Minnesota Mild

After having missed my first flight to the Twin Cities and enduring the post holiday lines at LAX I arrived in Minnesota safe and sound on Monday evening.

I learned some good basic stuff about how our customers use our products. My friend that is going to run the Twin Cities Marathon with me in 2010 lives in St. Paul and works at the same big company as me, but in a different division. We had made tentative plans to have dinner on Tuesday night. During the day I got an email from him asking if I'd be interested in a run. He told me that the weather was unusually mild for this time of year. Given the choice between the run and dinner, I naturally chose the run.

He picked me up at my hotel and drove back over to his neighborhood in St. Paul. He lives two blocks off the Twin Cities Marathon course. The weather was in the very low 40's. At the hotel it was quite windy but over in St. Paul it was milder. I wore shorts, but wore three layers on top - a UA base layer, a long sleeve tech shirt and a micro fleece pullover. It turned out to be too much. It turns out I was overdressed. I did find it funny that my buddy was dressed in tights, a long sleeve, a stocking cap and gloves (and he lives here).

He took me on a little preview of the Twin Cities course. He lives in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood. He ran the route backwards; west on Summit Ave and then north on Mississippi River Blvd. Soon after the Lake Street-Marshall Ave bridge we turned around and retraced our steps. It was a beautiful little run, even in the dark. I was pleasantly surprised to see about half a dozen other runners out there. It was a fun little run and the great end to the day. They are expecting the temperatures to take an extreme dip into winter within the next day or so.

After the run we got to hang out at his home for pizza and beer followed by chocolate cake and ice cream. So it turns out we got in a run and had dinner to boot. Thanks, Dave!