Fargo Weekend

Megan and I got in to Fargo after being pushed north the entire drive by the wind.  What's that 50mph winds?  Thanks for being today and yesterday instead of tomorrow.  Sweet Louisiana!  We headed straight to pick up our packets at the Civic Center.  It was a smaller pick up, but they did have some running clothes and GUs for sale, thankfully since I only had one at home.  When we realized the clothes was 50% off, we really got to work.  I found a sweet saucony tank for $9 and a pair of saucony (I think... I've already forgotten) nice heavy running tights (eew, I want to forget winter is coming) for $22--originally $90!

From there we checked in to our hotel, and laughed when we realized that the finish line was literally next to our hotel parking lot.  Next stop was our romantic pre-race restaurant Toscano.  We went there before Fargooooooooooo Marathon last spring, and we were seated in our "usual" booth.  

I ordered a delicious looking mix of asparagus, artichokes, mushrooms and tomatoes in a white wine sauce with shrimp, scallops, and lobster tail.  It came with a super gross flaky puff pastry which I didn't eat.  It. Was. Amazing.  (It also almost killed my intestines.)

Before I knew it'd destroy my soul.

Next it was back to the hotel to chill and get ready for the race.  After puttzing around getting my playlist ready, I decided to lay out (and still pick out) my race day outfit.  I pulled out my 3 shirts, and started to worry when I couldn't find my shorts.  Uh yeah... I didn't pack them.  A quick call to Scheels, and we had approximately 40 minutes to succeed in Operation: Nike Tempo Short Recon.  Megan may have shouted out, "Out of our way!  We're on a very important tempo short mission!"

I took a minute to ooh and ahh over the ferris wheel in the middle of the store, and then found the tempo shorts of my dreams.  Or close enough.  And I found a super sweet green and gold sparkly head band for Packers spectating.  WIN!

And then it was time to relax and put my feet up.  For real.  My legs were swollen.  Compression socks on!  Legs up on the wall!  Twitter feed catch up!

Saturday after the race, we showered up and sought out some delicious mexican food.  We tried to keep the consumption on the low end so we'd have room for delicious beers during the pub crawl.  Yes, this race was centered around Oktoberfest in Fargo, and we were all about that.  We started walking for downtown and could not figure out where we were supposed to go to start the pub crawl.  We finally found the center of the Oktoberfest and the bar nearby and learned that we were supposed to end our night there.  Well poop.  We grabbed a beer, and watched the weiner dog races.

We started hoofing it to the other bars on the list.... realizing that we had circled around most of them on our quest to find the pub crawl.  GD it!  There were a number of times that we remarked that we wish we had our garmins with us to track our walking miles.  Surprise!  We learned that bar #5 was actually the bar IN OUR HOTEL.  Meaning WE COULD'VE STARTED THERE!  AND HIT ALL THE OTHER BARS IN THE CORRECT ORDER ON THE WAY TO THE FINISHING BAR.  Ugh... failures.  At least we were getting some walking in to loosen up our legs!

At the very last bar (well second to last, but last bar we needed "punched" on our card), the bartender casually said, "you know they've been out of medals for the last few hours right?"  

what.

the.

eff.

Anger.  Until we learned there was a sweet dance party going on, and we were delighted to join in.  Everyone else was dressed in traditional German garb, and it was all sorts of swell.  Again, I must note:  It's REALLY nice not to feel injured after a race.  :D

A pub crawl "medaler" let us borrow his medal so we could take a "double medal" photo.  Apparently we just get a completion grade.  Wah.  At about 11pm we decided to find some food and call it a night. At one point, someone ran through a chained off area and didn't realize that there was a chain around her waist, and pulling posts along behind her for...quite... a while.  It may or may not have been me.  Don't ask why I was running.  I couldn't tell you.  Oh wait... RACE WEEKEND DUH!