2010 Maple Syrup Run

In case you are wondering, it's been a year since I first starting tracking my 5K times. In 2009, I ran 4 5Ks, and this year, I'm hoping to at least pass that by one. My training hasn't been perfect, but I've made some good strides.

Last April, I ran the Maple Syrup Run at River Bend Nature Center in 36:14. Yesterday, I ran it in 31:02, which is almost exactly a 10 minute mile pace. This year, my time did feel like a major milestone. I accomplished goal, and for someone who often thinks of herself as indecisive and lacking self-discipline, that's pretty damn good!

Kudos to my husband, who shaved a good seven minutes off his time, too!

Balloon Rally

Last weekend, we watched the balloon rally at the 2009 F-bo Airfest. I'd never been to the airfest before but I wanted to watch the balloons take off. I don't know where my recent fascination with hot air balloons came from, but I've been thinking a lot about trying it out one day. Matt and I had a very expensive chance to balloon over the Serengeti, but, at $475 per person, we opted out. Now I wish I had. My only other sort of chance was at Downtown Disney this past summer, where they have a moored balloon that floats straight up 400 feet over Disney World. I was ready to drop 20 bucks on that but it was way too windy the day we went. Oh well.

So I settled for a local balloon launch. Actually Matt and I stalled until the last minute. Matt was napping, and I was exhausted. We didn't want to pay the money to get into the airfest, and neither of us really wanted to go to the airport, since it's a place that holds some difficult memories for us. But we rallied (hahaha) and drove out to the industrial park nearby to watch about 6 balloons took off from the F-bo airport. They floated over our car and over the corn fields, and soon Matt and I took off like tornado trackers.

I've been down a lot lately, feeling tired, sad, and stressed. The airport here is a place of great sadness for me, not exactly a place I expected to find some joy, yet chasing the hot air balloons with Matt made me happy. It was a really simple distraction, something we almost skipped out on, but for that day, it made all the difference.

Rice County Fair (MN State Fair, here I come)

I love the Minnesota State Fair, and I love the county fairs back home. Yet, somehow, I've managed to miss the Rice County Fair every year I have lived here in Faribault. It's in July, and that tends to be when Matt and I leave Minnesota to travel home or see the world. This year, we got home from Florida just in time for the fair, and I was psyched.

We decided we'd head out on Saturday, and early in the day I started pestering Matt about when we would leave. I had images of cheese curds, fried oreos (see last year's blog), and maybe some cotton candy in my head, not to mention all of the strange chickens and rabbits we'd see in the animal barns. I even brought my camera. We finally headed downtown around 3 pm. Matt made us park in the $2 lot, which was a two minute walk away from the fair grounds. I didn't think the $5 fair parking was that bad, but Matt said, "Just in case we don't stay very long." I should have known then.

Thirty minutes later, we were back in the car.

This is the only photograph I took:

The Maple Syrup Run

This morning I woke up to a cold, gray, rainy day, which was not exactly what I wanted to see after a long winter in Minnesota and right before I was heading out for my 5K. I put on a pot of coffee and then took my dogs out for a walk to wake up a little bit.

5Ks (not that I have that much experience) are fun in the small town I live in. Matt and I have lived in Faribault for five years now, and many of our friends, students, and colleagues show up to run, volunteer, or cheer each other on. Today's run was at the River Bend Nature Center, and the route passed through a prairie, up several small hills, by the banks of the Straight River, and over a turtle pond (oh, and by the Minnesota Correctional Facility).

I followed Matt's advice and started out slowly, and I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I felt. There really weren't any mile markers, so I didn't have any idea how far along I was. I kept count of the number of songs I listened to, thinking that would give me an idea of how far from the end I was... and before I knew it, I could see the end. "Shake It" by Metro Station came on (thanks, Timberwolves Dancers), and I started running faster toward the finish line.

And that was it: 36 minutes and 14 seconds*. No seeing God, no stomach cramps like I remember when we ran the mile at Hyman Fine Elementary School back in Attleboro, no major personal journey milestone. Just another step forward as I try and take back this terrible creep of pounds.



* Only 22 minutes and 3 seconds off world record pace (Tirunesh Dibaba, 2008). Of course, that wasn't cross-country.

5K and Pancakes, Maybe

On Sunday, I'll be jogging my first 5K since 2006. Back on that day, I literally ran the race cold, having not run anything longer than a mile since I was about 19.

This time, I'm in good shape, but I still haven't run 3.1 miles on the road in a long time... Um, since September 2006, the aforementioned 5K.

So, I've been running a mile or a mile and a half every couple days. Today, I sort of ran 3 miles on the treadmill (sort of = walked a little bit every now and then).

I don't have much to say, but if I put this in writing now, than I have to follow through and show up on Sunday. Then maybe I'll have some nonsense about a personal journey and a post-5K pancake breakfast to blog about.

A Quieter August

Everyone knows that I have a hard time staying put and enjoying the calmer times of life. Hence, I travel every break and most of the summer. I love to travel, but I tend to miss the little things about life at home that make "home sweet home" so sweet. I like to buck my mom's advice, but I think she taught me a good lesson this summer.

Sitting in her new glassed-in porch, she said several times, with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, "See how something so simple can be so beautiful. I could be anywhere in the world right now." Sitting out in the lawn chairs in her yard, she looked up in the sky and said, "Look how big and beautiful the sky is here.... a little like how it must be out west." I didn't really think the sky looked that big, but it was beautiful and the weather was perfect (and the wine or coffee was hitting the spot), and, this time anyway, I knew better than to ruin the moment with my sarcasm. After all, it was pretty nice to just sit there and be content.

So, I came home to Faribault with two little more widely opened eyes and tried to find the beauty around our little apartment in Mackall Hall in Southern Minnesota.

We planted tomatoes. We only had two plants, and both were cherry tomatoes, so we didn't have much fruit, but they tasted perfect. Matt's little red ones fared much better than my little bell-shaped yellow ones. Our basil plants and peppers didn't fare as well, but lucky for us, a generous neighbor replaced our teeny basil plants with a three footer!

We also planted wildflowers from seed and waited patiently for some to bloom among the weeds. Nervous to confuse a weed with a wildflower, I let the weeds bloom, too. After the flowers finally opened, I felt a pang of sadness when the turbulent August weather took it's toll.













We explored Minnesota with friends, starting the day at the farmer's market on Lake Street in Minneapolis; armed with a semi-random assortment of tomatillos, beans, chilies, cheese, and eggplants, we headed up to Chisago City. We explored the St. Croix River wineries, picnicked with our morning finds, and shopped in downtown Stillwater. The little book store had a friend of mine's book on display, the candy store was chock full of taffy, turtles, and sour patch kids, and the fancy paper store, Pulp Fashion, gave out free coffee and had a room equipped with a flat screen tv and recliners for the bored companions of shoppers!
Near the end of the summer, as school was gearing up, we carved out a day for the State Fair. A summer in Minnesota just isn't complete without a trip to the fair and a bellyful of snacks-on-a-stick. For me, the fried oreo was a thing of beauty.

And then, of course, there are the dogs. To travel, we had to leave them behind for 5 weeks this past summer and 5 weeks the summer before. It only takes a few days away for me to pine for their company. We spent afternoons at the dog park in Dundas, watching Hideki and Bernie lead the pack as they leap through the grass.

And so I realized that my mother is right. There's beauty even here at Mackall Hall in Faribault, Minnesota, and it's time I slowed down to take a look.