It’s funny, I just read my 2013 Milk Run post and this year was similar in a lot of ways: it was very hot for the race (making a PR unlikely), it got a lot hotter as the day went on, I got my free shake at the Dairy Building and I tried a bunch of new foods afterwards. MK joined me for her fourth year in a row, while SK said she was sick and stayed home (breaking her streak of seven years). Former Olympian Carrie Tollefson was also there, chatting with us afterwards and posing for a group photo.

The quest for a state fair age group ribbon continues. My watch time of 24:10 showed splits of 7:10, 8:35 and 7:30, which barely kept me in the seven minute range (7:47 pace). That was good enough for 85th out of 549 male finishers, though, and 8th in my age group (which had 44 finishers this year). The top four guys in my category finished with times of 17:47, 20:34, 20:41 and 23:16, so it’s still in the realm of possibility. My middle mile was slow this year primarily because I stopped to get water in order to prevent premature death. I also decided easing up was a smarter plan than getting injured before New York.

Changes this year included a slightly altered course that started and ended outside the new West End Market and very different early morning access to that entire part of the fairgrounds (the gate near the start is now closed to pedestrians and cars). I’ll write more about my West End opinions in another post – I was opposed to the removal of Heritage Square, but it’s turned out different than I expected. The new course is probably a little faster than before, with a bigger downhill in the last mile.

MK walked most of the course this year, finishing in 45:36 (a bit slower than her 43:55 PR last year). SK’s name was actually announced during the awards ceremony as winning third place in the under 20 age group, but that was obviously a technical glitch. Carrie Tollefson won the women’s race in 18:27 (5:56 pace), which must be just like winning the NCAA 5000m championship, no?

My three new foods were the chicken in a waffle cone from the Blue Barn, walleye mac and cheese from Giggles and the pizza tots from Green Mill. All three were OK, but nothing I’d add to the regular rota. Foods in that category that I did eat on Sunday included Sweet Martha’s cookies, a Pronto Pup, a frozen cider pop from Minnesota Apples and a small order of Fresh French Fries.

We return again on Saturday for Minnesota Music on a Stick and on Monday for the Journey/Joan Jett concert. I’m sure there will be more food involved somewhere in there too…

As the Star Tribune recently reported, golf in Minnesota is having a bit of trouble these days. If my experiences the past two weekends are any indication, part of the damage is self-inflicted. Let’s start with Victory Links Golf Course in Blaine.

This course opened in 2003 and has been on my list of places to play ever since. It is one of a handful of courses that opened after I produced my golf guide, so I had neither played nor photographed it before our visit. I just knew it was part of the National Sports Center complex, which bills itself as the largest soccer complex on earth (along with the largest ice arena in the world). I also knew it was part of the First Tee program and had multiple sets of tees to encourage youth play.

Once we arrived, the scorecard showed it was designed by PGA TOUR Design Services, Inc., with distances ranging from 2834 yards all the way up to 7045 yards from the tips. The official web site says Victory Links was “designed to be as inviting as an executive course and yet challenging enough to host a PGA Tour event.” Unfortunately, the course doesn’t seem to have a lot of character – I can’t recall a single hole I would consider “signature,” and it was tough to find anything that was especially photogenic.

It also seems that somewhere along the way, focus was lost. In my opinion, it’s too tough for beginners (even from the forward tees). Conditioning on many of the holes was very good, but it’s highly unlikely the tour would ever hold an event there. I’m guessing that maybe the original plans called for the course to host state high school tournaments, but the MSHSL doesn’t agree (at least for now).

The site is huge and covers more than 400 acres. The one plus was no housing anywhere, but the rather large problem (at least for walkers), are the long distances between holes in multiple spots. This starts off right away with the trek from the clubhouse to the first tee, which easily takes about ten minutes to walk. Eleven green to twelve tee and seventeen green to eighteen tee are also awfully far apart.

The worst part of our day, though, was the customer service. We had an 8:50 tee time and were told to check back at the pro shop then to see how the morning shotgun tournament was progressing. That’s right – they took tee times on a Saturday morning when they also had a tournament booked. We were told to wait for the group that was on the eighth hole before teeing off on the tenth. After a 30+ minute wait, they changed their mind and drove us over to the first tee instead, where we waited behind another group already on the tee. Once we finally started, the pace wasn’t too bad, but the damage was already done.

The following week we played at Braemar in Edina. That day doesn’t warrant a full post – let’s just say that allowing a sixsome out on a Saturday morning and not advising us they just punched the greens (but were still charging full price) means we won’t come back again anytime soon…