Run 23: Ten Points for Minnesnowta

Miles: 4

Other Runners: yes!

We were in the Twin Cities for a conference* this weekend, and on Saturday morning I left our cozy hotel room to run/explore. Low clouds hung over Minneapolis, and despite a rosy prediction of 75 degrees F, it was windy and cool. I ran along the Mississippi River and below a flour mill converted into a museum, its glass walkways made minuscule by the gaping space left of an old fire.

I ran past the awkward blue angles of the Guthrie Theater and across the Stone Arch bridge and alongside tiny wooden houses painted white and yellow and blue. It was a lovely, fast run- so lovely, in fact, that I think the Twin Cities might have a tiny edge up on Seattle when it comes to running culture. This is a bittersweet claim, for in making it I’m weighing so many gold and grey mountain peaks, lush smells, and delicious post-run cups of coffee against what seems an awfully grown-up collection of Midwestern practicalities. But the truth is, those 40 minutes offered an entirely absorbing array of hills, water, wild architecture, paths, trees, and other runners. And the other runners were wearing sweatshirts! And Umbro shorts! (Remember those?) And awkward pony-tails and smiles! I didn’t feel small or poor or hopelessly slow, just awake and a little sweaty. From what I saw and heard the rest of the weekend, there are also lakes to explore, and long streets of Victorians, and diverse languages and faces that make my heart happy. On Saturday a Somali woman helped me pick out shoes, and on Sunday I walked past two men speaking Lhasa skad...

Maybe we’ll go back. But for now, I need to put away the beer and ice cream (not at the same time!) and start thinking about that marathon.

*Rather than do the requisite smiling, nodding, and networking of conference-going, my husband and I admittedly played hooky for most of the weekend. I attended his panel, where he and I winked at each other as an audience member slowly slumped over in his seat, asleep. He attended mine, where the panelist ahead of me pressed the Fn key and the F1 key on my computer (in hopes of connecting to the projector), thereby freezing my cursor and making my sexy Powerpoint presentation completely irretrievable. I can’t imagine we missed much.