Twin Cities Marathon Weekend

I got in to the Twin Cities Friday evening after a long drive filled with Glee songs sung at the top of my lungs.  No joke.  I met up with Alyssa and we decided to head in to St. Paul for some food.  Stupid me at some chips and queso for breakfast after my 4 mile run, and then forgot to eat lunch before I hit the road.  Needless to say that by 7:30pm, I was starrrrrrrrrrving.

When we finally decided on a restaurant our waiter informed us that there would be a very long wait for food, as a huge party had just walked in before we got there.  Awesome.  After eating my weight in food, and drinking some pre-celebratory Shiner Bocks (I love Shiner Bock and have only had it when I was in Texas last winter).  YIPPEE!

We then met up with Alyssa's friend Kody at an Irish bar.  I love me some Irish bars.  True story.  Have I mentioned how much I love hanging out with runners?  Because I do.  :)  We had a lot of fun, and I was so wishing that I didn't have a race to tend to for the weekend, because raging would've been a lot of fun.  :)  Speaking of, Kody had asked how Alyssa and I had met, and my favorite quote from the weekend was born.  "We raced, we raged, and then became friends."  --Alyssa.

The next morning we headed back to St. Paul for the race expo.  We saw so many people on Friday night carrying around their expo bags, and were having serious expo envy!

Alyssa and I scored some sweet new Nathan's handheld water bottles, and plotted out our strategy to do almost every race that had a booth in attendance.  We're fools like that.  :)

Alyssa and I with Kody.

Showing off our Princess crowns at the Disney Marathon booth.  

Yes, we wore these tiaras to lunch, and yes we got many strange looks.  Oh well.  :)

After we left the expo, we decided to do some exploring.  Because the best thing to do before a race is to walk.  For hours.  I'm dumb. :p  We got to spend some time enjoying the beautiful day, and taking a bazillion pictures of course.

After stopping for some mid-afternoon coffee pick me up (worst idea EVER for someone who doesn't drink much coffee.  I couldn't fall asleep FOREVER. ahhhh!), I realized that we were really close to where one of my college bffs lives.  After determining they were almost wrapping up their beer fest (again, why was I racing this weekend?!?!?) we met up for a quick howdy do.  I love zeez boyz.

Andy, me, and Eric.