Tag Archives: Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome

Twin Cities Marathon Pictoral Preview

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The Twin Cities Marathon course has been quite busy this summer, just like every summer (actually year round).  This is because the course takes in some of the coolest recreation spots in the metro – or at least Minneapolis.  Beginning in downtown Minneapolis the 26.2 mile course  makes a big circle before ending up in downtown St Paul.  Leaving the sports capital of Minnesota (the Metrodome) runners take in some amazing views before arriving at the state capital of Minnesota.  What a course.   Here’s last year’s course preview.

Below are 26 pictures from the course itself (though they don’t come from all 26 miles of the course).

A picture of the map…
The Hurbert H Humphrey Metrodome – aka staging area and starting line.
A random wall downtown along Hennepin Ave.  I know some of the symbols are Adrinka symbols of West Africa, but I don’t know their history here.
The Basillica of St Mary is on Hennepin as well. Don’t let the old architecture fool you, they are on Twitter.
This is WAC, the Walker Art Center.  On the right is the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.  I’ve heard tell that some people use it as a quick potty stop. (I don’t recommend it) Watch this hill.  If we ran on the sidewalks we’d actually get to run under the Walker.
TCM isn’t called “The Most Beautiful Urban Marathon in American” for nothing.  This is Lake of the Isles, the first among several lakes we’ll travel around.  We won’t run by the most expensive house in Minneapolis, but it is located on the Isles.
Here’s another shot of the Isles.
Dean Parkway going underneath the Midtown Greenway.
Lake #2 Lake Calhoun.  On the south end there will be a cool view of the downtown skyline with the lake in the foreground.
The third lake is Lake Harriet which has a cool band shell and yacht club.
Running under the Niollet Ave bridge (I think).   A local marching band stands under one of these bridges and plays.
The 7ft bronze rabbit at the intersection of Portland and Minnehaha Parkway.  I can’t figure out where it came from.
We run a long ways on this parkway. Here is wikipedia’s take on who Minnehaha was…
The Grand Rounds is a great way to see the major sites in the city. A road, trail system, and scenic destination itself, much of the marathon is actually run along the Grand Rounds.
West River Parkway has been under construction all summer, but it won’t affect the race.  This is where I started to fall apart during the 2008 marathon.
The Mississippi River is a national park.  This is crossing the Franklin Ave bridge.
A bad shot of the river!
This is now on East River Road getting ready to go under a rail bridge which will one day connect to the Greenway.
University of St Thomas sits atop a nice hill and is around the 21 mile mark!
A nice long look up Summit Ave. A nice long uphill. And is the longest remaining stretch of residential Victorian architecture in the United States.
Bridge crossing Ayd Mill Rd.
A cool church on the corner of Lexington Parkway and Summit Ave.
One of many cool houses. If you aren’t in complete agony, be sure to check them out! They are on both sides.
This is a great sign!! You are atop the hill and getting ready to turn left into the final stretch.  I always felt a little let down that we turn here instead of just going down the hill!
The Cathedral of St Paul. When you see the steeple it is almost over!
The Minnesota State Capital building and the finish line!!!  Congratulations you’ve finished.

[tags] Twin Cities Marathon, TCM, Marathon, Twin Cities [/tags]

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Week in Review

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Image from stock.xchng.

This is week 3 of both my 100 Push up Challenge and also the Core Performance
book.  I am starting to feel some of the benefits, at least a little! This was a nice short week at work and a wonderful day of giving thanks. It has been a great week!

Monday was my requisite rest day.  I did my push ups completing the required 72 pushups.  After last week’s exhaustion test I’m in the middle column for now.  In regards to the Core workouts, I’ve decided to drop the Movement Prep.  My knee and heel were starting to hurt and I felt like some of the exercises in MP were aggravating those areas, I might try to slowly work them back in later. I did do the Prehab: Core-Hip-Shoulder, and used my Stick instead of a Foam Roller.

Tuesday I was feeling lazy and never made it out the door! No real reason, just lazy.  I did manage to do my core workout though.  Today was a physioball and rope  workout.

Wednesday I did make it outside.  I ran my Metrodome 3 mile loop in 23:36. It was about 19 degrees but the wind was really strong on the one leg and made my hands really cold! I did my required 82 push ups and Prehab:Core and used The Stick.

Thursday Happy Thanksgiving!! Nathan and I did a 1.5 mile warm-up before we ran the Giving Thanks 5k.  I finished in 20:01.  It was a pretty nice morning for a Thanksgiving race! Look forward to a more in-depth review.  I came home and did my core work – physioball and Prehab:Hip.  I’ve stopped doing the Prehab:Shoulder because I think it duplicates some of the push up workout and exhausts my shoulders.

Friday I went out for an easy 3 mile run in my new Mizuno Wave Inspire 4 shoes. My old Mizuno’s have 381 miles on them. This was a pretty uneventful run. I decided to run along the Midtown Greenway, but instead of running on the “Greenway” I ran on the dirt trail that runs alongside the paved one. The two trails are seperated by a fence and the lower is more like a service road type thing.  It was different.  Weather was mid-20’s with some wind making for a decent 23 minute workout.  I did my 88 required push ups and Prehab:Core

Saturday means Polar Bear Run.  This run was fairly close to home and my wife was working again so I didn’t feel like calling anybody for a ride. Instead I biked to the Light Rail station – took the LRT – and biked to the start of the run, this was approximately 2.5 miles on a frigid morning.  Awake and ready to run we ran from Historic Fort Snelling down into Fort Snelling State Park getting in 8.5 miles on mostly soft trails.  The run featured a lot of deer, at least 15.  At least one of which had 10 points.  It was a neat mix of bucks, does, and fawns running around.  Some let us get pretty close, staring us down before leaping away to safety.  I am always amazed that animals kind of know when hunting season is and when they are generally safe.  This was another great run on a sunny day with a thin layer of frost covering everything.

Sunday was a snow covered run along the Minnesota River.  Maybe an inch of snow covered the ground as we headed out along the trail.  We cross the footbridge on Cedar Ave and then headed north to Lyndale Ave all on trails next to the river.  It is a great place to run and the fresh snow covering made for some beautiful sights.  There was plenty of animal tracks – mostly coyote and rabbit. I did see what looked like deer tracks and we saw a bunch of wild turkeys on the drive to the parking spots.  This was about a 9 mile run in 1:18:09.  A few of us had a little sprint finish across the footbridge!

Weekly Mileage:

Running – 28.3 miles

Biking – 23.6 miles

Last Year:

Running – 0 miles

Biking – 20 minutes

Swimming – 1 session

Last year I was analyzing my training cycles. My second cycle was for a 10k.  I ran a 4 mile Drumstick Dash in Indianapolis and posted a guest review for the Harpeth Hills Flying Monkeys Marathon. Also during this week last year Dr Cade, Gatorade Inventor, died at 80.

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Week in Review

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This was an interesting week.  It went by fast and I had a few random meetings and stuff along the way. It was a pretty solid week of running with my highest mileage since the marathon, both in weekly mileage and long run. I also started core and push ups. I forgot to write in last week’s review, but I did my initial exhaustion test and pumped out 20.  That seems pretty weak compared to some of the women’s team who did over 30.

Monday was a needed rest day after hitting 14 miles total over the weekend! I also restarted the 100 Push up Challenge getting out the required 36 and doing 11 for the max out section for a total for 47 pushups.  I also started The Core Performance book today. Some time I’ll talk more about it, but today was a “Movement Prep” day.

Tuesday I found I was a little sore from the Movement Prep activities, but still went out for an easy 5 mile run along the Greenway in 38:55.  It was a chilly 26 with wind blowing from the West.  Nothing too exciting except for a view squirrels that ran with me for a little bit on their fence highways.  Today’s core workout was movement prep and physioball. I should say this is the first of a 3 week core foundation period.

It snowed Tuesday night and there was a layer of snow on Wednesday morning.  This was heavier than a dusting but melted mostly off the roads and sidewalks.  I ran 3.5 miles around Powderhorn and ran in the soft snow.  It was a nice change of pace. The temps were a little above freezing so it was also a little slushy in some places.  Today’s push up workout included the required 38 and 13 on the max out.  Regeneration was the core workout for today, my legs were still a little sore from the movement prep sessions the last two days.

I took Thursday off from running but still did my Prehab 1, 2, & 3 workouts for the core strength.

On Friday I ran a brisk 3.25 mile run on my Metrodome loop. I ran in shorts because the temperature I saw said 39.  When I got home the temp was at 31.  My legs did get a little cold out there, but it was fine.  I did my 44 required push ups and barely squeeked out the 13 in the max out section.  I skipped the core workout because it is “Strength” and requires a gym and I didn’t feel like going!

Saturday was the first Polar Bear run for me of the year.  It was an excellent run, I got to catch up with some guys I hadn’t seen in awhile plus meet some new ones.  We ended up running 10.66 miles along the Mississippi River.  On the way out there was a fairly strong headwind that made the 30 degrees feel a lot colder but on the way back I took of my ear muff and gloves. There was a dusting of snow on the ground but it went away.

Having church on Friday nights frees up Sunday morning to go on the group run. We met at Jensen Lake in the Lebanon Hills Regional Park we skipped out on some of the major hills (at least that I remember from last time) and had a really nice run making two big loops. For most of the run I had no idea where we were! It was 27 degrees with a dusting of snow on the ground and it snowed off and on during the run.  We ran about 10 miles in just over 80 minutes, all on trails.  The trails alternated between single track hiking and wider horse trails.  A good way to finish off the week.

Mileage Totals:

Running – 32.4

Biking – 14

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Week in Review

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Last weekend’s time change made it a little easier to get up in the morning for a run.  But by the time I get home from work… its pitch black.  That’s no fun either. Even with the earlier sunrise I still found a lot of excuses not to run.  Talk about temperature contrasts though… geesh.  After last week’s race I walked around in a sleeveless shirt but after this week’s race I was looking for more dry layers to put on.

I ran Monday 3.25 miles on my Metrodome loop. It took me a meandering 24:35 to do it, but it was warm and sunny.  The temperature was around 50 and it felt pretty good.

I stayed up pretty late Monday night writing a blog post – not a smart idea because I was really tired and slept in Tuesday morning. Plus I had to be at work extra early to make sure our students handled the election without any problems. Everything went smoothly and at 4:30pm when I left they were at 76% voter turnout without counting the absentee ballots.

We stayed out late on Tuesday watching the election returns with friends.  And I had another early morning with a meeting on Wednesday. Pretty much everyone there was exhausted – it was a school related meeting and our referendum passed!

Luckily the weather held out for one more day. Thursday I got a nice 4 mile run in on my Park-Downtown loop.  It was raining but in the 50’s so it felt really good actually. I ran it in 30:07.  I’m glad I got one last run in with pretty nice weather.

I skipped Friday so I would be well rested for Saturday’s race.  It snowed though.

Saturday morning was the USATF-MN XC Championships. It was a 10k on a cold (32f) morning.  It was snowing when I woke up but the ground was just really soggy.  I ran the 10k in 43:09 on a pretty hilly golf course.  More on that later though!

Sunday was a nice cold 8 mile run.  The temp was around 27 when I left and it was snowing off and on throughout the morning.  We met at the Sibley House and ran south along the Minnesota River for a nice, fairly easy hour.  The final time was 64 minutes.  This was my first time on that trail and it was fairly scenic. I was surprised at how good I felt after the 10k.  My toe still hurt a little bit but nothing major.

Total Mileage:

Running – 21.5 miles

Biking – 22.3 miles

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Marathon Training: Week 18

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Img from flickr.

TAPERING!!! In some ways life and work have been so busy that it is hard to really feel like the taper has kicked in.  But then again 2 days in a row without running is hard to handle! But the weather has been amazing!

Monday: 3 miles. I ran out and back along the Greenway for a nice 4 mile run.  This may have been the warmest run of the week in the upper-50’s in the morning!  I ran in 29:54.

Tuesday: 4-6 miles. Our last group training run.  It was a nice and relaxed run as we tried to dial back the pace a bit.  We even practiced for the marathon by starting behind the next slower pace group and waiting patiently for the first mile before slowly pulling away.  Ok, so that was by accident.  We ran in Edina and got in 5.28 miles in 41:30.  The run was followed by a talk about preparing for the marathon. It was in the mid- upper 50’s for this one.

Wednesday: 0-3 miles. I did my Metrodome loop on a chilly morning.  I was wearing long-sleeves and my knit gloves for this one.  I think it was 43! The marathon starts at the Dome so I was scoping out the starting areas.  I did 3 miles in 25:17 and things are feeling good!

Thursday: 0-3 miles. A nice rest day!!

Friday: 0-3 miles. Another good day of rest and hanging out with old college teammates!

Saturday: 0-2 miles. A relaxing and easy 2.5 miles around Powderhorn Park.  It was a beautiful sunny morning with temps in the low-40’s.  It was nice to get some of the cobwebs out but not be strenuous.

Sunday:RACE DAY!!! 26.2 miles. I did it!! 26.2 miles in 3:25:54!! My first marathon is complete.  It hurt and it rained, a lot.  Stay tuned for more details throughout the week!

Weekly Mileage

Running – 41.2 miles

Hal’s Tip of the Week: Smile as you cross the finish line. More important: Don’t punch your stopwatch until a few seconds later, while you’re in the chute. You want to look good for the finish-line photo.

[tags] Marathon Training, Hal Higdon, Marathon [/tags]

Week 18

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