What a difference a month makes. A month ago on Labour Day Monday I ran the Huffin’ Puffin Marathon in St. John’s NF, and struggle to finish the last 5K, mostly walking and then collapsing into a cramping muscle mess for 15 minutes after finishing mostly due to hotter than expected temperatures. Yesterday the Twin Cities Marathon I had one of my better finishes, doing a bit of a sprint in the last 200 meters.
My journey started Thursday morning, with an 925 mile road trip to the Twin Cities from Toronto. My GPS routed me through Chicago, which I thought might be congested with traffic, but decided to take this scenic route as many of my friends were running the Chicago Marathon on the same Sunday, thanks to a quirk in the yearly calendar that positioned both races (and the Lakefront Marathon, Milwaukee, WI) on the same day. Routed through the Magnificent Mile in the brief chance I would see anyone I know. But alas, no go. First day’s travel brought me into a hotel just outside Madison WI.
Into Minneapolis-St. Paul after a rainy day Friday start to the second travel day. Parked my vehicle into the hotel parking lot and was able to get an early check in. Hotel was situated right between the Twin Cities on the transit line, so I dropped my bags in the room and took the LRT to the race expo in St. Paul. My company has a few stores in the Twin Cities area, so I was able to say hello to my boss who was there at our expo booth set up. Mid sized expo, so not a whole lot to see. I’m sure they lost a few vendors to the bigger Chicago race.
Saturday was a tourist day, after a good sleep in. Went to, where else, Mall of America and did a lap of all three floors and had lunch there at Noodles Company. So much for staying off your legs the day before the marathon. Later, in the afternoon, went to the Minnesota History Centre Museum near the Capitol building where the marathon was finishing, checking out the finish line.
6:00am CST wake up call, usual peanut butter bagel, banana and Gatorade breakfast, before catching the LRT into downtown Minneapolis (runners got free ride on the Metro on the weekend) for the start next to the very impressive U.S. Bank Stadium. We lucked out with the weather with cool temps in the low 50F and overcast during the race. Chose to wear a ¼ zip long sleeved top and shorts.
Saw the 10 Milers runners get sent off at 7am, then got set for our start at 8am. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a marathon with thousands of people, as I’ve been doing more obscure marathons to complete my 50 states, and usually there has only been a few hundred in the marathon distance. So, had to get use to running packed into a crowd. Lots of turns and curves on this course which follows the many lakeside recreation trails and roads. Number of participants made it hard to run the tangents in the race. The race bills itself as “The most beautiful urban marathon in America,” and I think it lived up to its moniker. You were next to water for almost half the course on beautiful tree lined streets and parks. Just a bit of change in colour of the trees. Spectator support was great as many neighbourhoods made it a party to come out and cheer on the runners. Saw dozens of Super Mario “Tap here for power” signs. Time to move on to something else as that has quickly gotten old. There was one guy with and inflatable Trump punching bag with the sign, “Punch Trump.” There were a lot of takers.
Went through the half in 2:03:38, just about a minute behind my time in St. John’s. Course is a little hilly but not too bad till you get to the 20 mile mark where you basically run uphill for 3 miles. According to the detail stats, my pace between the half and 21M was around 9:38 and dropped to 9:53 between 21M and 24M. But, I was running and feeling relatively good compared to many other times at 20M+. Finally rewarded with a downhill finish in the last mile, increasing my pace to 9:20 from 24M and crossing the finish line in 4:09:49. Almost 17 minutes faster than in St. John’s. Of note with the detail stats after the halfway mark, I passed 613 people and was only passed by 96 other runners.
