Busy Weekend

Whew, what a weekend! The photo above has nothing to do with the weekend (it was taken this morning), but you know… post needs a photo. And it did remind me that Lena commented on a different photo of mine that featured ReddiWip, saying that seeing me eat it makes it seem ‘not so bad’. It made me think that I should do a ‘confessions’ post, because there are quite a few processed/fake-y/’bad’ foods that I love, and they’re in no way off limits! But that’s for another post.
Saturday: Woke up, ate breakfast, drove down to Lake Harriet for a training run with Team Challenge (that’s ANOTHER post, too!). I’d already fit in plenty of miles for the week and had a race the next day, so I was happy to take it easy. I actually found myself in the position of pacing a slower runner, which is the opposite of what I’m used to! The run got started a bit late, so when I was done, I had to quickly get home, shower, and then go over to The Modern for brunch with Chris and friends.
After I had my fill of banana-nut French toast (my review: meh — go to Key’s and try their cinnamon French toast instead), Chris and I walked downtown so I could pick up my race packet for the following day. Of course, once we were down there and I remembered it was International Read Comics in Public day, we had to make our way to Big Brain to pick stuff out. (I got the first American Elf book, FYI — I’m a dedicated reader of James’ on-line strip.) On our way back, we stopped at the mostly-closed Mill City farmers market, where I bought an ice cream cone — orange sorbet mixed with vanilla ice cream (made by Sonny’s and AWESOME!).
By the time we got back to Chris’, we’d walked over four miles, and I had been wearing my Vibrams. I made myself an afternoon cocktail, read my comics, and took a nap. Then we went to Holy Land for dinner (okay, this time I mean it when I say I’m done with their falafel — Big Marina Deli is SO much better). We watched Fantastic Mr. Fox in the evening, and it was charming.
Sunday: Woke up, ate breakfast, loaded up my bike and drove downtown for the Minneapolis Duathlon. I registered for the fun course (1.5-mile run, 11-mile bike, 1.5-mile run) in July, when I thought I might want to get into multi-sport events. In the meantime, I realized I’m a runner through and through and that I hate riding a road bike. So… I was sort of dreading the duathlon, even though it was a short one. I decided last week to just ride my heavy cruiser hybrid (the race was very welcoming to all abilities and bikes), which was a great choice, in the end. My road bike, which had just been to the bike shop on Tuesday, had a completely flat rear tire Sunday morning! Dumb.
Some of my Daily Mile friends were also competing in the duathlon, including my Ragnar teammate Cristy. We had a lot of downtime between setting up our bikes in the transition area and the actual start to our waves (we both did the fun course, which started fairly late in the morning), and it was great to have a running buddy to keep me company! We met up again after the race, at a restaurant downtown that was giving racers free cake and champagne. Best post-race food ever! I had only my phone with me, so those pictures I linked to aren’t the greatest, but they still recorded the moment!
The duathlon reinforced my belief that I’m a runner, not a biker, but I still had MUCH more fun than I was anticipating. My biking leg was weak, but I actually did very well on the running portions. It was clear that many of the racers weren’t endurance runners; the 1.5-mile legs just seemed to fly by to me, but there were an awful lot of walkers, especially after the biking portion.
I didn’t get home until after 1:00 in the afternoon, so I showered and had some lunch. I rested a bit, and then, since my parents had just got home from Ely, I went over to their house to get Chipotle for dinner with them. My mom and I went out for it, and when we were in line to pay, the cash registers froze, so we got all the food for free! Yesterday was just full of free, awesome food.
How was your weekend? Busy or relaxing? I definitely had a lot of fun the past two days, but I actually need some low-key work hours to fit in some relaxing!