22. Minneapolis – 3 June 2012

First time I had been to Minneapolis – a pleasant place it was. I stayed downtown at a cool Art Deco hotel (was not expecting Art Deco from this place). The start line for the race was a quick walk away downtown, so I was able to sleep in a little. I think the organizers have now changed the start to some other place though.

I flew here the day before the race for the Expo, and went to a neat pub for dinner – the bartender convinced me to try one of the craft beers, so I did. I didn’t normally drink any alcohol before a race, but it seemed the right thing to do here. During 2012, I ran 18 half-marathons and Minneapolis was the second fastest that year – in fact, at the time, was my fastest half-marathon since Sydney in 2007. I wish I could remember what the name of that beer was!!!!

The race was good, the weather was clear, no giant mosquitos (I had been warned about this by an old work colleague who still lives in Minneapolis-St Paul area). As I said, it was a fast race for me. But the race was a point to point – and ended up near the river. There were buses back though, so that part was good.