Tavaris Chillis and Trevor George went on a cross-country training run Wednesday morning on an unusual course: every street of the Minnesota State Fair.
Their “water stops” during the 5-mile run included: Big Fat Bacon, Churros & Aguas Fresca, and Libby’s Ice Cream.
“There’s water in grease, right?” joked Coach David Terry, the brainchild behind the Great Minnesota Get to Run Together. “I mean, Greece the country.”
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Chillis, 16, a rising junior at North St. Paul High School, and George, 14, a rising freshman, were joined on the run by Charlie Taube, 19, a cross-country runner who graduated from North St. Paul in June. Terry and Taube did the State Fair run last year, and Terry hopes it will become an annual tradition.
The boys were through the gates and running by 8:15 a.m. “You’ve got to get here early,” Terry said. “It gets too congested otherwise.”
They ran to Judson Avenue, on the south side of the Fairgrounds, to start the route, and then ran every east-west street as they headed north.
Big Fat Bacon on Nelson Street was Stop No. 1. Workers at the booth, who knew the boys were coming by, held out maple-glazed bacon on a stick to each runner like they were handing out water cups at a race.
“It’s the best bacon I’ve ever had. Low-key, it is,” Chillis said. “It’s got syrup on it.”
The next stop was for strawberry-filled churros at Churros & Aguas Fresca (Lee & Underwood). The boys used their Blue Ribbon Bargain Books to get $3 off one filled churro (regularly $6).
“I always recommend getting the Bargain Book. Absolutely,” Terry said. “It’s the Best Bargain book since Bargain Books were invented. There are some really good deals in there. Some of my favorite items are actually in the book. My favorite beverage is in the Bargain Book: honey lemonade.”
Coach Dave Terry and his runners, from left, Trevor George, Terry, Tavaris Chillis and Charlie Taube, toast the end of their run at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds with honey lemonade. (Mars King / Pioneer Press)
The churros got a thumbs-up from George. “It’s really good,” he said. “I like the filling.”
“Yeah, he’s even feeding us our fruits,” Taube said. “There’s strawberry filling in these.”
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After running all the east-west streets, the boys began working their way through the north-south streets of the Fairgrounds.
The third stop was Libby’s Soft-Serve Ice Cream on the east side of Cosgrove Street outside the Education Building. Out came the Blue Ribbon Bargain Books for $2.25 off a waffle cone (regularly $7).
Total mileage by that point was about 4.1 miles at an 11:38 pace, which Chillis dutifully entered into his Strava running app under “Minnesota State Fair run.”
The final stop was at the Agriculture Horticulture building for a glass of honey lemonade, which added another half-mile to the run. That turned out to be Chillis’s favorite item of the day. “That was unmatched. I’m not gonna lie,” he said.
Inspired by late coach — and the Fair
Terry, 57, of Stillwater, has been coaching runners for 35 years. He is the distance coach for the North High School boys and girls track team and was the boys’ cross-country coach at the school prior to the team’s merger with Tartan High School in Oakdale a few years ago. He now serves as the volunteer summer conditioning coach for the North members of the team.
Having his team members come to the Fair is the perfect opportunity to meld his two passions, he said. Alumni helped fund the trip.
“It’s the perfect way to burn off calories at the same time you’re taking them in,” Terry said. “My advice is to try everything. You don’t go to the Fair to count your calories. That’d be very depressing.”
Terry, who goes to the State Fair all 12 days, loves its “sense of community,” he said.
John Class, longtime owner of Libby’s Soft Serve, hands off a cone to North High graduate Charlie Taube during the last food stop of his Minnesota State Fair run. (Mars King / Pioneer Press)
“You can talk to strangers, and it’s not strange. People are strolling. There is no hurrying. Very few people are on their cellphones. They don’t complain about the lines. They don’t complain about the high prices. You know, they’re willing to pay a little more. It really is kind of a break from the real world is what it is, you know? It’s just wonderful. It is the Great Minnesota Get-Together.”
Terry, a 1986 graduate of North High School and the 1985 St. Paul Suburban cross-country champion, said he came up with the idea for running every street at the State Fair as a way to honor his high-school running coach and mentor, John King, who died in 2020 at the age of 88 from complications related to COVID-19. King made the news after he ran every street in St. Paul in 1976 and ran every street in Minneapolis in 1984, he said.
“After he passed away, I thought, ‘Well, how can I pay homage to him and his achievement?’ So I thought, ‘Well, I’ll put my two passions together, and we’ll run every street of the State Fair,” Terry said. “People cheer and clap. One of the vendors waved us over and gave us free water. That was really nice.”
Cross-country advocate
Running in the morning is key, Terry said, because the streets aren’t crowded, the food lines aren’t long, and it’s generally cooler. They run on the Wednesday of the Fair because that is generally one of the slowest days, he said. The boys wear their matching team T-shirts that say “United We Run” on the front and “Finish The Race” on the back.
Wednesday’s run — complete with stops — took about 90 minutes. “We really take our time,” Terry said. “We’re not breaking a sweat. We just kind of take it all in.”
Terry is a passionate advocate for cross-country running for young athletes. “There’s just no downside to joining cross-country,” he said. “I mean, you make friends. It’s a great community. It’s a healthy community. Whether you want to run for fun, or you want to run to get in shape, you’re always going to improve. You’re really racing against yourself.”
Terry, who grew up in North St. Paul, said he went to the State Fair a few times as a child, but his real State Fair obsession started in 2003.
“At first, I wasn’t a big fan,” he said. “I went a couple of times, but then a friend invited me. He talked me into going back, and I had the Australian battered potatoes, and I just wanted more of it. I would go once and then it would be a bummer because it was over, and I’d have to wait a year. Then I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. I can go twice.’ Eventually, once you get to six or seven or eight, you think, ‘Well, I might as well just call it 12 times, you know?’ I get my calorie intake for the whole year, and then I burn it off the rest of it.”
Again next year?
After the run, the boys headed out for strawberry lemonade, black cherry soda and cheese curds.
“Oh my God, I’m so full,” Chillis said as they started to head to the exit. “I had bacon, a strawberry-filled churro, and what else? Double-chocolate ice cream. Honey lemonade. Strawberry lemonade.”
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Chillis said he was glad Terry got them up and out early.
“It was cool watching how it gradually and gradually got more and more people pulling up,” he said. “Coach Dave literally kept emphasizing, we’ve got to get there before everybody else. When he kept emphasizing that, I wasn’t really taking into consideration how much people are gonna start showing up so quickly.”
Terry declared his second-annual cross-country training run a success, saying he would be “hard-pressed to find any other fairgoers who enjoyed the day as much as those boys did.” He hopes word of the fun event will help recruit other runners.
“Next year, I hope we have even more come out,” he said. “Before you know it, it’ll be our 10th year. It’s funny how time flies.”
