Saturday morning I drove to Waverly, MN to run the Waverly Daze 10k. This was a fun event. At the same time the organizers were holding a 5k and a 10 k, which were supposed to have different routes, but in the very last minute (no more than 10 minutes before the start, the local police felt uncomfortable about road safety on the 10k route and the race director rerouted the 10k to follow the same route of the 5k, only done twice.
It is bound to happen... if you get into smaller and smaller races you will end up placing. I finished my 10k at a (blazing?) pace of 7:43 min/mile and places first of my age group and second overall. It is true that there were only 9 runners for the 10k, but still, I was thrilled. More so when I saw that the top finishers of every category would get a engraved medal (at right). I was just 2 minutes behind the lead, who got also a plaque. 
Following the race we went to Kim and Birdie's house for a Sausage Extravaganza breakfast. A tasty egg bake, lots of fresh fruit and three different kind of sausage, one of them made by them (the large potato sausage on its own plate in the picture below. Also attending the run and the breakfast was Sarah (pictured), Kim and Birdie's daughter who also got first spot on her age group.Breakfast was terrific and I got to make friends with Sarah's 3 year old Lucy, who was very sweet and beautiful and invited me to dance with her after breakfast. It was just noon on Saturday, and having a good run and a great meal it would have been sufficient to call it a good Runs4Food weekend. Still, this was just the beginning.
That night we were invited to go to have dinner with our friends John and Clark. They had a reservation at Porterhouse, a steak and seafood restaurant in Little Canada, a suburb just north Minneapolis. I have said several times in this blog I am not much of a meat eater, particularly beef, but very occasionally enjoy a ribeye. I ordered a medium-rare blackened ribeye with melted bleu cheese and portabella mushrooms. It was terrific. Really, really good. I ate just half of it since we had appetizers and a salad prior to the entree and I had a big training run the next day. Certainly better than Many's and at a better price.
The following morning, I had a 18 mile run. Between dinner and a night cap with John, Clark, Mine and Anita, we end up going to bet at nearly midnight. The weather was going to be hot in the morning, so I was planning on waking up early, very early, and avoid as much as the sun as possible. I manage to get up a few minutes before 4:00 AM (that wasn't easy) and I am out taking my first running steps by 4:15.
Immediately my hands are sticky. Nope, it is not the Gu or the gatorade I am carrying. It is the very high humidity. Still I manage to keep a good pace just over nine minute/miles. With a 20% chance of rain and 74 degrees, I was somewhat confident I'd get a dry run. I see lightings in the distance, but I think I will be OK.
As soon as I hit mile 5, starts sprinkling and by mile 8, it is pouring down. It feels GREAT. Very cleansing, cooling and I pick up my speed. It rains off an on until almost the end of my run (another 10 miles). Every time the rains picks up, so does my speed. I finish my run in 2:40:41 or 8:55 min/mile. I am very happy with that time. I would have been happy with an average of 9:30 min/miles, so 35 seconds faster is pretty awesome.
So how can I top this weekend? Well, after a trip to Coastal Seafoods to get some fresh fish and mollusks, I think we are going to attempt a Fideuà, a dish very similar to a seafood paella, but made with pasta instead of rice and having more broth at the end, almost like a very hearty soup.
We'll see how that turns up, but given how well the weekend has turned out some far, my hopes are very high.
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