Race Report: Grandma's Marathon

Friday: Expo Day

Cassie and I drove into Duluth and immediately went to the Expo on Friday afternoon. The Expo was alright; the expo room in the DECC is a pretty small space considering the number of people there. My only issue was that there was no Grandma's Marathon technical wear to buy. Everything was cotton. I hope they get an apparel sponsor in the future because I would love to have a shirt to wear running. The highlight of the expo was meeting hometown running hero Dick Beardsley. I talked with him for a couple minutes and he signed my bib number. He's a super nice guy, and I hope I get to see him again someday. Packet pick-up was super easy and we went to Michelina's Spaghetti Dinner at the DECC to fill up on carbs. The food was great and just what we needed after a day and a half of driving through Wisconsin and eating too much junk food. We made our way to our friends home for dinner, and after a quick trip to SuperOne for some gatorade, peanut butter, bagels, bananas and sunscreen, we went to bed early.

Saturday: Race Day

We woke up at 4:45 a.m. feeling pretty good after 8 hours of sleep. After getting ready we made ourselves some peanut butter bagels and walked to the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus to catch a bus to the race start. We waited in line for 10-15 minutes before boarding a bus and heading to Two Harbors. There were no issues driving to the race start since it was early and the buses were the only traffic. The weather was really nice and cool in the morning with a nice breeze. The skies were clear, so it was looking to be a sunny day with temps in the 60s and low 70s. After arriving we made a couple trips through the port-o-potty lines and went to the race start. It was a nice atmosphere and I was feeling good. It took us about 5-6 minutes to walk up to the starting line once the race started, but after that we were able to immediately jump into our race pace of around 10 minutes/mile.

The course was beautiful and Cassie and I had a great race. We were strong and kept a nice pace through about 20 miles, then we needed to start taking walking breaks. I started getting some stomach cramps around 21-22 miles, mostly I think because of the Ultima. That stuff was nasty.

The people of Two Harbors and Duluth really come out and support this race. There were a lot of supporters on the course not just in Duluth, but along Highway 61 in the middle of nowhere. There were also many Elvi, bands, musicians and Al Franken. That's right. Al Franken. We ran past him around the 9-10 mile marker and thought we were seeing things, then when we passed him around mile 17-18 again I got my picture taken with him.

Our mile splits according to my watch, which slightly vary from our chip time:

Mile 1: 9:53
Mile 2: 9:45

Mile 3: 9:45

Mile 4: 9:28

Mile 5: 9:29

Mile 6: 9:56

Mile 7: 9:37

Mile 8: 10:00

Mile 9: 9:53

Mile 10: 9:29

Mile 11: 9:59

Mile 12: 10:07

Mile 13: 10:08

Mile 14: 9:41

Mile 15: 9:40

Mile 16: 11:52

Mile 17: 11:06

Mile 18: 9:56

Mile 19: 9:56

Mile 20: 13:35

Mile 21: 13:11

Mile 22: 11:23

Mile 23: 10:55

Mile 24: 12:20

Mile 25: 11:41

Mile 26: 10:12
Mile .2: 2:07

We finished in a chip time of 4:35:04, which was a lot better than we expected, especially since the course seemed alot hillier than expected. We just aren't able to train for that in Chicago, no matter how big the hills. I loved the race and would definitely do it again in the future. Wading in Lake Superior after the race was really nice...but even too cold to stay in for long. I do believe that it helped our recovery though, because we were feeling okay the day after the race and within three days we were pretty much back to normal. My recovery for Grandma's was a LOT better than AZ in January.

Thanks to the organizers of Grandma's and the people of Two Harbors and Duluth for a great race weekend.

A Minnesota 20 miler

We were up in the Twin Cities this past weekend for my sister's wedding. We took a couple days off from work for the trip and got up north on Wednesday night. Friday morning we left our hotel to drive downtown near the Mississppi river for our 20 mile long run. After doing some research on MapMyRun and the MDRA website I determined our best route to get in the miles and not get completely lost was to run along the Grand Rounds River Byway. It was a great path along the Mississippi and Minnehaha rivers. We planned to do two 5 mile out and backs in each direction to keep our car as a central point so we could have Gatorade and water. The weather was a little on the warm side in the mid 60s, but still very manageable.

We forget how spoiled we are on the lakeshore in Chicago. I assummed there would be plenty of water fountains along the path, but it took us 5 miles to find our first fountain, which actually was a water pump. The Minnehaha path followed a nice quiet river through some parks, a golf course, nice neighborhoods, and a couple lakes. It reminded me of the River Path in Chicago in some ways, but it was a smaller river and a bigger park. There weren't many runners out on Friday, but we did see several bikers. At the 5 mile mark with the water pump we turned around and went back to the car. On the way back we did find one more water fountain with about 2 miles left.

After a brief break at the car to take some GU and Gatorade we set out north along the Mississippi for the last 10 miles. The path had been very flat until this point when it decided to go downhill a ways very close to the river. Going downhill is fine until you have to go back the other direction. We made it about 3 miles when the path came to a closed off fence area near the I-35W bridge which collapsed last year. I was suprised to see lots of torn and twisted pieces of metal from the bridge lying out behind the fence. We were forced to turn around a couple miles early and head back to the other direction, after a mile we were able to find a water fountain with some gross milky looking water. We were so thirsty that we would have drank anything though. It was getting warmer and we hit the hill so we walked back up a little bit before running to the car for another GU and Gatorade break.

We still needed to run 4 more miles to complete our training run, so we set out 2 miles in the other direction towards the Minnehaha river again. Cassie and I were both feeling the distance considerably at this point so our run had slowed to more of a shuffle. We found the fountain again after 2 miles and then shuffled back to the car to finish the run. On the last mile I started loosening up again despite the pain, and ended feeling strong. I think our 22 mile day two weeks ago was a more difficult run for me.

We're returned to Chicago on Sunday afternoon and ran a nice 5 miler along the river. It's such a great feeling to complete that final long run. Now we just have a couple shorter long runs for our taper period and we're driving to Duluth for Grandma's Marathon on June 21st. I am already looking forward to a victory wade in cold Lake Superior after running 26.2 miles. It's going to be sweet.