waited for. The downhill finish. The same last mile from the 5K the day before. I didn’t run it in 12:07 like the day before, but it was still one of my fastest miles, which is amazing since it was mile 10. My time after mile 10 was 2:17:07…but like usual, the course was long. 

My official finish time was 2:18:24. 

Women Run the Cities 5K

This race was held a couple weeks ago when we were in a rare heat wave. And when I say heat wave, it was like 75 degrees at 9am and very humid. Oddly enough this race had a 5K, 10K and 10 mile. The 10 mile was canceled because of the conditions…that seemed odd since we ran a half marathon a week before and it was the same conditions and they only told us to drink more. Haha! Oh well, my race was on as planned.

The course started and ended in Minnehaha Falls Park. Not the best place to find parking for this race. Eric dropped me off near the start and drove around to find parking. I managed to find him just before I started. My first mistake with this start was standing in the back. There were a lot, A LOT, of walkers. And they all lined up where ever they felt like it so I was dodging them the entire first mile. It was a bit frustrating. I started out strong and had a good first mile. 

Mile 2 went long almost as well as the first mile. During this mile, the fast 10K runners were catching up to us and passing us constantly so I had to always look behind me when I wanted to pass somebody. There were two water stops in this mile, one in the beginning and one at the end. That may have slowed me down a bit as mile 2 was 21 seconds slower that Mile 1.

Mile 3, the heat and humid started to hit me. I couldn’t keep up the running pace and walked more than I wanted to. This race wasn’t one that I was trying to get a PR on so I wasn’t too disappointed. My focus was to make sure it was under 13 minutes. I barely accomplished that with a 12:56 mile. I saw the finish and sprinted in with a time of 39:30. I got my medal, water and banana, met Eric and immediately went home. It was a warm race and I wanted to get into some AC.

Our rest of our last full day in New York we went to some more National Parks sites. After the 9/11 Memorial, we ventured down to Trinity Church. 

A very old and beautiful church. We also walked around their cemetery to see the Alexander Hamilton’s tomb.

 Also nearby was the Federal Hall National Memorial, the place that George Washington’s inauguration was held. It was an interesting place but I was disappointed to find out it wasn’t the actual building. Oh well, I guess the site will do. It is kitty-corner from NY Stock Exchange.

From there we walked south to Castle Clinton National Monument. It was America's first immigration station (predating Ellis Island), where more than 8 million people arrived in the U.S. from 1855 to 1890.

After a short subway ride to Union Square, we walked to Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site. We got there in time to catch the tour of the place. I was, again, disappointed that this wasn’t the original house but a recreated house. It was furnished with the Roosevelt family items but the building itself was not the original. Boo! The tour was quite long but interesting.

We made our way back to the hotel in the pouring rain. It was not a pleasant end to our afternoon. After relaxing for bit, we went across the street to the Irish Pub for some dinner and walked to the Rockefeller Center to go to the Top of the Rock. We had some amazing views of NYC at night. It was very cold and windy up there but a cool sight. We got a 360 view of NYC. The best part of going to the Rock instead of the Empire State Building is that we could get the Empire State building into my pictures!  That is a very smart tip I read somewhere. It was also conveniently located close to our hotel.

Overall our trip to NYC was short but we got to see a lot of new things that we didn’t see the last time we were here.