I now run. One year ago today if you would have told me that I would take a weekend trip just for a race, I would have laughed pretty hard. But here I am, in the Northern Woods of Wisconsin, super excited to run a 5k. Actually more interesting is that I am saying I am excited to run only 3 miles tomorrow.

My friend Erin and I are here to run a 5k in Eagle River, but we are staying in Minocqua. Erin stays here every summer to go camping with family! So needless to say, she is super excited to be here. It's like a second home, I guess.

We left school at 2 to drive up here. It's a little over 4 hours. We made pretty good time considering some of the run-ins we had. One was that it is now construction weather in Wisconsin. We have 2 seasons here.....winter and construction! LoL The exit we were supposed to take had been removed, so we had to take a more scenic route. This more scenic route happened to take us past a Starbucks. And it happened to be during their Frapaccino happy hour. So we just had to get a half off drink! Other than that our trip was easy.

Tonight we ate at Minocqua Pizza Co. It was very yummy. Erin really wanted to have some cheesy bread. The billy bread was exactly what she felt like. Bread with lots of cheese and garlic and butter. Carb loading for tomorrow? We also split the giant calzone. My half was bigger than my hand! So we didn't eat everything. We were not even close to eating everything. But it was super yummy. To finish off the night we are splitting a bottle of moscato. It is so nice to just hang out with a friend and not think about work for a bit! I suppose I should get to bed soon, as I am running a race tomorrow!

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Today we woke up to cold, wet, and yucky! Great running weather in mid spring! (please note the eye rolling during that last sentence) A high of 45ish today. Oh well. So goes life in Wisconsin. We ate a nice free breakfast from the hotel and checked out. Erin wanted to show me where she camps in summer....near Carrol Lake. It looked really nice. It reminded me of the places that we would camp with friends. Also by this time it wasn't just misty out, it was now pouring out! Arg! We didn't know how we were going to run in pouring cold rain. Pouring warm rain is one thing. Pouring cold rain is just awful. So we drove to Eagle River, hoping the weather would become better. By the time the race started, it was back to a nice misty cold day. We had stopped at the nearby Walgreens and bought some stylish yellow ponchos. We decided since we felt like ducks, we should look the part as well. The race went very well. I can't believe how fast I ran this thing! My new personal record is 33:09. I cute over 90 seconds off my last time. Yeah for training. Another fun part of this race was that they gave a medal to everyone that finished - didn't matter what race they ran (full, half, 5k, or power walk).

We changed out of our cold, wet clothes so we could wander around downtown a bit. It was of course a super touristy street with lots of clothing stores and candy shops. We did enjoy wandering in and out of these stores. I ate a lot of candy. We decided that candy was not a good recovery food, so we looked for some actual food. Erin's GPS told us about Julie's Cafe. It was a little trailer like cafe. Totally a mom and pop place. Very cute. We both had a great chicken sandwich. We were 2 of 4 people eating in there. But oh was it good. I love trying to find these little local places.

We didn't have too much planned out for our way home. So when we noticed that a winery was right on our route, we were super excited! Three Lakes winery was very cute. They are known for their fruit wines. My favorite was the cranberry & rhubarb wine. Now it won't win any awards for finest wine, but I will love to drink this while reading or watching a girly show at home! The lady behind the tasting bar really liked as also. She brought out a bunch of extra stuff to try: wine-arita (wine margarita), wine-soaked sausage, and chocolate wine were just a few. What a great detour. After this fun we drove back home.

This was such a great trip, albeit too short. I love going to places with my girlfriends. It just makes me excited to actually start this summer of trips!