Grandma's Marathon 2024 Race Recap: Sometimes, you PR. Other times, you're just trying to stay out of the ER.
A wise woman once told me "a marathon in 20 miles of hope and 6.2 miles of truth." At the 2024 Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, I can confidently say I did not get a full 20 miles of hope, and certainly got more than 6.2 miles of truth.
The first question you might be asking yourself about this race report is, "What on Earth were you doing in Duluth, Minnesota? You live in Canada. Your brother who went with you lives in Florida. You are not trying to qualify for Boston. If you were trying to qualify for Boston you are a day trip away from any number of other net downhill qualifying races. Explain yourself." Dear reader, winding up spending a long weekend in Minnesota with my brother is the consequence of a pact that we made last year to run a destination race (a marathon - this detail will matter later) together every year now that we do not live near each other, and we both are very much into running far. We both compiled wish lists of sorts for marathons we thought would be great adventures to go on together, and after running the Vancouver Marathon together last year, it was my brother's turn to choose. I honestly do not know what exactly made him select Grandma's Marathon, but of course as it is a very well reviewed and beloved event in the marathon world, it made it onto his list. I did not check his math on this decision. We signed up when registration opened, virtual high fived at our brilliant decision, and carried on with our lives.
We were not fully aware of the logistics that would come for us in the ensuing months. As you might have noticed, there is no mention of 'booking flights' or 'reserving hotel rooms' in our initial description. And that would be because we did not do any of those things until about 2 months before the race. I can confidently tell you that everyone else on the internet is right when they tell you that you should be booking your hotel for Grandma's the day after the previous year's race. We were ready to book an RV 38 miles outside of town on AirBnb before I finally found a hotel room with a much more reasonable location and amenities. Holding my nose and paying for the hotel room aside, it was time to book flights. Duluth, Minnesota is conveniently located pretty much between Florida and British Columbia, which sounds like a good compromise for two people 3,000 miles apart seeking a destination to meet in. What this does not mention is the fact that flying into the Duluth airport is prohibitively expensive, and you will be flying into Minneapolis, renting a car, and driving two and a half hours to Duluth instead. Now, for two siblings who haven't caught up in a minute, this is not a massive imposition and allowed for a memorable side quest for tacky souvenirs at the Mall of America. However, it is a less charming feature when you have to get back to the airport for one sibling's 9am flight on Monday morning after the race. All of this to say, if you are considering Grandma's Marathon, do not overlook the logistical details.
Warnings out of the way, I rolled out of bed at 3am on a Thursday morning and dragged myself through YVR onto what was thankfully a direct flight to Minneapolis. After an unremarkable plane ride (as unremarkable as hurtling through the sky in a metal tube to a destination over a thousand miles away), I landed in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and lumbered off the jetway to the sight of my little brother, clad in a matching pickleball jacket and shorts set with his Pit Viper sunglasses and a coffee in hand. We found our way to the car rental counter, where we discovered our first hurdle of the trip: some kind of crisis which resulted in us standing in a line for about an hour to pick up the rental car. This left us plenty of time to commiserate about air travel and snap a selfie for our ever-concerned mother. Car keys in hand, we rolled out to find some lunch at the famed Mall of America. Now, the Mall of America is the largest mall in the United States, maybe all of North America, I don't know. I find this claim a bit spurious because while it is a very big mall which contains an entire theme park and aquarium, a number of the retail stores are DUPLICATES. Which, fine, maybe you do need multiple Caribou Coffee locations in case fatigue strikes while you're several floors and a couple of wings separated from the coffee shop, but I will draw the line at multiple Bath and Body Works location in a single mall. This is the American Excess they warn you about. Anyway, we wandered the Nickelodeon Universe and wax nostalgic about the icons of our childhood before finding our way to the food court, the ultimate lunch destination for diametrically different dietary needs travel parties. I snagged the largest acai bowl I've ever seen (it was called 'yacht' size and while I don't think it could fit an entire Leonardo DiCaprio and whichever model he is currently dating, it was still a formidable opponent even for as hungry as I was) and waited up while my brother fetched a fried chicken sandwich meal from Popeye's, which he would later admit to regretting. We then proceeded to put in our first 10,000 steps in the land of 10,000 lakes by wandering every wing of every floor of the Mall of America in search of the perfect tacky treats to bring back to our loved ones and also so that we could say we'd walked the entire Mall of America and seen everything it had to offer. As someone who grew up in a state known for its endless theme park offerings and moved somewhere known for its endless natural amenities while also having tons of large and vibrant indoor shopping malls, I can't say that the Mall of America was for me, but if you ever happen to find yourself in the Twin Cities it was an interesting stop (and there is a food for every appetite in that food court).
Several hours, a stop at the oldest Target location, and numerous gossip topics later, we found ourselves at the hotel in Superior, Wisconsin. When the race materials suggested that the entire surrounding area was really invested in this event, I was not prepared for the random Holiday Inn we were staying at to be completely decked out for marathon weekend. Balloon banners, buckets of bananas and water bottles, little party favor bags in the rooms with more snacks and sunscreen and race-day instruction printouts. I have never been to an event where the city so thoroughly embraces the race weekend energy. We settled in before exhaustedly conceding that we did in fact have to eat dinner, and dragged ourselves to the Perkins across the street where we reminisced about our family's long abandoned ritual of weekly dinner at Perkin's after church on Sunday while I picked at a rather sad collection of side dishes (eating vegan in the Midwest isn't that hard. Eating vegan at Perkins on the other hand...).
Friday dawned and it was time to hit the race expo and check out a bit of downtown Duluth. The race expo had everything you'd expect... many booths hawking Gu and related products, headbands and shirts with cheesy slogans, booths touting methods to 'reset your nervous system' and 'refresh your blood'. After doing a maple syrup shot and drinking a few different flavors of Celcius, we grabbed our packets and were struck with immediate concern at the lack of t-shirts. As it turns out, Grandma's Marathon gatekeeps its finisher shirts and you will not be collecting one unless you cross that finish line yourself.
Friday evening brought the highly touted Michelena's All You Can Eat Spaghetti Dinner. I'm not certain I've ever seen so many people eating in one location, not even in a university dining hall. The quantities of pasta served were gargantuan. You are by default presented with two dinner rolls as your starting portion, with entire loaves of bread out on the table to follow up. Choccy milk and ice cream also abounded. For the low price of just under $20, there was truly no excuse for not being properly fueled for race day.
Speaking of no excuses, we arrive at race day (yes, I know, we're far into a race report for only just getting to the actual race now. Sorry not sorry). After being rudely awakened by two iPhone alarms perfectly in sync, we dragged ourselves through a semblance of a morning routine. Being so early, and being the more morning-oriented sibling of the two of us, I did succeed in convincing my brother to adorn himself with stick on face gems, as is my custom for races these days. He quite appropriately selected two teardrop shaped gems, "one for every marathon I've killed". Boys will be boys (wholesome) I suppose. We rolled up to the parking lot at the University of Wisconsin - Superior, and beheld the bus line to get to the starting line. This is another quirk of Grandma's Marathon - it is a point to point race, and you get to contemplate the full gravity of your decision to sign up for it on a half hour or so bus ride to the start line. I cannot imagine the logistics gymnastics required to get 9,000 people to the start lines via school buses, but after waiting in line for a bit in the misting rain as busload after busload ahead of us were ferried off, we got onto a bus and the journey truly began.
The starting line was a gauntlet of finish line drop bag collection trucks and porta potties, and a nervous huddled mass praying that the rain would continue to hold off on such a gray and dismal morning. We did our rounds of bathroom and stand-around-observing until it was time to surrender our jackets to the drop back trash cans to be reclaimed at the end of our Ordeal.
We shuffled into our packed corrals, and as the countdown proceeded and the gun went off, we trotted over the start line and down the highway. Now, I will say that the marathon course is quite pretty. You run along a two lane highway for miles and miles, sometimes getting a glimpse of the (angry and gray, on our race day) lake. It is a bit repetitive. You run along Superior for... well, basically the whole race. We were running along at a brisk clip, beating our pacing recommendations without much effort, chasing PRs (for us, sub 3:56:30). We made it to the half marathon point and continued along, but I quickly started to feel the pace catching up with me. By mile 15, I was starting to feel a bit dizzy and nauseous. My brother was doing ok, and he started to pull ahead. By Mile 17, we were officially separated out and my new goal was to stay out of the med tent and avoid an expensive trip to the emergency room. I was thirsty the entire time despite everything feeling sloshy and adhering religiously to my nutrition plan. My brain was simply not prepared for the reality of grinding out 26.2 miles as fast as I could manage on the road. I was quickly discovering that sandwiching a 'fast' road marathon between two trail ultras, without doing any speed workouts and avoiding road running to the greatest extent possible, was simply not something I had cracked this time around. I patted myself on the back metaphorically for coming to terms with my failure rather quickly and for deciding to grit my teeth and get to that finish line no matter how undignified I felt about it. This is where thing became surprising. Despite the pain, and the rain, and the fact that it was kinda cold (too cold to walk for the entire rest of the race for me), the entire race flew by. Even the miles I had to walk some of. I never was out there thinking, 'how much longer?! HOW WILL I ENDURE?!" It just... went by. It didn't matter that the course was kinda boring. It didn't matter that everything hurt and I didn't feel so good. I recalibrated my expectations, trucked along, enjoyed the silly signs and cheers of the spectators (they are just as enthusiastic after hours in the rain. Duluth has an A+ cheering section for sure). I paid attention to all of the makeshift aid stations with juice or beer or fruit. The sign that said "all toenails go to heaven". The fact that from what I could tell, the same spectators were moving from point to point, which is a feat of dedication in and of itself.
As I closed in on downtown Duluth in the final mile, the desire to just walk it in mounted. It was cold. It was rainy. I was over it. However, the spectators mercilessly encouraged anyone who dropped pace and I simply could not handle being yelled at to keep running, so I trudged along. Meters from the finish, the fellow next to me goes, "we're here! We did it!" in awe, and damn if I didn't kinda start crying because yeah, we are here, and we have done it. I have no idea what kind of journey it was for him (but from his tone I might guess it was his first marathon finish), and he had no idea that I too was feeling fairly awed by my ability to drag myself all the way to the finish line in spite of the many things that fell apart for me that morning. We both made it across the finish line, me with a new personal worst marathon time, and my new compatriot very dramatically dropped to his knees with his hands to the sky. I very quickly hobbled away at this point as that was not a narrative that I wished to be included in, and finally the pain and discontent had their chance to hit me full on. As I gimped along with my medal, a photographer flagged me to "Pose with your medal!". Which I totally did because no is not in my midwestern pedigreed vocabulary, but I quickly started crying seconds after that photo was taken. I was handed a mylar blanket (or 'heat sheet' as they called it) and continued my sad, damp, sniffly shuffle to find my brother. At this point I was aware of a new dire issue, which is that the empty Gu wrapper I had shoved in my side pocket under my phone felt as though it had chafed a hole through the side of my leg, and my only remaining consolation was that seeing as I had not passed my brother on the course, it was possible that he was having a slightly better day than me.
This hope was dashed as my eyes alighted on a sad red-headed boy sitting wrapped in a heat sheet under a tree. I hobbled over and also took a seat, at which point he says "I was going to go get my drop back but I can't get up". As the rain continued to fall, we looked forlornly at the lineups of people waiting to collect their drop bags. The competing desires of 'sit forever because wow my legs hurt' and 'I am going to freeze to death if I keep sitting here soaking wet with only a mylar blanket to my name' roiled in our heads until finally, the need to get dry and warmed up won out. While we did have to stand in line for a bit to finally reunite with our jackets and some dry clothes, I will say (full offense intended) that it was more organized than the Sun Run drop back pick up.
I will not go into graphic detail about peeling off clothes that are both sweat and rain soaked in a tent full of other sticky sweaty damp people, the floor blanketed in abandoned heat sheets. I was impressed to discover that while the wayward Gu packet that I was too polite to toss on the road did not bore a literal bleeding hole in my leg, I did have a chafe so bad that in subsequent hours and days it would scab over and make it difficult to sleep. Just when you think you've mastered your chafing prevention routine, nature finds a way.
The trial did not end with getting changed, however. Now that we were warm, dry, and in pain, it was time to hobble the quarter mile or so to the finish line bus stop. Finally checking our phones, we saw our mom's request for additional photos and snapped a very grumpy selfie on the way. Every foot step was a new nightmare as every few seconds one of us thought aloud, "are we there yet?" Finally we reached the buses; I will be the first to tell you that there is nothing more enjoyable than riding an un-air conditioned school bus packed full of sticky, sweaty, damp adults.
We finally made it back to the hotel in a torrent of vague discomfort and grumbling, cleaned up, and landed in the Nirvana that was the clean hotel beds with our respective Nintendo Switch/Steam Decks and snacks. When dinner time rolled around, we ventured back out (full of complaints) to a well reviewed Mexican restaurant. When I tell you this place was sketchy as hell to find, I am not exaggerating. We got lost on a 5 minute drive to the place. The windowless venue on the side of a larger warehouse type building was menacing and did not look like a promising place to find a post-marathon meal. However, upon opening the door, we were greeted by a delightful interior and more tortilla chips than either of us could safely house in our GI tracts. Sometimes, there are secrets to be found in the unlikeliest of places.
The remainder of the trip involves BOGO sourdough loaves, 'vacation coffee', and limping around Duluth the following day which was miraculously sunny. More important than any one thing we did on this trip, though, was the chance to just hang out together. We hadn't gotten to go on a sibling side quest that wasn't a funeral or funeral-adjacent in... well, a very long time. And while those tough experiences brought us together and shaped who we are, it's only in quiet moments of mundane togetherness that you truly get to enjoy who another person is.
In conclusion, our pilgrimage to Duluth taught me a few things.
Always check the full logistics before signing up for a race.
I have to do speed workouts if I want to run PR times. Lame.
We would've crushed a half marathon. Too bad we were signed up for a full marathon.
You should consider cherishing and curating your personal worst performances with as much love and care as your personal best performances.
Just because you hit a physical wall does not mean you need to build a mental wall to match, and your ability to scale your mental walls directly correlates to how you will navigate your physical walls.
The refried beans you eat after a marathon are the best refried beans you will ever experience in your life.
Consider travel insurance if you want to embody the PR-or-ER ethos.
Having a buddy, whether or not you run together, can very easily help you find a 'why' on a tough run. And that 'why' can be 'I need to not keep my brother waiting so long that he loses any remaining respect for me so no more walking'.
Road or trail, rain or shine, PR or ER, there's always more to learn about yourself and others out there.
