What am I doing in the Metrodome on Thursday nights during the winter? Hanging out with Brett Favre, of course.
Actually, the MDRA opens up the upper concourse of the dome on Tuesday and Thursday evenings during the winter from 5pm to 8pm. It costs a buck to run, and one lap around the outer wall is about 0.4 miles (2.5 laps/per mile).
It isn't too exciting running indoors (you can only look at a hot dog stand so many times before you want to bang your head against a wall), but it is infinitely better than a treadmill, particularly when Minnesota is being Minnesota and throwing bone-chilling temps your way. It isn't too crowded when I get there after class (usually about 7pm), so it's eerily quiet for a bunch of people running in a circular hallway.
I ran into a pitfall with dome running this week when David said he would drop by around 7 too. I started running, figuring that when he showed up, I'd spot him. As it turned out, in the 3:30 it takes me to run around the concourse, David arrived, got ready, and started running without me seeing him. We didn't cross paths until I had put about 7 laps in. After that, though, things were good—I had forgotten how great it is to run with other people.
Dome Running goes for 2 more weeks, so drop by while there is still time.
Big Announcement
This probably won't be a surprise to many people, but I've decided that I'm not "one and done". Yup, I am now registered for the 2010 Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon. My goal this time is to complete it sub 4 hours. I think it is doable since I was on pace for a 4:30 finish last year before my quads went wonky. I'm going to post more this week about my new training plan and other marathon related stuff.
One more thing: if you, or someone you know will be training for the TC Marathon, it would be great to run with someone else on occasion. The solo training wasn't bad last year, but having a partner on those long runs would help out a lot.
