If you’re new here, welcome to Run the Shoes, a not-too-serious newsletter about running and fitness. Subscribe to get emails like this in your inbox — it’s free!
Wow you guys, I did it. I went to Duluth, Minnesota with a teething baby and ran a marathon and it was the least relaxing weekend of my life but it was so worth it. This is going to be a long-winded recap so here goes…
We—my husband, newly-minted one-year-old and I—flew to Minneapolis last Thursday morning. We had a whole day to kill once we arrived so we did what anyone who’s never been to Minneapolis does (I think) and went to the Mall of America. We walked around the amusement park and saw a gaggle of Mennonite women and children riding the carousel. After spending the night in the Mini Apple, we drove 2.5 hours north to Duluth on Friday morning. We went straight to pick up my bib at the expo, where I had a mild anxiety attack and convinced myself I was getting the flu because I had a faint headache. I was too superstitious to buy a cool vintage-looking Grandma’s Marathon t-shirt and now I’m mad about it because I can’t find it online.
My race anxiety got worse throughout the day. Every time a “what if… [insert worst case scenario]” thought entered my head, I’d stuff a graham cracker or a handful of sourdough nibblers in my mouth (read last week’s post on carb loading here). I had trouble falling asleep that night, as I usually do before a race, and once I eventually did, the baby woke up… lol. One of my worst-case scenarios was the baby being fussy at night and me not getting enough sleep, and here I was, on the brink of it. I had a feeling it would happen because I noticed two new teeth cutting through her gums earlier that day. I put my hand on her back to get her to fall back asleep and then my husband switched with me so I could go back to bed. I got another solid hour before my alarm went off at 4 am and it was time to get the party started.
The hotel had put out breakfast and coffee for runners starting at 3 am, so I went straight to the lobby to get a banana and coffee, then got dressed and walked a mile to the bus loading zone in downtown Duluth. Since Grandma’s is a point-to-point course, you have to take a bus to the start line 26 miles away. I would never walk anywhere by myself at 4:50 am in New York City, but it felt oddly safe to do in Duluth.
If you’ve ever taken a marathon bus, you know that the passengers are CHATTY. Marathon runners love to talk about marathon running, and they just go off when they’re in an enclosed space with each other. It occurred to me on the ride that after eight marathons—six of which required being bussed to the start—no one has ever initiated a conversation with me on the bus. Clearly, I’m the problem. Not that I would want to talk to a stranger for a 40-minute drive at 5:30 am, but I’d like to be asked. Anyway, I spent the ride eavesdropping on the people behind me—a woman from Boulder who has a 12-year-old and is a nurse practitioner, and a man from Chicago who now lives in the suburbs of New York City (no kids) and is a strategy consultant (he explained, unprompted, what a strategy consultant does for five minutes…….no thank you). He also felt the need to explain who Kara Goucher was to the woman. I think if you’re a woman from Boulder who runs marathons, you know who Kara Goucher is. Anyway.
I had 75 minutes to kill once I got to the starting area. It was quite chilly for June (55 degrees) and though rain was forecasted, it was still only cloudy. I had packed for a monsoon though so I was wearing my rain pants, parka, and garbage bags. The start area was one of the chiller marathon starts I’ve experienced. It’s nothing like New York where you have to wait for literal hours in color-coded “villages” before you can enter your corral, nor was it like Boston which felt like a disorganized music festival. At Grandma’s, you’re just chilling in a field next to a Ford dealership. I was so relaxed that I waited a bit too long to get to the start corral, and I ended up not getting as close to the front as I had hoped. As a result, I started behind the pace group I wanted to run with.
My race plan was to run 7:30-7:25 pace for the first two miles, 7:20 for miles 3-13, then pick up the pace to 7:15 for miles 14-20, and gradually go from 7:15-7:00 for the last 10k. If I could execute this, I’d pull off my A goal of 3:10. I stayed mostly on track for the first part of the race, averaging 1:36:15 at the halfway point. But at mile 13, I started to feel like I needed more fuel. I had trained to take a gel every 4 miles, but the gel at mile 12 just didn’t cut it. I started to feel a little wobbly and took my next gel earlier than planned, at mile 14. That did the job enough that I was able to push the pace a little faster than 7:20, but 7:15 felt too aggressive. I managed to hang onto 7:15-7:20 pace until mile 20, when I really started to feel under-fueled. By then, I had switched to taking gels every 3 miles, but I was running out and could tell I was on the brink of hitting the dreaded wall. I had two choices: continue with my planned fueling strategy and slow down, or consume any sugar I could find on the route and pray my stomach didn’t rebel. I went with the latter, and during miles 20-22, I double-fisted Powerade from the water stations and took a slice of watermelon from someone on the side of the road. I’m very cautious of over-fueling after my stomach bloated to the size of a 6-month pregnant belly during the 2021 New York City Marathon, but I had nothing to lose. I also decided to not look at my watch and just try to hang onto whoever was in front of me. The lights came back on around 23.5 miles, and I booked it with whatever I had left in the tank. In the end, I didn’t hit my goal of 3:10 but came pretty darn close in 3:13:05.
I PR-ed by 10 minutes, so all in all, it was a great race. The weather was better than expected—the temperature stayed in the high 50s, there was a nice tailwind, and though it did end up raining, it wasn’t as bad as the forecast had predicted. And it was a very well-organized event! My favorite part was that you didn’t get your t-shirt until after you finished the race, a contrast to most races where you get the t-shirt when you pick up your bib at the expo. I became mildly obsessed with Minnesota culture during my trip and built up this fantasy that everyone there is a hardworking pioneer, and the race organizers making you finish the race to get the shirt really upheld that vision.
I’ve written way too many words for today, and if you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading. I could go on but I think I’ll save some of my more substantial learnings for another post in the fall, when marathon season really ramps up. That said, if you’re looking for an “off-season” marathon, run Grandma’s!
Before I go, I’d be remiss not to mention the…
Baked Good of the Month
I didn’t eat anything particularly noteworthy before the marathon, but I had a great scone from a cute lil’ French-ish bakery called Duluth’s Best Bread the morning after. I feel like I’ve written about scones a lot… I know people find them dense and dry and I acknowledge that many are, but this one was not! It was lemon blueberry with a nice glazed top, and it was extremely large. Le yum.
See you soon,
Elaheh