Shana runs marathon while Erik schmoozes with cute kid and humorist

On a warm and humid early spring morning in Duluth yesterday, Shana ran Grandma's marathon. She did an excellent job and while her time may not have been what she wanted it to be, she still finished in a very respectable 4 hours and 23 minutes. Ultimately, while it was 30 minutes off her personal best, she feels good about her race and is glad to be back on the road to her previous fitness level. I got to spend the morning with Anja who was in perfect form and received numerous ooohs and aahs. After a fellow spectator asked how old Anja was, she gasped in near disbelief, "and her mom is already running a marathon?!"

Also in attendance was humorist turned politician Al Franken. He was joined by a few of his campaign team members and they were cheering up a storm. Numerous marathon runners were lucky to get a high five and some very enthusiastic cheers from Al himself. As you can tell by the picture we go way back.


Stay tuned: The past few weeks have been busy ones. My classes are finally over for a few weeks and I'm looking forward to some downtime. This will also give me some more time to blog. Last weekend Hannah McMahon participated in the girls state high school rugby tournament. I'm hoping to get a game report from Hannah herself and will post a few pictures as well. Anja is the ever active child and is getting ahead of herself. Her new favorite thing to do is to pull herself up. However, her balance isn't quite there so she's keeping Shana and me on our toes to catch her falls. We'll have some pictures of her new found talent. Last but not least, I'm hoping to start posting some 'favorite's of the web' posts. For now, check out http://www.ted.com - the short speeches on this site tend to speak for themselves.

-Erik