I’ll have to hustle from my last work meeting and drive straight to the starting line in Minneapolis tomorrow. Thankfully they have packet pickup on race day, but that will still be a hassle to get the stuff, run back to the car and get back in time. Looks like I’ll either do the masters wave at 7:24 or the open wave at 7:39. Two goals for this year: 1) beat last year’s time of 6:20 and 2) beat Megan. I’d really like to get a sub-6, but I don’t want to risk injury before the marathon.

The whole family is going to Fargo and we plan to get the kids out of school early and start driving around noon. Google says a little more than four hours to the Fargodome, where packet pickup is located. We have until 9 p.m. to get there, so we should be fine. We have reservations at the Fargo Holiday Inn, which has a big pool area for the family to hang out at until I get done running.

Mentally, I feel ready for both of these. My running log has been a little light this month, but the 2012 year to date totals haven’t been awful. I’ve done a fair amount of cross training this month too, so I should be fine. No pressure on the Fargo time, so I’ll just see what the weather dictates. In fact, I don’t think I’ll even run with a watch this time…

The space is mostly unchanged, although the Warhol paintings are gone from the entry and there are a line of nice padded leather chairs in the bar and lounge area. The view of Hennepin out the window is still spectacular and a lot of people decided to sit outside on the balcony patio (we decided to skip that this time).

I thought the food was pretty good before, but it looks like the new place is in good hands too. Gather has a guest chef program that brings in people for one month at a time – local heros like Steven Brown (Tilia), Isaac Becker (112 Eatery & Bar La Grassa) and Tim McKee (La Belle Vie).

The current menu on their website was a little different from the one they used today. My non-alcoholic cocktail, the “spring fever,” wasn’t on the web version, but the kid’s drinks were (the push pop – blood orange, cherries and pear nectar). Colleen had a mimosa and there were several Mother’s Day specials, including a sweat pea and shrimp risotto with watercress pesto that she ordered.

I ordered another special, soft scrambled eggs with chive Mascarpone, bacon and baguette (above), but it looked like they were serving a lot of Eggs Benedict (and Champagne) today. Kid one had the buttermilk-marinated chicken, while kid two ordered the grilled cheese with white cheddar. Both added french fries, that came with an awesome truffle aioli (at least I thought it was awesome).

Everything was very good and service was outstanding. Prices were reasonable for this type of restaurant, but it was still nice to have the Walker member discount. I recommend checking it out, but make sure to be mindful of their strange hours (open for lunch Tuesday – Sunday, 11:30am – 2:30pm and dinner Thursday evenings, 5pm – 9pm).