I made plans to run with my sister's running friend and neighbor Kevin Alldredge who happens to work at the Patagonia store in St. Paul, MN. He's an ultra-marathoner, ran the Boston Marathon and overall super nice guy. We were set to run Saturday morning while my sister and I planned on leaving Winnipeg Friday afternoon, immediately after work.
We made the trip to St. Paul's in pretty decent time considering the blowing snow from the border to Fargo, but once we were out of Fargo, the roads were clear and dry so we got to my sister Connie's around 2:30 AM. After unpacking the van, getting my parents and our kid's settled in, I was finally able to pass out around 3:30 and it felt like I just closed my eyes only to open them up again to start the day and get ready for the run.
Kevin arrived at 9:00 AM and we drove down Summit Avenue to Mississippi Avenue by the river bank to start our run.
We did the Mississippi River Blvd route which took us from the start at Summit Avenue over the E. Franklin Ave. bridge (I believe this was the bridge we had to cross over to get into St. Paul during the Twin Cities Marathon) which took us into Minneapolis around a big loop that ended off at Ford Parkway and back to Summit. I didn't have the mental fortitude to go an extra couple of kilometers to round out a 10 miler as I was still very mentally and physically tired from the previous night's drive. But the run was your nice LSD, we were able to keep a conversation going, and oh what great repartee's we were having! I learned so much about his life and his philosophical outlook, what he does at work and what Patagonia does...it was pretty fun talking with him.
We're going to try and meet up end of May to do another run...this time on trails! Can't wait for that.
