This year’s edition of the Minnesota State Fair Milk Run 5K wasn’t my fastest (21:42 last year), but I ran injury-free and still managed to finish in the top 100 men with a time of 23:54 (7:43 pace). Here are links to the full results: men | women

I ran with the Garmin for the first time in a race and it was interesting to see that the watch thought I ran 3.14 miles instead of 3.1 (must have done a poor job with the angles). Splits were reported as 7:30, 8:01 and 7:25, with a total elevation gain of 105 feet.

The whole family participated again this year, with kid one running for the sixth year in a row and Colleen and kid two walking for their second. I really like this event: good price, course through my old haunts, fun T-shirts, fair admission ticket and a malt coupon that was good this year at the Dairy Building.

Six full weeks of fall marathon training are now in the books and my August mileage total will be highest in at least two years (and maybe ever). Despite the build-up, I’m feeling slow, old and weak – it feels more like the beginning of training and not well into a 1000+ mile year. The knee is still off and I’m dreading the standing desk most days now.

Might return to the sports doc soon if things don’t improve… 🙁

This was an extra special year to visit the Minnesota State Fair for me, as kid one was finally old enough to get her first “job-job” there. She is working for her grade school phy ed teacher at the corn roast booth and is having a great experience (see above).

Looking at Google results, I’ve written here a lot about the fair and Sunday’s visit was as fun as always. Year 43 started with the whole family participating in the Milk Run 5K, which I’ll write about in another post later this week. We parked the car behind Heritage Square around 7AM, which worked out great.

After the race, we changed clothes and walked around together before the 2PM corn roast shift. Food included Sweet Martha’s cookies, Fresh French Fries, Pronto Pups, several malts from the Dairy Building, 1919 root beer, Danielson’s onion rings and corn on the cob (of course).

We visited the Grandstand, Colleen and kid two took the chairlift thing to the top of Machinery Hill, we saw Raven’s show at Minnesota Bound, toured the art, food and horticulture buildings, got a button from admin, listened to some live music at the Leinie Lodge, stopped by The Current booth and watched part of a horse show in the Coliseum.

After kid one went to work and Colleen left for a benefit event in Minneapolis, kid two and I hung out until kid one got done working. Thankfully she was finished early (10PM), but it was still a really long day (especially with the heat and sun). We walked up and down the Midway watching people try to beat the carnies, visited the Wild and Vikings booths, rode the giant slide and Skyride, then took a little nap in the car until it was time to head back to the corn roast.

Anita Baker was performing in the Grandstand that night and I made the girls wait outside for the fireworks, which were especially good this year. Traffic leaving via St. Anthony Park was non-existant and we made it home before midnight.

Since I have to work at Fortune Bay, I’ll miss the Minnesota Music on a Stick concert everyone else is going to on Friday. I’m experiencing fair withdrawal already, though, so I may have to stow away with kid one on Sunday or Monday…