Casselton, ND

Central Cass High School

Running Time: 55:12 + 1-lap kick

What a charming little town on the North Dakota prairie, just west of Fargo, charming enough that I thought it was charming on a windy, drizzly, dark early April day. It says something about a town when you look for a place to eat on Google Maps and there are no fast food options. It says something good.

There were technicians working on the stadium speaker system at the very nice high school track, which sat next to a very nice baseball field and a very nice softball field, so I did not run the stairs and disturb their work. They had country music blaring loud, but turned that off and did some tests, and I was able to contribute by signaling that I could hear their 1-2-3s when they sent them out. I felt like an important community member.

I was thinking, this would be a nice place for our kids to go to school, then remembered our kids are all done with school, at least through high school. I organized my Modified Prefontaine workout into groups of 4 laps. I always run around the outside track lane, which is 446.2 meters, so 4 laps is 1784.8 meters, which is approximately 1.11 miles. My times for the first 4 sets were good: 11:13, 10:34, 10:24, 9:49. I didn’t think I would bring my time down for the fifth set, so I was looking at my watch after each lap – first lap 2:33, second lap 5:00, then I must have paused the time, because when I got to the end of the third lap, it was still 5:00, so I just jogged out the rest of the run till the kick. Again, the acceleration kicked my ass, and I felt great after the run.

Earlier in the day, I hit a snowstorm crossing from Duluth to Fargo – about 4 inches dropped in an hour or so. Not fun. Did I mention that I am ready for Spring? Dry, snowless North Dakota looked welcoming when I got there, even if it did start raining later in the afternoon. I met with an account in Casselton – no appointment set – and was greeted by the owner with, “Perfect timing! I was just going to send a request for a quote.” We talked about their needs and some things we have they are buying elsewhere, and I told him about a product he should consider manufacturing, and it was an ideal sales visit. Like I said, a charming little town.