As colder temperatures settle in and trees shake off their remaining leaves, our minds are turning to the season ahead.
During this season of generosity and gratitude, we’re reflecting on how grateful we are for you – our Run Minnesota community.
Whether you’ve been a member for 25 years, just ran your first race with us, are a long-time volunteer, lend your time and talents as a board member, or provide funding to fuel our mission – it’s because of you that we’re able to support runners of all ages and abilities across Minnesota.
Photo by Isaiah Rustad
One of the highlights of our year has been welcoming more than 1,000 people into our community through training and race scholarships and through free running events, like our Como Relays, Victory Races Kids’ Run, Wirth Trail Classic and the Black Friday 5k.
And with our 2025 races just around the corner – that number will continue to grow.
Thank you for all you do to make these free initiatives possible.
Photo by Carly Danek
Running Connects and Strengthens Us
Your reasons for being a part of our community are as numerous as there are all of you. But one thing is certain – we’re connected by our deep belief in the transformational power of running.
Running pushes us to discover what we are capable of. Running connects us to new friends and longtime neighbors. Running helps us care for ourselves and care for one another. Running builds healthier communities. Running makes us stronger in body and mind. Running reduces our stress and boosts our emotional wellbeing. Running supports our local businesses and promotes economic vitality. And so many more…
What would you add to this list?
At Run Minnesota, we believe that the countless benefits of running should be available to every person across the state. Looking ahead to 2025, we’re excited to continue the work of welcoming even more people to this sport we love.
A big part of this includes removing barriers to access for those experiencing financial stress, those in rural areas, and those who have historically been excluded from running spaces due to racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, body/fat shaming and other forms of discrimination.
Building a More Expansive, Accessible Running Community Together
We know the work ahead is much larger than just Run Minnesota or any single organization. It requires a broad ecosystem of individuals and groups coming together to build a more expansive running community around the state.
The Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) Movement is a call to “re-examine every fundraising practice and philosophy [many of us] have been taught and explore doing fundraising in ways that reduce harm and further social justice.”
CCF is anchored in 10 core principles (Please follow this link to dive deeper, and while you’re there, show the organization some love by donating or lifting up their work in other ways):
Fundraising must be grounded in race, equity and social justice.
Individual organization missions are not as important as the collective community.
Nonprofits are generous with and mutually supportive of one another.
All who engage in strengthening the community are equally valued, whether volunteer, staff, donor, or board member.
Time is valued as equally as money.
Treating donors as partners, and this means being transparent, and occasionally having difficult conversations.
Fostering a sense of belonging, not othering.
Promoting the understanding that everyone (donors, staff, funders, board members, volunteers) personally benefits from engaging in the work of social justice – it’s not just charity and compassion.
Seeing the work of social justice as holistic and transformative, not transactional.
Recognizing that healing and liberation requires a commitment to economic justice.
As we reflect on the way these principles will guide our path forward, we’re turning to you – our Run Minnesota community.
To help us move closer to our vision of a healthier and more active state, please consider the many ways you can continue to be involved in this important work.
Image by Carly Danek
Support Run Minnesota
Click here to Make a Financial Gift: We recently launched a Springboard for Running Campaign to raise $20,000 by the end of the year. Please consider making a donation. Gifts of all sizes make a difference.
Click Here to Become a Member: Our members fuel our mission. As a member you get access to a host of great benefits and help bring the power of running to more people across the state.
Click Here to Volunteer: Our work wouldn’t be possible without the large squad of volunteers who donate their time throughout the year to bring our races and programs to life. Check out our current volunteer opportunities and consider joining us for an upcoming event.
Click Here to Become a Board Member: We are currently seeking applicants with skills in fundraising, governance and/or leadership. As always we’re eager to continue expanding our board by welcoming applicants who represent a variety of identities and lived experiences across Minnesota.
Share Your Ideas: Is there another way you’d like to show your support? Please connect with us! We’d love to hear from you. Email hello@run-minnesota.org.
Support the Wider Minnesota Running Community
Minnesota has many nonprofits encouraging running and health and wellness across the state, and we’d like to highlight three that may not be on your radar to elevate their work.
Miles for Mentors (Willmar, MN)
Miles 4 Mentors is a non-profit organization based in Willmar, MN that is focused on providing local children with the resources they need to participate in and benefit from youth sports and activities. They host Fun Run Events, provide activity and equipment scholarships, provide youth mentors, and foster a love of running and an appreciation for the benefits of physical fitness among children in grades K-12.
Wiggle Your Toes (National, based in Bloomington, MN)
Wiggle Your Toes is a 501(c)(3) created in May 2008 to help victims and families of victims who have experienced limb loss. Their weekly mobility clinics at the University of Minnesota Fieldhouse begin in early January. Wiggle Your Toes believes that movement is medicine. With their mobility clinics they provide a safe environment for our community (individuals with disabilities) to stretch, walk, run and connect with others like them. Wiggle provides the venue, the guidance, support (volunteers) and equipment (prosthetic running blades, knees, and feet.) The clinics are free of charge and open to all levels of ability.
Wiggle Your Toes was successful in getting legislation passed in Minnesota that will provide coverage from insurance companies for running blades, fitness prosthetics and orthotics for individuals in our community. This will be in effect on January 1, 2025.
The Patrick Schoonover Heart Foundation was created to honor and remember Patrick Schoonover who passed away at the age of 14, due to Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA), caused by undetected heart defects. The foundation’s goal is to bring SCA awareness, education and prevention and to eliminate SCA in kids.
SCA is the leading cause of death among student athletes. The Patrick Schoonover Heart Foundation offers free heart screens for ALL kids 14-24 throughout the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
We also invite you to show your support for other running/sports groups and organizations, including those that center and celebrate Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), disabled people, those in the LGBTQIA+ community, and those of all body types and sizes.
Here are a few amazing organizations we work with in Minnesota that we recommend you follow, support and donate to this season:
Dakotah Lindwurm: The Walk-On Who Worked Her Way To The Olympics
Words by Sarah Barker
On paper, Dakotah Lindwurm was a long shot to make the Olympic marathon team. Her high school and college running resumes were modest, especially compared to the NXN and NCAA champions also on the start line. She had the eighth fastest time going into the Olympic Trials Marathon. LetsRun didn’t include her in their top eight picks, and put her at #10 of eleven on their dark horse list.
But hers is a story not captured by statistics. Self-belief, grit, resilience, passion—these things can’t be measured but are every bit as responsible for her Olympic berth as months of meticulously planned workouts.
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“I didn’t have doubts,” Lindwurm said. “I must have texted my dad ten to 15 times before the Trials to get his passport. I truly believed I was going to make that team.”
Periods of homelessness, losing her mom to cancer, married right out of college and divorced—any one of these challenges might have derailed her. But they didn’t. In fact, they made her stronger.
“I’ve always had this belief that I was going to do something great, that I had the ability. I felt it in my heart and soul. That I wasn’t going to live this normal life. I could do something amazing if I worked hard for it,”
Beginings
Dakotah is the only child of Shawn and Connie Bullen. She grew up in St. Francis, about 40 miles north of the Twin Cities. Like a lot of Minnesota kids, she started playing hockey in second grade—her first Olympic dreams involved skates, not running shoes. Her parents divorced when she was in elementary school, and shortly after that, her mom started suffering a debilitating array of symptoms, including fatigue so severe that sometimes she couldn’t get out of bed. Eventually, she couldn’t work. Connie Bullen went to doctor after doctor but no one could provide a diagnosis, and without a diagnosis, she couldn’t get financial assistance to help pay rent. When Dakotah was in middle school, she and her mom sometimes stayed with relatives but sometimes had to make do by sleeping in their car in a Walmart parking lot. This, at a time when many of Dakotah’s classmates were feeling deprived because they didn’t have the latest smartphone or $150 sneakers. She wasn’t immune to the unfairness. Some in her situation would have used this as an excuse for bad behavior or failure at school and socially.
“Partly, that’s not who I am,” Dakotah said. “I am not one to lash out in general. My mom was going through so much mentally, being misdiagnosed. She was so unlike the mom I knew as a child. I could see it was wearing on her. Me being mean about that would only make her feel worse. We were in a system, and I was determined not to fall into the traps of being a bad student or not turning in my homework. The way out of that, as I saw it, was working hard and making sure I did better for myself. Being outwardly angry toward my mom wouldn’t have changed anything. We were a bit of a team—she was honestly my very best friend.”
“I knew I was going to do something big because I was always told I was going to do something big”
Afraid their homelessness would jeopardize her ability to stay with her mom, Dakotah didn’t mention it when she stayed with her dad. But when he chastised her for not keeping her phone charged, she couldn’t keep the secret any longer. In an amazing display of generosity, Shawn Bullen immediately stepped up and rented a townhome where they could all live together, creating a family unit rather than merely subsidizing an apartment for Dakotah and Connie. And this was key to Dakotah’s growing sense of self, that she was loved and important.
“Stability was more than just housing. My mom’s health issues were pretty severe. Even after she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, getting the right medicine was a really long process. To have my dad there gave me extra stability. He could drive me to hockey practice or to my friend’s house. When I look back at it, having two parents who 100% told me I could do whatever I wanted if I worked hard was really important. They believed in me. My mom said, ‘Dakotah, I don’t know what you’re here to do in this world, but you’re going to do something amazing. You’re going to change the world.’ Maybe that was just the mom in her talking, but her always having such high belief in me…I knew I was going to do something big because I was always told I was going to do something big. I have incredible memories with my mom. It was not always easy, but that made me a gritty person. I never look back and say I wish my childhood had been different.”
falling in Love with running
By eighth grade Dakotah was the starting goalie for St. Francis/North Branch, living and breathing hockey. This mono-focus didn’t sit well with her mom, who encouraged her to broaden her activity horizons. Dakotah considered tennis but couldn’t abide the wardrobe requirements—skirts—so she went out for track her freshman year. She did not show immediate talent. By her own admission, she was “terrible.” Other 14-year-olds might have been disheartened and quit, but Dakotah dug in and started working harder at practice and running on the weekends.
“It’s so natural to me to get better if I’m bad at something,” she said. “You know, my dad’s the hardest worker I know. He was up at 2 am, 3 am, to go to work. If he doesn’t know how to do something, he figures it out. Having that example, it doesn’t feel like there’s any other option.”
She continued to play hockey in the winter and summer all the way through high school but thoughts of playing in college were fading. Instead, she found herself falling in love with running.
“In track and cross country, working harder meant measurable improvement. In hockey, I might have a great game but we still lost. With running, if I worked harder, I got faster. And it was so social and fun. When you’re the goalie, you’re in the net by yourself.”
One can imagine the bubbly, ever-smiling Dakotah jogging along with her teammates, chatting and laughing, in the moment, as high schoolers are. Little risk of overthinking. Certainly, she put in the work and saw improvement, but it was largely in service of being a contributing member of the team. By her senior year, she estimated her long run was 7 or 8 miles, with no more than 30 miles/week. That year she finished the Roy Griak Cross Country Invitational in 169th place in 22:09 (just over 7-minute/mile pace), and graduated with PRs in track of 5:35 for 1600 meters, and 11:56 for 3200 meters. “I never made it to the state meet. It wasn’t even very close, to be honest,” she laughed.
For perspective, Fiona O’Keeffe, who won the Olympic Trials Marathon and will be a teammate of Dakotah’s in Paris this summer, placed fourth in the Nike Cross Country Nationals as a sophomore in high school in 17:31, a 5:39 minute/mile pace. O’Keeffe won the California State 3200 meter race in 2016, and was a two-time California state cross country champion. Sara Hall, one of many highly decorated women at the Trials Marathon, finished her high school career with a 4:46 best at 1600 meters, and 10:11 at 3200 meters. Olympic teammate in the marathon, Emily Sisson, was already a seasoned international competitor by the time she graduated from high school, having set a U.S. national record for high school girls of 15:48 for 5000 meters.
Those women’s impressive high school stories could already be told in places, minutes and seconds. It must also be said that a fair number of high schoolers who won state championships never ran again. While Dakotah’s high school times were indeed modest, the groundwork was laid for an untapped aerobic beast who simply loved running.
Photo by Katrina Gaisford – 2024 Olympic Trials
She wasn’t recruited by any college, but Northern State track and cross country coach Kevin Bjerke thinks Dakotah likely received a general letter from their DII program. “I was so in love with running, I would have kept doing it even if I had not walked on. I had improved pretty substantially every year in high school, which made me think I was not anywhere near my ceiling. And I’d been playing sports ever since I could remember—not being on a team was a scary thought. I loved the camaraderie, so I thought, why not give it a shot?”
After a visit to the Aberdeen, South Dakota campus, Bjerke invited Dakotah to walk on to the team. “I saw she had a great personality and would be a good fit for the team, even if she didn’t blossom as a runner,” he said.
Running 40 to 50 miles/week as a freshman was quite a jump from the 30 miles she’d been doing in high school, but she seemed to handle it well, and was consistently the third to fifth runner in cross country that fall (2013).
In track, Dakotah went immediately to the 10,000 meters. “There was zero question,” Bjerke said. “Her form, her ability to just float through long runs and recover quickly—everything about her just screamed distance runner.”
Dakotah and freshman teammate Sasha Hovind had come into Northern State with the same high school PRs, but Sasha improved dramatically that first year. “Sophomore year, Sasha made nationals. I was far from making nationals. I sat there and watched her raise that trophy over her head and thought, I had the same PRs as she did; there’s no reason I couldn’t be there. She took me under her wing and said, ‘Here’s everything I did. You can do it too.’”
It was apparent to everyone that longer was better for Dakotah. Bjerke sent the runners home for the summer with instructions to get in some local 5Ks and 10Ks, but Dakotah found an advertisement for the Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon and couldn’t let go of the idea.. “When I asked Coach Bjerke about doing it, he said absolutely not!” She persisted, bargaining that she’d do it really slowly, like a long run rather than a race. That promise fell by the wayside when she got to an aid station and was informed that the first woman was only a minute ahead. Dakotah won the 2014 Eugene Curnow in 4:21. And the 2015 version in 3:57. And 2016 in 4:01.
With gradual increase in volume came steady improvement in performances. By her senior year, she was putting in a 16-mile long run, and topped out at 80 miles/week. She laughed remembering that the guys on the team weren’t thrilled when she showed up for the long run because they knew she’d push the pace, especially at the end—6:30, 6:20. Now, of course, they’re taking credit for her success.
“Eighty miles a week is flirting with risk versus reward,” Bjerke said. “But Dakotah had such a nice progression, and just ate up all the miles I could throw at her with ease. She had one major injury her senior cross country season, so she got a fifth cross country season, and graduated in December 2017.”
Her Northern State career included five nationals qualifiers and two All-American honors in cross country and track, and PRs of 16:47 for 5,000 meters, and 34:57 for 10,000 meters.
Coming back to her apartment after the last cross country national meet in 2017 was a bit of a shock. A big empty. She’d been part of a team since second grade. What now?
“She was interested in continuing to run after college, and it was clear she had a love for it,” Bjerke said. “I thought the [2020] Olympic Trials Marathon was a fairly achievable goal. Her tempo runs are 6:10, 6:20 with ease. I had very little doubt about her being able to qualify for the Trials, which I think was 2:45, but at that time, there was very little indication she’d be under 2:30 and knocking on the door to the best marathoners in the country. Honestly, I thought making the Trials would be the pinnacle achievement of her post-collegiate running.”
MInnesota Distance Elite
The team atmosphere seemed to suit her, so Bjerke first contacted Andrew Carlson, a former pro runner with Minnesota Distance Elite, and then the coach of the group, Chris Lundstrom. Though Dakotah didn’t have the times to qualify as a full member of the team, Lundstrom invited her to train with the team. She moved to the Twin Cities in early 2018, got a substitute teaching job, and started her post-collegiate running as a walk-on. Again.
2018 City of Lakes Half Marathon with Minnesota Distance Elite (formely Team USA Minnesota)
Even for those coming out of college with NCAA titles, pro running is a gamble that, even in the best of circumstances, barely allows athletes to pay rent and keep up with their student loans. Graduate school, career, family, and major purchases usually have to be put on hold. For most, going pro is a limited time experiment. But Dakotah did not give herself a deadline.
“That would have been a wise thing to do, but no. I thought I would do it as long as I loved it. I thought as long as I worked hard, something would work out. That was incredibly naive, I know.”
If there was anything she excelled at, it was hard work. Logging 80 to 90 miles/week, she notched a 1:16 at the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon the summer of 2018. That and solid performances at shorter races earned her a full membership on Minnesota Distance Elite. Her first go at racing the marathon, California International in late 2018, ended in a DNF, a tough learning experience. She came back to place fourth at the 2019 Grandma’s Marathon in 2:34, well clear of the 2:45 needed to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon. Again, that performance far exceeded anything that her running resume to date would have predicted. Both coach and athlete were delighted, but not surprised.
“The marathon is clearly her best event,” Lundstrom said, “and it’s not a distance that’s contested in college. And it takes a few years to get near your potential because of the demands of the event. Also, as a D2 runner from a small high school, she was not exposed to the kind of high level competition a D1 runner might have had. A D2 runner like Dakotah might have more potential in the marathon than it would appear on paper.”
Practicalities of paying rent aside, she liked the balance of having something in her life besides running, so she always had at least one part-time job. In early 2020, her mom was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer. Connie moved in with her daughter so Dakotah could more easily care for her. Connie Bullen, her inspiration, her best friend, passed away May 30, 2020, at the age of 49. It was a huge blow, but made her even more committed to her mom’s belief in her destiny.
While some pros top out at 80 miles/week, Dakotah thrived on high mileage, gradually increasing to 110 then 120 miles/week over the next four years, notably without injury. Nothing mysterious really—she was consistent, year in, year out, putting in the work. She won Grandma’s Marathon again in 2021 and 2022, competed well in a field of the best runners in the world at the Boston Marathon in 2022 and 2023, and lowered her PR to 2:24 at the 2023 Chicago Marathon, and still, still, names like Emily Sisson, Sara Hall, Keira D’Amato, Betsy Saina, Molly Seidel, and Aliphine Tuliamuk far overshadowed Dakotah Lindwurm in the media.
“I like the challenge of getting better. It puts a chip on my shoulder. You know, underdog is a role I like to play. I never would have fallen in love with running the way I did if I had been good at it right away. I wouldn’t get that dopamine rush of seeing big improvements.”
2024 olympic trials
After the Chicago Marathon her focus shifted to the Olympic Trials Marathon, three-and-a-half months away. She moved to Florida in December to acclimate, cleared the calendar of all races, and settled on a plan to build to 130 miles/week—ambitious, but supported by her history.
“Coach Lundstrom has been really good about building me up slowly and cautiously. I’d topped out at 120 miles/week for the last several marathons, and it had gone well, so I suggested 130 miles. I thought I could handle it. When I get into those high mileage weeks, I’m so tired my body doesn’t have time to process how much it’s doing. When I get into the taper I feel worse because my body has time to tell me my quads hurt. But for those 4 to 6 weeks before a marathon, I’m comfortable being in that zombie state.”
Lundstrom, too, was comfortable with the “subtle shift” from 120 miles/week to 130. “She’s incredibly consistent, and takes care of the little things. And she doesn’t go out and jog—her miles are at an honest clip.”
“I have this self belief that I was going to do something great, that I had the ability. I felt it in my heart and soul, I wasn’t going to live this normal life. I could do something amazing if I worked hard for it.”
Dakotah had the eighth fastest marathon PR going into the Olympic Trials in Orlando, which may be close to the front of the field, but this is not horseshoes. She was not getting a lot of pre-race attention from the media. Yet she and Coach Lundstrom were quite optimistic.
“Other than Betsy Saina, I didn’t believe anyone else had as good a buildup as I did. There was not a single workout where I wished it had gone better. I was near or faster on every workout than I’ve ever run.”
Lundstrom, too, thought a top three finish was doable. “We talked about it. Looking at the list of PRs, those are times people have run on the very best day of their life, which might have been ten years ago. You have to set those aside. A third of the women will not be in shape or injured or not really prepared. Another third will do something not optimal—freaking out because it’s the Olympic Trials, going out too fast. We thought if Dakotah could control her effort and run a smart race on that day, her odds looked a lot better than by simply looking at everyone’s PRs.”
The plan was to be “unseen and unheard” as long as possible, moving up by stealth, but seeing her family at the start of the second loop (of four), she got excited and took the lead briefly. Self-belief or no, she stifled it and faded back into the chase pack. Around 22 miles, when the rubber hit the road, and she was battling Caroline Rotich for that third spot, her mantra came out, one she’s used since college—I am strong, I am fast, my speed will last. She didn’t speed up, she just kept her pace. Relentlessly, steadily. But Rotich hung on just in her wake. The strain showed—her signature smile didn’t appear until steps before the tape, where she joined fellow Olympic teammates Fiona O’Keeffe and Emily Sisson.
“I think I was just in shock. All my hard work, and deep belief in myself had finally paid off!”
Minnesotan in paris
Puma, Dakotah’s sponsor, flew her and Coach Lundstrom to Paris to preview the Olympic marathon course. Here was Lundstrom’s assessment: “It’s fairly flat in central Paris, but then you run out to Versailles, ten miles over what would appear to be a small mountain range. It’s mind-boggling. I’ve never seen anything like that in a road marathon. It’s going to come down to who can handle that terrain and then be able to run the last 10K.”
Media attention has added another element to Dakotah’s schedule since February. Seeing her struggling to recover, former Minnesota Distance Elite teammate Katie Jermann advised Dakotah to pay attention to self-care. “I told her she didn’t have to always be 100 percent,” Jermann said. “Dakotah at 60 percent is more than most of us are on our very best day.”
In May, Dakotah focused on some shorter races, before starting her build toward the August Olympic marathon. As of May, she was still working as a paralegal and coaching others through Team Run Run, but says she’ll pull back on work once marathon training starts.
Dakotah joins a proud legacy of track and field Olympians from Minnesota. Of course there’s Carrie Tollefson (1500m, 2004) who provided commentary for the 2024 Olympic Trials Marathon. Others that come to mind are: Joe Klecker (10,000m, 2021), Mason Ferlic (steeplechase, 2021), Payton Otterdahl (Shot put, 2021), Ben Blankenship (1500m, 2016), Garry Bjorklund (10,000m, 1976), Janice Klecker (marathon, 1992), Ron Daws (marathon, 1968), Buddy Edelen (marathon, 1964), Shani Marks (triple jump, 2008), Steve Placensia (10,000m, 1988 and 1992), Bob Kempainen (marathon, 1992 and 1996), Kara Goucher (5000m / 10,000m 2008, marathon 2012). There are many more.
Like Dakotah, many of these Olympians were long shots to make the team at the time. Something to do with the weather, or Minnesota’s position in the Midwest, or our understated nature. In fact, Dakotah sees these as reasons Minnesota has so many dedicated runners. “You have to be a gritty human, trudging through the snow to get to the bus stop. Everything is kind of hard. I mean, how hard can a 5K be when a few months ago you had to shovel out your car?
“If you can survive a winter here, you can survive a marathon.”
It’s the first really steamy day in the Twin Cities. Dakotah and twelve of her Minnesota Distance Elite teammates are on Washburn High School’s track, stretching, doing drills, changing from trainers to faster trainers. A media team follows Dakotah around, getting a closeup of her shoes, the sheen of sweat on her face, the banter between teammates, the tattoo on her calf: Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us, from Hebrews 12:1. It’s controlled chaos, Coach Lundstrom says as he juggles three watches, since people are at different points in their training for different races. Dakotah and Annie Frisbie will be heading to New York City in a few days to race the Mini 10K Women’s Race. They’ve got a descending ladder—1600, 1200, 800, 400, and 4 x 200, with minimal rest.
Game face on, Dakotah takes the lead for the 1600.
“They were supposed to shoot for about 5-minute pace, but they just came through in 70 seconds, so about 4:40 pace,” Lundstrom says. “Must be a bit of adrenalin.”
As the intervals get shorter, Annie’s speed and Dakotah’s claim to fame as a never-say-die marathoner become apparent.
“Cowboy, take me away,” Dakotah laughs as they blast off for a 400.
contributors
sarah barker
Sarah Barker lives and runs in St. Paul. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Deadspin, Runner’s World, and elsewhere.
Track Photos: Isaiah Rustad
Isaiah Rustad is a photographer based in the Twin Cities. His work revolves around sports, live events, and anything else involving action. Running photography is a new passion of Isaiah’s. In the past year he’s photographed for Mill City Running, TC Running Company, Providence Academy Track and Field, and more. His portfolio of work can be found at isaiahrustad.com/running
If you’ve ever spent time running with a local club, training for a race, or spectating at an event in the Twin Cities, there’s a good chance you’ve crossed paths with Danny Docherty. An elite runner and native of St. Paul, his racing and coaching life is deeply rooted in Minnesota.
Whether working as Program Director at Run Minnesota, training and racing with Team USA Minnesota (now Minnesota Distance Elite), or coaching with Highland Groveland Recreation Association, just to name a few – Danny has influenced many local athletes, students and organizations through his work and mentorship.
At 34 years old, his list of running accolades is long – but you may never know it by chatting with him.
When asked about one of his favorite running memories, Danny doesn’t tout his third-place finish at the 2019 Twin Cities Marathon (TCM) or his two-time qualification for the Olympic Trials in the Marathon. Instead, he recalls supporting his mom during a marathon she was running.
“It was a windy day at the Virginia Beach Marathon and I jumped in the race to help block the wind for her. She was unable to finish the race that day but I think it showed me that it is always worth the attempt to go for big goals, even when things don’t work out the way we want them to.”
The need for grit in the face of unexpected challenges has played a big role in Danny’s running career, and has led him to some of his proudest racing accomplishments.
Photo: Wayne Kryduba / Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon
“[The 2019 Twin Cities Marathon] seems like a time when it all came together for me. I wouldn’t necessarily rate it as my best performance in my career, but it was a race where I had doubts about whether I would finish at all.
“I fell off the lead pack around 15 miles and ran the next 10 miles basically solo. I experienced some cramps after 20 miles and had to really battle coming up Summit Avenue. By staying with the race and never quitting, I was able to finish in third place in what is still my marathon personal best of 2:15:55.”
Danny credits much of his success that day to all his friends and family who came out to bike along the course and cheer him on from the side lines.
“I think that support is what made me not want to give in and it is special when you feel like it is bigger than just you and a race. There is so much support that happens along the way in the training and encouragement throughout a career.”
Danny’s journey to the TCM finish line in 2019 shares themes with his much longer running journey over the past 30 years – a strong support system to help him celebrate his achievements and lift him up during challenges.
His path to the sport began when he was very young, biking and running around his childhood neighborhood of Summit Hill with friends during the summer.
Then in 8th grade, he ran his first one-mile race competitively, going neck-and-neck with his classmate all the way to the finish line. “From that moment, I realized how fun the competition of the sport could be.”
During Danny’s sophomore year at Cretin-Derham Hall (CDH) in St. Paul, he joined the Track and Field Team led by his coach Chris Babcock, and also ran cross country.
In addition to running, he was also involved in basketball, soccer and baseball. He attributes some of those experiences to helping him become a more successful runner.
“In high school, our club soccer coach JJ really challenged us. That was the hardest I had trained in my life. He would have us run loops around Como Lake for 5-6 miles while dribbling the ball. It really paid off in the coming seasons of both soccer and running. His influence came at the right time in my life.”
The influence of Coach JJ paired well with Coach Babcock’s approach to running. The CDH distance program emphasized giving it your all and helping others get better.
“We went through some challenging workouts as a team. I still remember the 10x400m workout at the Macalester College track on a rainy Saturday morning. It was the hardest workout of my life up to that point. But when you are completing the work with 30 teammates, it becomes slightly easier and more fun. Coach Babcock found a way to combine fun and hard work into one.”
In 2006, Danny qualified for the MN State Meet in the 3200m and his soccer team won their league. Then during his senior year, he went on to become an All-State performer in the 1600m and 3200m, finishing 5th and 4th respectively.
“Running is a sport that asks, ‘What can you give?’ The effort and results are completely dependent on what I put into it. I appreciate that equal exchange. I also liked the simplicity of the competition as a high schooler. I eventually created the goal of earning an athletic scholarship to attend college and compete at the next level. Running gave me a drive that was above and beyond the drive I had in other areas of life.”
Following high school, he attended Loyola University in Chicago where he ran Cross-Country and Track and Field at the Division I level while studying English and Psychology.
While in college, he qualified for the NCAA West Prelims in the 10,000 meter, and received All-Conference Honors in Cross Country and Track. Currently, Danny ranks as the #6 All-Time performer in the 10,0000 meter at Loyola.
Amid many accomplishments, Danny’s time in college also brought injuries.
“I had a soft tissue injury in my knee that kept me out of my junior year of Track. I trained solo for most of this time in a pool, either swimming or aqua jogging. I remember shifting my perspective and learned to see improvement in my swimming times that helped me see I was still getting better even without running miles. This helped me become resilient and aware that being healthy requires discipline and precise choices in life.
[It] also helped shift my perspective to maximize the time when I was healthy…to give everything I had to each race. I didn’t know when I would get another opportunity to race so I figured I needed to put it all on the line today and just be grateful I was able to run.”
Since college, Danny has gone on to become the USATF Minnesota Runner of the Year in 2019, 2022 and 2023, and the winner of the 5K, 10K and 10 Mile races during TCM Weekend in 2021.
Most recently, Danny qualified for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials (he also qualified for the 2020 Trials on 3 separate occasions) – where he finished 64th in the Men’s Field with a time of 2:20:41.
Nadir Yusuf – Male Athlete of the Year in Track at Minnesota State University Moorhead between 2019-2021 – trained for the Trials alongside Danny in Orlando. They met at the 2021 Medtronic TC 10 Mile Race, where Nadir locked in a second-place finish following Danny’s first-place time.
The two of them spent weeks together heat training in Orlando to prepare for the February 2 race featuring the top 300+ runners from across the country vying for a spot on the Summer Olympics team.
Nadir – who finished 25th with a time of 2:16:15 – often trains alone, but was grateful to have Danny as his training partner, especially during the long runs. “We shared lots of words of encouragement and spent our workouts and easy, long runs just blabbering with each other. It really made my Olympic Trials experience what it was. I’m very thankful for everything he’s done for me. Running brings you to good people,” he said.
In addition to racing, Danny’s road to coaching started when he got his USATF Level 1 Coaching Certification after college, which opened the door to a variety of opportunities.
First, he became an assistant coach at his alma mater Cretin-Derham Hall, where he coached the Raiders alongside his high school coach Chris Babcock.
“I find a lot of joy through the experience of coaching. It’s a great way to connect with people and help them grow through a team experience. I enjoy how each season and team is a little different and there is a sort of chemistry that develops each season and makes a specific team tick. I enjoy the process of finding that energy and then helping it grow throughout a season.”
Danny’s love for coaching has helped him make a home with a variety of other organizations throughout the Twin Cities.
In his role with Run Minnesota, Danny has worked since 2022 as Program Director and Coach for the organization’s Training Program, where he supports people of all ages and abilities in preparing for distances from the 5K all the way up to the marathon.
Run Minnesota member Mari Ruddy trained with Danny for the 2023 Grandma’s Marathon – her second race of that length – which she ran 10 minutes faster than her first marathon 12 years earlier. As someone with Type 1 Diabetes who’s going through her third round of breast cancer, she appreciates the care Danny provides in helping her navigate the challenges of the sport.
“Danny consistently makes himself and his knowledge available to every runner in the program. He’s attentive, kind and he always makes me feel that my questions are worth listening to and responding to with attention and thoroughness…even for the ‘slower’ runners like me.” – Mari Ruddy
In addition to working with Run Minnesota, Danny is Director of Track and Baseball Operations with Groveland Park Recreation Association and Assistant Coach for Track and Cross Country at Visitation and DeLaSalle High Schools respectively. He also has an independent coaching business, Docherty Coaching, where he helps athletes and coaches grow in the sport.
Today, Danny holds Level 2 coaching certifications from USATF (Youth Specialization), USTFCCCA (Endurance Specialist) and the Lydiard Foundation.
Outside of coaching and racing, Danny finds camaraderie and joy running with El Jefe Running Club in St. Paul.
“I met members of El Jefe in various walks of life. [We] go for runs, meet for coffee and share the love of the sport. It’s a community I greatly cherish. We are a team because we all know each other well and can celebrate if it’s a good day or pick each other up on a not-so-good day.”
El Jefe members at the start of the 2022 Twin Cities 10 Mile & Marathon
This love of running isn’t just a part of Danny’s life; it’s woven into his family. His mom, Bev Docherty, was also an elite runner for many years.
The marathon he jumped in to help shield her from the wind? Bev was racing that day in Virginia Beach to qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials.
In addition to qualifying for and completing 6 Olympic Trials, she’s also a two-time U.S. Masters National Champion in the Marathon, a 2003 Inductee to the Minnesota Track and Field Hall of Fame, and has spent 28 years teaching and coaching at the K-12 level.
“I look back [at that Virginia Beach marathon] now and it may have been a passing of the racing torch [from my mom to me],” Danny says.
Looking ahead, Danny is preparing for the 2024 City of Lakes Half Marathon and Twin Cities Marathon. But he’s also prioritizing time for other things that are important to him, like getting outside to kayak and camp and spending time with family and friends, including some of his teammates who have lifted him up throughout his running career.
“When I reflect on the times when I’ve made the most gains in my running, it is always because I had a specific team, teammate, or collective team goal to get the most out of our efforts in the sport. I think teamwork transcends the finite energy of an individual effort into the shared vision of a community.
The running community can offer something to everyone who joins. It can take time to find that group or team that will help you get the most out of yourself, but I believe the search and discovery process is worth it in the end.”
There were 23 athletes with local ties to Minnesota to cheer for at the US Olympic Trials. These athletes represented a mix of those originally from MN, current residents, and high school and college alumni. The US Olympic Trials, like every marathon, has story lines filled with themes of heartbreak, redemption, breakthroughs, and perseverance. In an effort to capture some of these stories, we commissioned freelance photographer, Katrina Gaisford, to be the official Run Minnesota press photographer on the ground in Orlando.
Congratulations to all the athletes who participated in the trials on their accomplishments and to Dakotah Lindwurm on making the 2024 Olympic team!
We believed!
Reed Fischer (front left in adidas), Hopkins High School Alumni.
Biya Simbassa (center second row in Under Armour) attended Bloomington Kennedy High School.
The race start with Carrie Tollefson, Olympian and resident of St. Paul, announcing.
Nadir Yusuf of Moorhead ranked 69th going into the trials; finished in 25th place.
Joel Reichow (center in white) from White Bear Lake.
Gabi Rooker (center) of Minneapolis.
Dakotah Lindwurm of Minnesota Distance Elite getting ready for the start of the women’s race.
Crowd favorite, Run Minnesota Program Director and Saint Paul-ite, Danny Docherty (in white)
Left – Breanna Sieracki (right) of Bloomington with Minnesota Distance Elite. Her last marathon before the trials was the supposed to be the canceled Twin Cites Marathon.
Right – Elena Hayday, former Gopher, now sponsored by Oiselle.
Left – Ben Olson of Coon Rapids was the youngest Minnesotan. This was his second marathon.
Center – “Queen of the Road Mile” Heather Kampf of Minneapolis running for Mill City Running.
Right – Tyler Jermann of St. Paul with Minnesots Distance Elite. His instagram says he’s using this to jump start his spring training. He’s the three time City of Lakes Half Marathon Champ, so we are pretty excited to hear that!
Annie Frisbie of Minneapolis with Minnesota Distance Elite, on her way to a top 10 finish.
Nadir Yusuf
Danny Docherty
Bria Wetsch, Holy Angels Alumni, on her way to a 2:36:00 finish.
Laura Paulsen (left) of Pylmouth, MN.
Kim Horner (second from left) of Minneapolis. Kim was ranked 144th going into the trials and landed a time of 2:36:47 for a 40th place finish.
Dakotah’s Day
Dakotah’s Day
Katrina Gaisford is a Twin Cities based freelance sports and wedding photographer. Her work has been featured in Minnesota Bride and Trials of Miles. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Music Theory.
Ticket Punched:
Minnesota’s Best Marathoners Earn Chance to Compete at the Olympic Trials Race in Orlando
By: Jonathon Heide with help from Patrick Mader
The ultimate race in the sport of long-distance running has always been the Olympic Marathon. Powered by the mythos of the storied Greek runner who died, and boosted by the four-year pause between races, the unrivaled global competition at The Games is the pinnacle of the sport. This summer’s Paris Olympic Marathon will draw the world’s attention.
For American runners who love the sport though, the real excitement begins with the penultimate race: The United States Olympic Trials. Dreaming about the race elevates our heart rate, prompts heated debates, and puts us into fangirl/fanboy mode ready to cheer at the top of our lungs. In running vernacular, it is often called just “The Trials,” which plays to the crazy nature of a 26.2 mile footrace in which the country’s best marathoners clash and dash.
Minnesotans will have 23 athletes with local ties to cheer for, and every one of them has taken a unique path to arrive at the starting line near Lake Eola Park in downtown Orlando at 10 a.m. (EST) Feb. 3. Some were Minnesota state high school cross country champions, some ran at the University of Minnesota, some were middling DIII competitors, some are Olympians already—but all trained intensely to hit the new standards to qualify for race.
The 2024 US Olympic Trials qualifying time for men was pushed from 2:19 to 2:18—just a minute, but at 5:18 pace, that’s no easy gap.
For women though, the qualifying time leapt from 2:45 to 2:37—a testament to how much American women’s running has advanced. To run under 2:37, a marathoner has to click off sub-six-minute miles.
Any American who ran under those times from Jan. 1, 2022, to Dec. 5, 2023, qualified for the race (and a few qualified with half marathons under 1:03:00 for men and 1:12:00 for women). That’s 703 days of mind-boggling mile repeats, fatiguing fartleks, and brutal base-building. After the deadline, 227 men and 137 women met the goal. Twenty-six of them are either currently from Minnesota or were from here previously. (Three will not be running—Ben Blankenship is focusing on a 100-mile race, Rachel Drake is opting to run a 100K to qualify for Western States, and Emma Bates is recovering from an injury).
Many of the elite qualifiers successfully pushed USATF, the governing body, and NBC, which will broadcast the race, to change the start time (it was initially set for noon) over concerns about the Florida heat and humidity. But none of that sideshow really matters for Minnesotans. We, as a people, have a natural inclination for migration to Florida in February. We go from the -20 windchill around Bde Maka Ska to the beachy bearfoot runs, basking in the sunshine. Of course, the local elites have already been acclimating, and our ‘23-’24 winter is sans snow anyway.
So for our Olympic Trials runners from the North Star State, it won’t matter if the Florida sun and humidity emerge, or if the morning starts frosty and the orange trees’ crop is in danger. Several will be at the front, vying for a top-three finish: Dakotah Lindwurm, Annie Frisbee, Gabi Rooker, Joel Reichow, Biya Simbassa, and Reed Fischer are all big hitters. In typical Minnesotan fashion, they are also underdogs. But they are ready to rumble harder than a school of graphic designers wrestling over what loon design will go on the new state flag.
The top three finishers on the women’s side will be named to the Olympic team and given their kit to wear on the morning of Aug. 10 in Paris.
For the men though, the story is a little more complicated. Well, a lot more complicated. The top two men will be named to the team, but a third American male runner is not guaranteed at the Olympic race.
Here’s why: Countries can send a runner only if they meet one of two criteria. The first is having a countryman run under 2:08:10. This “unlocks” a spot for whomever the country decides to send. The second criteria is a top 80 ranking in the “Road to Paris” list published by World Athletics (only 80 athletes will be in the Olympic race). Athletes are granted points for the speed of their marathons and their placing in competitive races.
The United States “unlocked” two spots at the 2023 Chicago Marathon when Connor Mantz ran 2:07:47 and Clayton Young ran 2:08:00.
If the Trials was an uber-fast race, maybe someone will break 2:08:10 and the third spot will be unlocked. Could it happen in the Florida humidity? Maybe, but not likely.
More likely is an American staying in the top 80 of the “Road to Paris” list. Currently, NAZ Elite athlete Scott Fauble is 213th on that list, but since only the top three from each country count in the rankings, he is ranked 69th.
If everything stayed the same until May, when the list closes, Fauble’s ranking could “unlock” the third spot on the team, which seems almost assured. But he could be knocked down 10 places if we see record-fast times from runners in countries that don’t already have three runners on the list. Think Tanzania, Lesotho, Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia.
So it is likely, but not guaranteed, that Fauble’s ranking could “unlock” the third spot on the team. This would allow the third-place finisher at the Olympic Trials Marathon to punch their ticket to the global stage.
Though there is one more catch.
The US Olympic men’s marathon team can only consist of runners who have dipped under 2:11:30 in a qualifying race. Less than 20 men have done so, which means that the Trials race will have to be fast (like 2:11:29 fast) for anyone who wants to finish top three and has not yet run that standard. So far, only 18 of the qualifiers have run under 2:11:30, and three of them are locals: Biya Simbassa, Joel Reichow, and Reed Fischer.
The American women have none of this trouble because, well, we’re in a new day of distance running for American women. More than 13 have run under the 2:26:50 Olympic qualifying standard, which includes Dakotah Lindwurm, Gabi Rooker, and Emma Bates. This will make for an epic Trials race that many, including Trials veteran Des Linden, are saying will be the best US competition ever. And the top three will be Paris bound without any complication.
Could one be a Minnesotan? We believe it! We tracked down all the qualifiers with connections to the Gopher State. Read through, pick your top three, get some popcorn and watch the race unfold in Orlando.
This Article Is Sponsored By
Run Minnesota, the oldest and largest running organization in the state, with a proud history of supporting running since 1961.
Additional: Emma announced she will not run the 2024 trials due to injury.
2014 NCAA DI 10,000m Champion (32:32.35); 2018 World Championship Half Marathon at Valencia, 27th (1:1a1:45); 2018 US Marathon Champion at CIM (2:28:19); 2019 USATF 25K Champion at Amway Bank River Run (1:23:51); 2019 Chicago Marathon fourth place (2:25:27); 2020 Olympic Trials, 7th (2:29:35); 2021 Chicago Marathon second place (2:24:20); 2022 World Championship Marathon in Eugene, seventh (2:23:14); 2023 Boston Marathon fifth (2:22:10)
Additional: 2014 Wisconsin State High School Cross Country Champion (DI); 2018 NCAA DI National Cross Country Championship 34th; 2021 NYC Marathon 7th (2:26:18); 2023 Berlin Marathon 17th
Additional: OTQ in the 2023 Houston Half, 15th woman overall, 7th at Grandma’s Marathon 2023 2nd at Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon 2022, 10th at Cherry Blossom Run 2022
Additional: Youngest competitor at the 2023 US Olympic Trials Marathon. Finished 11th at the 2023 NCAA DI 10,000m National Championship race, then jumped to the 2023 California International Marathon, where she finished third in her 26.2 debut. Nuttall did not race much in high school but did compete in the 2019 state cross country championship, where she placed 83rd. She was also a competitive figure skater and cross country skier.
College: University of Minnesota, Oregon Health and Science University
QT Race: California International Marathon 2023
Sponsors: Nike, Osprey
Additional: Decided against running the 2024 trials to run the Black Canyon 100k in February. 2018 US Trail Marathon Champion; 2020 US Olympic Trials Marathon 59th (2:41:58); 2023 CIM 5th (2:35:28)
College: Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, MIT
QT Race: 2022 Chevron Houston Marathon
Additional: 4-time NCAA Division III All-American; upcoming inductee into Johns Hopkins University Athletics Hall of Fame in April 2024; have competed for Twin Cities Track Club, Greater Boston Track Club, BAA, Tracksmith
High School: Kennedy High School, Bloomington then moved to Iowa and was at Sioux City North Prep.
College: Iowa Central Community College/Oklahoma University
QT Race: Prague Marathon 2023
Sponsors: Under Armor
Team: UA Mission Run Dark Sky Distance
Additional: In 2015, started professional career in Minnesota coached by Dennis Barker; Then went with American Distance Project in Colorodo; Victory 5k course record holder. 2023 US National 7 Mile Champion at the Bix 7 in Davenport, Iowa (32:35); 2023 Prague Marathon, 7th (2:10:34); 2023 World Athletics Half Marathon Championship, 25th, (1:01:28); 2022 Valencia Half Marathon, 17th (1:00:37); 2022 US 10K Champion at Great Cow Harbor in Northport, New York (28:12); 2021 US Olympic Trials 10,000 meters in Eugene, Oregon, 7th (27:59.94) 2021 US National Champion in the 25K at Amway Bank River Run in Grand Rapids, Michigan (1:14:27); 2021 US National Champion in the 10 mile at the Cherry Blossom 10 mile in Washington DC (46:18); 2019 NACAC Cross Country Champion at Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago (31:49); 2017 NACAC Cross Country Champion at Boca Raton, Flordia (22:40)
Additional: NCAA All American (started as a walk on at Drake), 2022 Boston Marathon, (2:10:24), 2022 New York Marathon, 10th, 2023 World Athletics Half Marathon Championship, 53rd, 1:03:56
Additional: 1st Minnesotan at Grandma’a Marathon 2023. Minnesota State University Moorhead record holder in the 10,000m (2022 Mt. SAC Relays, 5th 29:03:05)
High School: Stillwater High School (2006, 2007 Minnesota State 1600m Champion)
College: Mississippi State, University of Minnesota
QT Race: McKirdy’s Micro Marathon 2023
Sponsors: Unsponsored
Additional: Decided against running the 2024 trials to run the Rabid Raccoon 100 mile in March. Road mile personal best of 3:52.7, set while winning the “Minnesota Mile” in Duluth which is the fastest mile in Minnesota state history.
2016 Olympian in the 1500; distance medley team World Record Holder, 2023 Climate Action x Athlete Advocacy Awardee, Founder of Endless Mileage, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to fostering sustainable environments and programming that inspire the next generation of track & field athletes to break barriers.
Additional: 2013 Twin Cities Marathon, 9th (2:15:48); Set the World Record for an Indoor Track Marathon in 2016, then set it again in 2018 at the Annual Armory NYC Indoor Marathon World Record Challenge (2:19:01)
Additional: 2015 State CC Champion; 2017 State 1600 and 3200 Champion, 2015 NXN Heartland Boys Champion; 2019 NCAA DI Cross Country Championships, 10th
Additional: Won the TC 5k, TC 10k and TC 10 Mile in 2021, becoming the first person to win three events on TCM Weekend, 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Qualifier – Marathon, 3rd at the 2019 Twin Cities Marathon, #2 All-Time performer at Loyola in the 10000m – 29:16, 5x All-Conference Award Winner.
College: University of Minnesota, University of Portland
QT Race: Indianapolis Monumental Marathon 2023
Additional: 2012 Class A Minnesota state high school cross country champion. Helped Portland University to a second-place team finish at the NCAA DI Men’s Cross Country Championship after passing 19 people in the final stretch. For a while, he loaded up a bicycle and logged more than 11,000 miles circling the United States.
How to watch the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials:
The marathon will stream live on Peacock 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST and broadcast (taped delay) on NBC 12:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EST.
Watch Parties that we know about:
Run Minnesota Watch party at Dual Citizen Brewing. – sold out –
Even had the internet existed in the 1980s, Mark Nenow would have had a low profile. He rarely talked about himself, and trained alone using methods that worked for him, regardless of the wisdom of the day. Nenow is not even well known in his home state of Minnesota, though he broke 28 minutes for 10,000 meters ten times between 1982 and 1989, held the American record for 10,000 meters of 27:20 for 15 years, and, in the 1980s, world best for 10K on the road, 27:23. He was the top ranked U.S. 10K runner three times in the late 1980s, and was never ranked lower than fifth between 1981 and 1989. All of this, in shoes that barely provided coverage much less any sort of energy return. He was almost entirely self coached.
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Run Minnesota, the oldest and largest running organization in the state, with a proud history of supporting running since 1961.
Nenow’s early experiences at Anoka High School started him on the path to being one of the greatest distance runners in U.S. history.
Being slight of frame but strong, Nenow wrestled his freshman and sophomore years, and intended to keep up with it his junior year, but the four guys working with him at the Burger King talked him into joining cross country skiing instead. “I just wanted to hang out. I wasn’t that good at it,” he said. Nonetheless, he was one of the top skiers on the team that winter, 1973-1974, earning a varsity letter, something he said was “a motivator.”
School started his senior year the Tuesday after Labor Day. Nenow was surprised to receive a note in math class from the cross country coach, Bruce Johnson, that read, You’d better be at practice this afternoon. So, he went to practice. The first week consisted of 100 miles in five days. “Twenty miles a day, and we did it,” Nenow recalled. Other character building training sessions included 20 to 30 times up sandy hills, fartlek runs, trail runs near the high school, four to five mile repeats. Ten days into the season, Anoka had their first meet. Nenow was their top runner. With two months of running under his belt, he won the state cross country title in 15:10 for 4800 meters.
By the time track came around in the spring of his senior year, he was running 70-90 miles a week, with a long run of 12 miles. His mile repeats were all under 5:00 “and they didn’t feel that hard.” Getting beat by Blaine in the conference meet was a bit of a wake up call, but the team rallied, dusted off some vintage Anoka uniforms for inspiration and went one (Nenow), two, three, dominating the meet.
“The day before the state meet, the Star Tribune had the top ten (prospects to win), and I wasn’t on the list,” Nenow said. “I was tactically oblivious, never interested in who was ranked number one or who the other ranked people were.”
In what was to be his trademark style, Nenow went out at the front and ran his own race. “All of a sudden, there were three of us, then two, and somehow I won.”
“In retrospect, some of those attributes that made me strong in a competitive sense (not paying attention to others in the race) were my weakness, like in the Olympic Trials, when you do need to have a strategy.”
November 2, 1975 Anoka’s Mark Nenow, sandwiched between and slightly behind Dave Chatelaine of Osseo and Lee Kantonen of Cloquet as they neared the two-mile mark in Saturday’s Class AA high school cross country meet, moved ahead shortly thereafter and finished first.
Donald Black, Copyright Star Tribune 1975.
Kentucky
The first time running in college ever entered Nenow’s mind was after the state track meet. Prior to that his plan had been to attend the Air Force Academy. His PRs of 4:22 at the mile and 9:17 for two miles—which he remembered as an “easy race”—were good but not great, and the fact that he’d only been running for one year seemed to put coaches off. He did get recruitment letters and calls, but the only D1 school that offered him a scholarship was the University of Kentucky.
“The Kentucky coach was from Elk River. We met at an Embers, and a month later he gave me a scholarship,” Nenow recalled.
He was active over the summer but didn’t do much running. “I was never a very good summer runner. I could get in shape fast, from no running to running a lot.”
That ability came in handy, as he jumped right into 100 mile weeks at Kentucky. On a team of very talented runners every workout was a competition, and consequently, injuries were endemic. High mileage was the norm in the 1970s, so Kentucky was not unusual in that regard. Unfortunately for Nenow, who might have benefited from stable coaching as a neophyte, the coaching and administrative staff was in disarray. The coach who’d recruited him was fired his sophomore year, and the new coach, Don Weber, brought in almost an entirely new team.
Weber instituted regimented 6 a.m. workouts and insisted that team members live in the dorms on campus. This did not sit well with the individualistic Nenow.
“I was an awful racer. For two years in a row, I was almost last at NCAA Cross Country Nationals. There were maybe 10 guys behind me,” he said.
Partly due to unsuitable coaching, and partly to his lack of maturity as a runner, Nenow “didn’t do much” through his junior year. By senior year, he came to an agreement with Weber that he’d do his own training.
“I didn’t look in books or anything. I just had a sense that I had to run a lot. And I went back to night running.”
Being a night person anyway, this is how one of Nenow’s most abiding training quirks got started. Twelve to 14 miles in the afternoon at a quick pace—always sub-6:00, sometimes sub-5:00—on a hilly loop, and a second run at 11 p.m. of seven to eight miles, also fast. Same routes, six days a week with a 20 miler on Sunday. He estimates 95 percent of his training was done alone. It’s not that he thought he knew more than the coach or that others couldn’t do those workouts. He just wanted to do what he felt was right for him on that day.
By spring of his senior year his training was going well. He felt ready to run a fast 10,000 but needed the right race to help him achieve it. At the 1980 Penn Relays, there was a university 10,000 meters and an open race. Nenow, entered in the university race, wanted to run 28:45 but knew he had to be in the open race to accomplish it. “I had to find a way to get in that open section.” He unobtrusively stayed in the pen when the university runners were ushered onto the track, lining up instead in the open race. He ran 28:30.
Capping off his senior, he placed seventh in the NCAA 10,000 meter Championship, and qualified for the Olympic Trials. “That validated in my head that I didn’t need a coach and didn’t want input,” he said.
World Best at Crescent City Classic
Nenow finished 11th in the Olympic Trials 10,000 meter final, not, he said, dampened by the knowledge that the U.S. would boycott the 1980 Olympics, but rather indicative of a career long problem peaking for a particular race. “The way I trained never allowed me to pick a day and do it.”
He continued living in Lexington, enrolled in graduate school and received a stipend from Nike that allowed him to hit the track circuit in Europe for the first time in the summer of 1981. Though he’d sworn off coaching, he did respect Western Kentucky runner Nick Rose. “Nick gave me a 12 week program that was really simple, and I followed it to a tee.”
That program was much like he’d been doing—13 runs a week with a long run of 15 miles (Nenow hated long runs), hills in the first workout on Monday, track on Wednesday afternoon, rotating eight x 800, six x 1200 and four x mile with short rest, with the usual seven to eight miles at 11 p.m. Blasphemy to today’s runners, he didn’t time or measure anything, just stuck with the same hilly loops in Lexington he’d done since he first moved there. Using this protocol, Nenow managed his first big breakthrough—27:36 at Mount Sac in 1982. Nick Rose’s response? “What? Say again. I’m not going to be able to coach you anymore.”
And he didn’t. Nenow went back to his own program—20 to 25 miles a day, 13 runs a week, all of it in the low five minute range. Running with a radio, he “went all out for a song, easy during the commercial, then all out again for the next song.”
He was serious about time off—didn’t run from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, which he rang in with a 15 mile run. By the end of January, he was back to 140 miles/week.
After that 27:36, he thought the American record—Alberto Salazar’s 27:25 set in 1982—was within his grasp, but “didn’t go telling everyone.” He spent nearly half the year living and training in Teddington, England with coach and manager Kim McDonald, and McDonald’s stable of Kenyan runners. While Salazar, Greg Meyer, Bill Rodgers and Minnesota’s own Garry Bjorklund were very visibly ripping up the roads here in the U.S., Nenow did much of his racing in Europe, and trained alone in Lexington—not a hot spot— when he was in the U.S. Others tried to get him to join one of the training groups popping up, specifically Athletics West in Eugene, but he felt an inexplicable pull to his Lexington stomping grounds. He did, though, join a local running group, the delightfully named Todds Road Stumblers. Adding to his under-the-radar status, the marathon was the marquis event; the 10K, and even less so, 10,000 meters on the track, Nenow’s specialty, didn’t garner the same attention.
In early 1984, he did a couple road races as training for the Olympic Trials. The race director from the Crescent City Classic wanted him there but said he had no appearance money. That is, until Joan Benoit canceled.
“I felt like a million bucks,” he said. ”It didn’t matter how fast the others ran, I was just gliding, and I ran away from them at four miles.” It was a world best, 27:23, but not a world record since the Crescent City course is not eligible.
It appeared his run up to the 1984 Olympic Trials was going very well, he was in supreme shape, almost a shoo-in to make the team. As per usual, he didn’t taper much. “I didn’t make any adjustments (for anyone else in the race). I thought I was one of the hardest working guys there.” He finished 11th. Frustratingly proving his fitness, after the Trials, he went to Europe and paced Fernando Mamede to a world record on the track (27:13).
“After ‘84 the American record was still hanging out there,” Nenow said. He spent half the year in Teddington with Kim McDonald, and half the year in Lexington. Huge mileage, 140 per week, sometimes more. He ran a stellar 27:48 on the roads in March of 1985, and another 27:40 on the track in Stockholm but couldn’t seem to break through. McDonald, who Nenow had grown to trust, saw that the American was, as they say, doing the same thing and hoping for a different result. McDonald thought it would just take a few tweaks, nothing major, for Nenow to get into record making shape.
McDonald introduced him to British coach Alan Storey, who had coached Sonia O’Sullivan and, more recently, Mo Farah. Of course, knowing Nenow’s resistance to highly controlled coaching, Storey was merely a suggestion. He gave Nenow some workouts that he could take or leave. He took them.
“They injected some speed work and tempo running, but they didn’t try to change me,” Nenow said. Some examples—8K time trials, eight x 1600 w/45 second rest, 16 x 800 w/30 second rest.
Mark Nenow in Stockholm, Sweden Todds Road Milemarker Issue #2
10,000 Meter American Record!
“I flew back to Kentucky and did seven weeks of hard, hard training aiming to set the record in Brussels in September. I honestly wasn’t sure I could do it—8K on the track in hot weather in 22:10. A 10K in 29:00 as part of a workout.”
1986 was to be the year for the American record. All his training and racing was built around it. Of course, all the usual hurdles were there—there were few really high quality 10,000 meters, stacked with fast folks, run in any given season; there weren’t many pacers available who were capable of pacing an American record; because of the interval needed between hard efforts, you only got maybe three chances in a season; you had to remain injury free; and all of these variables had to align with a day that you felt really really good. Luck played a distressingly outsize role, Nenow admitted.
The first go in June 1986 in Oslo resulted in a 27:28, an eight second improvement on his PR, scaring the American record. Then a fast 5,000 in Paris showed he was still in fantastic shape. But he worried that maybe the Oslo race had been his only chance that season, that he wouldn’t be able to come back.
“I flew back to Kentucky and did seven weeks of hard, hard training aiming to set the record in Brussels in September. I honestly wasn’t sure I could do it—8K on the track in hot weather in 22:10. A 10K in 29:00 as part of a workout.”
The race was set up perfectly with a field of fast runners and several pacers who would take them through 5,000 meters. Nenow had asked them for 13:45 at the half, but they came through a little slower than that. Seconds mattered. Lapped runners sometimes relinquished the track at the last minute, breaking his rhythm slightly, but for the most part he felt smooth and fast, in the zone, the same nearly effortless sense that many record setters describe. He floated to the American record—27:20.56—which stood for nearly 15 years, until it was broken in 2001 by Meb Keflezighi.
Even as he celebrated his record setting run, it did not go unnoticed that he lapped Henry Rono, who’d always been an inspiration to him. It was a vivid display of the fleeting nature of athletic success.
Being a high mileage runner, Nenow seemed made for the marathon, so he kept training until November and ran the 1988 NYC Marathon, where he finished eighth in 2:14. A month later he had surgery on his hamstring, which was unsuccessful and had to be repeated. “I started training for the 1989 NYC Marathon, but the hamstring problem came back, and I dropped out. And that was it,” he said. Though he was only 32, he felt he was on the far side of his competitive career.
He had a third hamstring surgery but continued to be plagued by injuries. Nenow still had moments of brilliance—a 13:20 5,000 in 1989 and later that summer, a 27:42 10,000. And he set his road 5K PR in 1994, 13:56 at Carlsbad, but the miles had taken their toll.
He found a career in the athletic footwear industry, first working for Asics, then Nike, Brooks and Columbia, recently retiring from the top job at Sorel.
Running in this country, particularly track running, is only associated with the Olympics. When people find out Nenow is a runner, which rarely comes up in conversation, they ask if he’s been in the Olympics. They’re always a bit disappointed when he says No, no I haven’t. Certainly, setting the American record and those years around it were high points—and here you can cue Frank Sinatra’s My Way—but looking back, Nenow cherishes most what he learned about himself in all those miles stretching from Anoka, Minnesota to Lexington, Kentucky to the bucolic footpaths of Teddington, England.
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On September 10 shortly after dawn, more than 1,400 people began gathering along Lake Harriet Parkway in South Minneapolis, basking in a reprieve from the record-breaking heat and humidity that stifled much of the state and country this summer.
As the minutes approaching 8:00 a.m. wound down, some people squeezed in final warm-ups, others mingled with friends and family at the ready to show support from the sidelines, while others snapped selfies to commemorate the start of their first or 100th race. No matter their pre-run routine, everyone’s reason for coming together was the same: to participate in the 42nd Annual Jeff Winter City of Lakes Half Marathon.
At the sound of the horn, the runners burst across the start line and began their 13.1-mile journey, buoyed by the cheers of enthusiastic spectators and a welcome combination of overcast skies and temperatures in the low 60s – a pleasant contrast to Labor Day a week prior, which was the hottest on record.
The course led the throng of runners in two figure-eights around Lakes Harriet and Bde Maka Ska, down streets decorated by trees still donning monochromatic foliage, and concluding near the Lake Harriet Bandshell.
Celebrating repeat wins were all three first place winners from 2022, including Tyler Jermann who locked in a “three peat” – or three consecutive wins – in Men’s, crossing the finish line at 1:05.59.
“This year, the competition was very strong and there was a pack of four of us until late into the race. This made things much more interesting from a strategic perspective, and a bit more stressful in deciding when to make a move to ensure I could hold whatever gap I was able to achieve until the finish line,” Jermann said. “Certainly the tightest margin of the three wins here and the hardest earned.”
The “pack of four” that Jermann referenced included Kevin Lewis – City of Lakes runner-up who clocked in at 1:06:09 – 3rd place winner Danny Docherty and Joel Reichow, who came in 4th.
Jermann, Lewis and Reichow are teammates with Minnesota Distance Elite – formerly Team USA Minnesota. In February, all three are headed to Orlando for the U.S Marathon Olympic Trials, which Jermann qualified for running 2:14 at the 2022 Houston Marathon. He also competed in the Trials in 2016 and 2020.
The Olympic Trials are also top of mind for Women’s first place winner Heather Kampf. She ran the previous four Trials in track and is hoping to qualify during the California International Marathon (CIM) in December.
Running 1:14:58 at City of Lakes with a 42-second lead over runner-up Emma Huston allowed Kampf to clinch the Women’s title for the second year in a row. Her strong finish also secured her the Minnesota state record for 36-year-old women, which was last set by Susannah Beck in 2004 at the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon.
Four-time United States National Champion in the 1 Mile Road Race, Kampf spent the majority of her running career focused on middle-distance running. Only recently did she begin exploring the world of long-distance, with the 2022 City of Lakes event marking her first time running a half marathon competitively.
“This venture is a passion project and a fun goal to chase for me. I really didn’t expect to like these long distances as much as I have been,” she said. “We’re thinking next year it might be cool to run a trail race. Trails are probably the most intimidating to me, so I figure that means I have to try it!”
Nonbinary defending champion Maxi Erickson expected a different outcome at the finish line. “I was planning to just stay on the hip of my pacer, but after three miles I found myself pulling away. I couldn’t see him behind me and I had to make a decision: if I was going to slow down and run or if I was going to keep racing people. I wound up racing comfortably and was really surprised at how strong I felt.”
Using that renewed motivation to continue pushing forward, Maxi landed a finish time of 1:28:42. With four marathons under their belt, they are preparing to add a fifth in Kansas City next year. “I’m hoping to be strong enough to go under 3 hours in Kansas but would settle for a PR.”
In addition to a robust lineup of champions and elites – the event also brought together a team of runners and FundRacers for the event’s charity partner Mile in My Shoes (MiMS), a Twin Cities nonprofit that brings the transformative power of running to people experiencing homelessness, addiction and incarceration.
Over the summer, MiMS Members and their Run Mentors dedicated their Saturday mornings to train for City of Lakes. On race day, 22 Member-Mentor pairs circled the lakes side by side, energized by high-fives and roars of encouragement from dozens of other crew members stationed along the course.
They were joined by 13 FundRacers who helped bring in more than $10,000 to support the nonprofit’s work centering people and spaces historically excluded by the running community.
For MiMS Alumni Distance Team Member Robbie, City of Lakes was one of several milestones for him that week, including the one-year anniversary of his release from prison.
“The start of the half marathon [there were] so many people. For someone who has been in prison a long time, I didn’t like that – I don’t want people I can’t see behind me, I get jumpy. It was scary, but I survived it – and that was a growth moment for me, another chance to challenge these beliefs I’ve held onto for so long,” he said.
“It was a huge accomplishment to finish the race. I was hurting badly and the negative thoughts about being a failure came in hard. Without my Mentor I would’ve given in and given up. I’m so grateful to MiMS – coming around that last corner and seeing and hearing all of [them] yelling for me, it was just amazing. I cried when I finished. I realized that I can succeed if I put forth the effort and believe in my support system – and myself. Even though my feet hurt so bad today!”
Sore feet and misty eyes were just a couple of the badges of achievement that runners wore home on race day. For one participant, it was the pride of completing 13.1 miles after only jumping into the sport this year. “I just started running in May and this was my first half marathon. I loved my experience even though I didn’t meet my predicted time,” they said. “There will be another one for me for sure.”
From first-time half marathoners and personal records, to age-group state record setters and funds raised for MiMS – the day was jam packed with things to celebrate.
A longstanding racing event with a deep local history, City of Lakes has been an anchor in the Twin Cities running community for 60 years. While the distance and location have shifted over time – originally starting as a full marathon and then transitioning to a 25k before settling in as the current half marathon – the race continues bringing together people who love running.
This community of running enthusiasts has been integral to the event’s longevity. While the runners themselves have much to be proud of, their accomplishments wouldn’t be possible without the dedicated crew of volunteers who share their time each year to manage everything from water stops and aid stations, to street sweeping, post-race nourishment and prize giveaways.
Equally invaluable this year were the countless friends, family and community members who came out strong outfitted with cowbells, “hurrahs” and homemade signs, giving many participants the extra boost they needed to push themselves through to the end.
As the finish zone by the bandshell swelled with people noshing on bananas and Great Harvest chocolate chip cookies to refuel, stories recounting the morning’s many successes were heard all around.
From start to finish, the culmination of achievements at the 42nd Jeff Winter City of Lakes Half Marathon was truly a team victory.
“All the trouble starts when people forget they’re human.”
– Oliver Sacks, A Leg to Stand On
In 2017, I moved to Minnesota – on occupied Dakhóta and Anishinaabe land. I moved to Minneapolis for love. An eleven-year love that had been ushered into existence by promises of forevers and tomorrows. Unable to see beyond our histories, we attempted what we thought was true. An eleven-year relationship that felt like a severing when it ended. Why do I begin here? I did not begin to run because of this. I ran to imagine a future self. I run to propel this vision into what I might gain. I began again. A part of this beginning was simply to run.
By all accounts, when I moved to Minneapolis from the homelands of the Cayuga Nation in NY, my life would look like it was falling apart. I had recently learned to walk again. A near death due to a car accident on July 4th of 2016. That summer of 2016, was a time I was looking forward to. I had just completed the first year of my MFA at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. As my car collided with an electrical pole, I remember thinking, “No, this isn’t right.” While there had been no water present during my accident, I had felt like I was weighted under a deep ocean. This feeling is still present from time to time: a strange curiosity.
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The helicopter that flew me to a hospital on Susquehanna land in Pennsylvania for surgery pushed the blades of grass up around me in a whirlwind. I remember finally passing out. I had been awake while trapped in my vehicle. I lost consciousness only after hearing the medic yell, “You are going to be okay.” It sounded like they were trying to convince themselves more than me of this future okay-ness – a hopeful prophecy.
Lighting was fluorescent and harsh and soft at the same time. I awoke after operations on my left femur and elbow. Metals inserted into my body are now a part of me. These new strangers were to hold together my broken and crushed bones. My skin torn. My skin sutured. I decided not to look at my face for the entirety of my recovery. I could feel the scabbing and that was all I wanted to recall. I diligently applied the creams offered by the nurses to these places where the blood and new skin clotted and formed small valleys and mountains. I avoided mirrors and reflective surfaces. My body had taken in so much that it seemed as if any more newness might be inconceivable if I was going to continue to move through this moment.
Every day in my Instagram feed there are ads that constantly insist on achieving glass skin. They remind me of my aging body, my scars. Of my wrinkles, and of time. Like many, I have, for more moments than I would like to admit, entertained these lying visions that promise a cocooning youth chamber. These promises of glowing skin that echo our own births back to ourselves in an unfamiliarity that is not confirmed by the real traumas of our bodily births. My body knows that the scars may fade but will never disappear. My body knows that wrinkles are markers of time lived. My body knows that my crow’s feet will never disappear – nor should they. They reveal that I laugh with all of me. I often do. My friends and I laugh all the time and their laughter is like sunlight breaking just before dawn. They do not know that I collect their laughs in my mind and they echo like an incredible chorus. It is a kind of beautiful choir that I can never access completely without them present.
When I was in the hospitals recovering, so many friends arrived. Friends who I even had never met. They brought time, conversation, books, touch, food and well-wishes. The nurses had to nudge people out who stayed past visiting hours and stop them from coming in. The nurses who laughed with me. Who held me when I cried. Who reminded me to sleep when my bed was covered in work to be done (the paperwork that is never-ending in a hospital). Who made sure my legs remained moisturized when I could not reach them. Who wrapped me in cloths and bandages. Who changed my sheets. Who replenished my water. Who emptied the reservoir to my catheter. Who made sure that people who I did not want to see were not allowed to visit. Who let me stay up after hours to watch a movie while I ate small cups of artificially flavored strawberry ice cream. Who helped me learn how to shave my legs and armpits and wash with one arm and leg. Who sampled the things I learned to cook in a mock-kitchen because I needed to learn to do so with my new body. They saw me out in the world after I was released from the hospital and every time I ran into a nurse they expressed incredible joy in my progress. They hugged me with the kind of care that seemed to come from many ancestors. All of my cells feeling this hug individually. Millions of embraces simultaneously.
I learned to walk again while completing my last year of graduate school and while teaching. I had slowly run a few times while in New York. It was really an amble. I moved to Minneapolis, MN. Then, I decided why don’t I keep running. I ran around the block I lived on. Then I ran a mile. I ran along Minnehaha Creek. I ran around lakes. I ran through the winter. I ran in rain, in snow, on ice, through dirt, on pavement, in mud, and on broken glass from last night’s parties. I ran to appointments, I ran to work, I ran on my lunch breaks, I ran to get groceries, and I ran with my dog. I ran alone. I was fearful I was too slow. Despite that I ran, I didn’t feel I was a runner. Much of this had to do with a pervasive toxic running culture that exists and upholds bodily hierarchies. Some of it had to do with my own thoughts of inadequacy that manifest because of a culture that wants us to feel irrevocably broken so that we can buy the next fix. A cycle that maintains itself on our endless comparisons and unending expectations.
Running for me is a spiritual and meditative practice. I return to myself when I run. I learn to understand what kinds of sensations my body can manifest and what this communicates. Because of certain kinds of pain, I learn that sometimes I need to slow down while other times I can befriend the pain and work with it. I learn to move through and beyond and with these thresholds. When I run in marathons and races I am not focused on speed – although this will soon change. It is exciting to know while running that I can finally think about time in a different capacity. My focus is less on just how to show up and get to a race -the logistics. My friend, Ann-Marie, heard I was going to bike to and from my first half-marathon – The City of Lakes Half Marathon. In her wisdom and good knowing, she insisted that she give me a ride to and from the race. At the end of that race, my friend Christina showed up to my home with sunflowers and ice cream. I joke that my friend, Acadia is my “race mom” as she has driven me to and from many races. I give her most of my race shirts. My friend Lizz has also driven me to a race. Ona, an incredible friend, taught me all about the many benefits of magnesium for my body after races. And, Heri and Bill sent me messages along the way. Tiger emojis and exclamations. My friends reassert what community care looks like in action.
Last year, I heard the first person to shout my name in a race. I had never heard my name cheered that way. I had once been one of the many strangers in a race. I look forward to one day having a family who will excitedly hold up a homemade sign for me after waking up too early to go with me to a race course. To this future family, when I run, I often imagine how grateful I will be that you are finally there. This said, it never gets old that if I show up to a start line, I automatically win every single time. This is not because I am the fastest runner. It is because many questioned whether or not I would walk again. I remember that I adapted to my wheelchair with ease. I would have run even if my life included a wheelchair permanently. I am not here to reinforce existing hierarchies. Legs are not inherently better than wheels. It was the rest of the world that seemed to label the thought of me needing wheels as a tragedy. However, now, I run with both feet on the ground.
So, how do we begin again? How do we imagine a future when all that we consider as a vital part of our identity to suddenly and abruptly fall away? I don’t necessarily claim to know the answers to these questions. What I can express is that running has allowed for me to meet myself again and to be there. To just be. Running has brought community in the form of teams like ReNew Earth Running and Mile in My Shoes. Running with purpose is an important part of how I run. ReNew Earth Running is a beautiful example of ways that athletes are coming together from many lands and territories to advocate for Land Back through fundraising for and honoring Indigenous land treaties and rights. Mile in My Shoes is an organization that supports those individuals who have been recently or formerly incarcerated through running mentorship opportunities. It has been an honor to allow my body to give back to these important community organizations. Running—like many forms of movement—can bring people together in powerful ways.
Running has allowed me to feel strong on days where I am weak. My weakness in turn has become synonymous with strength: an alchemy. While running I have listened to podcasts and audiobooks, and playlists of songs. Sometimes I have just listened to the sounds of the neighborhoods I run through. To trees and wind. To birds and squirrels. To tall grasses brushing against each other. I have laughed while running and have cried while running too. I have been angry while running. I have been too tired to run so I have stopped to walk or sit in the grass. I have slipped on ice while running. I have wondered why I am running. And yet, I run.
As I have left Minnesota for the next chapter of my life, I consider that for many it would appear like I moved to Minneapolis for a love that was lost completely. I do not see it this way. A certain love ended, yet, it was more loving to let it go. There have been immense and immeasurable gains. Through running and through the ability to continue to show up for myself and for my communities for the past five years, I redefined what love looks like. The redefinition includes how love should live in my life. I am forever bound to Minnesota for being the place where I learned to hold my humanness in the ways that can be most difficult and most joyful. Running allows me to hold all the complexities of my human body. In this strange embrace I am able to hear myself say, “I am sorry I abandoned you before. I am here now. Really, and as you already know in all of your wisdom, I never went away.”
Stevie Ada Klaark is an interdisciplinary artist, adjunct professor, and writer. She holds an MFA in Visual Art from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP). Their work appears in Paprika! (Yale University), Chicago Review, and Mn Artists (Walker Art Center). Klaark lives on unceded Anishinaabe lands in Michigan where she runs with her dog.
Nayelie Avalos is a photographer and creative director based in Minneapolis, MN. Her work has been featured at The Vault Gallery in St. Cloud in a solo exhibition Land of the Free: Some Restrictions Apply* and a group exhibition Impulsions. Avalos was in a show curated by KOBI called Impending. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota. Where she had her most recent exhibition, Heart of the Matter. In addition to her own work, Avalos works as a freelance photographer and started the Alas Collective.
This article is brought to you by Run Minnesota, the oldest and largest running organization in the state, with a proud history of supporting running since 1961.
Let’s come right out with it: Gabriella Rooker’s marathon progression should shock even the hobbyist of joggers. Since her debut at Grandma’s in 2021 to her most recent race at the California International Marathon (CIM), in Sacramento, Rooker has qualified for the Olympic Trials (twice) and improved upon her personal best by nearly 26 minutes: 2:54:57; 2:34:57; 2:29:44. What’s even more impressive is this explosive transformation occurred within an 18 month span, turning her from competitive recreational athlete to rubbing elbows with the elites.
Rooker, who goes by Gabi, seems as flabbergasted as everyone else by the progression. On a cold February morning, over coffee after Mill City Running’s popular Flapjack Friday group run, she hedges about her success, shrugging into thin air and wondering aloud if perhaps it was the discipline—or the “lots and lots of plyometrics”—of her early days in gymnastics that led to her late blooming marathon success. (Rooker is 35, which is the age most elites start slowing down or thinking about retirement.)
Upside down
As a child, she spent most of her days upside down, doing back handsprings or hanging from the monkey bars on the playground. She found an outlet at Roseville Gymnastics, which had (and still has) a parks and recreation program and competitive club team. Throughout grade school and into college, Rooker trained upwards of 20 hours per week, taking part in local and national competitions. “You have to obsess with it,” she says. “The gymnastics life was all consuming. I loved it, but I also knew I didn’t want to go professional.”
Early on, the big dream was competing for a Division I college, but the bar—pun intended—was high from the get-go. Recalling a time in fifth grade, she wanted to add some variety to her schedule, so she joined the track team, but when she lost a skill in gymnastics—two backflips in a row on the high beam—her coaches told her she had to pick track or gymnastics. “You set up your [career] trajectory by 10,” she says, and she still had her eye on Division I. She worked her way up through all 10 club levels, at times even being held back by her coaches so as not to progress too quickly.
In high school, after a few broken bones, dislocations and one surgery, she switched clubs and eventually took time off during her senior year, where she found herself at the track once again. It was there that she met Alex Rooker, her future husband, and competed in the 100, 200 and 400 meters. Two flirtations, and both stuck, but not before one last dash at the balance beam dream. The Division I college tours fell flat, so she pivoted to Division III, landing at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse, where she worked harder than ever, earning three individual national titles and three team national titles.
While there might not be a clear translation from gymnastics to running – “a bar routine couldn’t be more different than a marathon”— Rooker learned a lot of life lessons she carries with her to this day: “Determination and grit and problem solving and teamwork.” She also gained some lifelong friends. When asked if it was hard to walk away from it, she emphatically says no. “You know your trajectory for a while, and most people are ready to be done.”
Building Blocks
Back in the Twin Cities after college, Gabi and Alex enjoyed an active lifestyle, constantly cycling around the city and doing CrossFit two to three times per week. “Neither of us can sit still for very long,” Alex says. “We’ll put on a movie and within three minutes one of us will be foam rolling on the floor or stretching.” He tells me of a time around 2013 when he convinced Gabi to join him for a 5K run. “Around 4K, she was so upset with me. She was done, she wanted to walk home. She didn’t want to run anymore.”
Despite moments of resistance, running kept calling. In 2015 Rooker would more or less make her road racing debut at the Twin Cities 10 Mile. While finishing school to become a physician assistant, she wanted to find a personal challenge and a mental break from the intense course load. She finished in 1:10:59 (7:06/mile pace), not exactly the time of a casual runner, but rather the byproduct of a gifted athlete—of being someone who just can’t sit still.
She kept up the habit casually, but the running spark didn’t fully flame until she ran TC10 once again in 2018 (1:06:02; 6:37/mile pace), and shortly afterward found Mill City Running. She says, “I was at races and kept hearing people cheer, ‘Go, Mill City!’ and I was like, ‘I want to be on that team!’”
Around this time, Alex—whom Gabi calls “a researcher…he’s always reading the latest studies or physiology textbooks” — began coaching her. “It’s 90 percent positive,” she says, describing an incident they had recently where they had to rush one of their dogs to the emergency vet. She was in the middle of a lifting session when Alex called. “We have one car, so there wasn’t really an option. That’s where the husband/coach thing can get tricky.” But for the seemingly tricky dynamics, they’ve built a lot of trust together. Gabi is mostly happy to run the plan Alex cooks up, and they have that spousal intuition baked into the day-to-day, allowing for flexibility around Gabi’s seven days on, seven days off work schedule at the hospital. “Alex is really good at saying this is just icing on the cake,” she says. “No one cares if you blow up and run a terrible marathon. So, he’s good about keeping the perspective because I tend to get really regimented.”
The Ceiling
So, the burning question is: what is Gabi eating? Turns out, it’s miles. Lots and lots of miles. COVID restrictions were conducive to laying down a substantial base, and during her debut marathon build-up in 2021, she ran around 60 miles per week and hit 85 miles in the peak week of training. Going into 2022, in preparation for the Olympic Trials Qualifier (OTQ), she kept a consistent base with lots of weeks in the 80s and 90s and peaked with a 100 mile week. The needle just kept moving up. In preparation for CIM, Alex had her doing lots of doubles, lots of easy miles and even some twice-a-day speed workouts. (Yes, two speed workouts in one day). She peaked at 110 miles.
I lob out a few statistics: Dakotah Lindwurm won Grandma’s 2022 in 2:25:01. A 2:26:50 finish (Gabi’s stated goal for Grandma’s on June 17th) would put Rooker as the 26th fastest American woman in the marathon, just behind Molly Huddle and Aliphine Tuliamuk, sponsored athletes who, in the running world, are household names. “I feel really mixed about it,” Rooker says. “On one hand, I don’t want to compare myself to other people, and also that gulf, when times do get tighter, four minutes is a fair amount when it’s 2:29-2:25—but things are progressing well, and I don’t think I’ve found my ceiling, and I do feel like I’m getting stronger and faster, and so we keep moving the needle, and as long as mental health stays good, and as long as it’s not too much pressure.”
Rooker tends to respond to questions with the calculated practice of a diplomat—quick, sharp, to the point. It’s not that she’s uncomfortable talking about herself—she’s not squirming in her chair or wincing when asked to dive deeper into a question, but neither is she bearing all her secrets. When pressed for details about her track workouts or lifting routine, she paints in broad strokes: “RDLs (Romanian Deadlift), squats,” and “long runs, easy days easy.” That is, it’s not that she wouldn’t lay bare her training if pressed—I’m sure she would—but she doesn’t seem to see the point. The greater story, to both her and Alex, is the consistent miles.
Alex says, “If there is anything that underpins Gabi’s story, it’s the dedication day in and day out, making those smalls runs matter that don’t seem like they matter—that has been the difference maker.” That, he says, and the accumulation of miles. “That slow build has brought her to where she is.”
Photo Courtesy of Amy Roberts
Team
A few photographs kept getting passed around online post-Grandma’s 2022 and post-CIM. Both photos show Rooker cheering for fellow teammates and peers – after she herself crosses the finish line. If you’ve ever run a marathon, you know that the ache of wanting to be done can last for miles, sometimes an entire hour. So, to turn right around rather than bum rush the banana stand only speaks to Rooker’s dignity and belief in the group as something of great consequence. “The front supports the back, and the back supports the front,” so goes the Mill City Running race team adage, and Rooker seems to both embody that ideal and exude it, not with great effort or strain, but by instinct. What would a gymnast be, after all, without the sideline hosannas of her teammates?
“Joining up with Mill City was a sea change,” Alex says. “I think we owe a lot of her running success to them and the community they’ve built.” It was at one of Mill City’s group runs that she met Kimberly Horner, who became a fast friend and training partner. Horner told me Gabi “has this quiet tenacity and strength in training that both builds and inspires confidence. On the track together, it can be easy to miss how hard she is working. She is unassuming as she cheers me through the end of a rep and lines up for her next one.” Horner and Rooker both qualified for the Olympic Trials together for the first time at Grandma’s 2022. Alex now coaches them both, and after a few years of mismatched training schedules, they’re now able to link up more often.
Any marathoner knows how difficult training can be, how taxing it can be on the mind, how gutting it can feel to eschew happy hours and late night hangouts in the name of the next day’s long run or workout. But Rooker doesn’t seem bothered by it. She thrives on calculation, or “regimentation,” a word that keeps coming up in both my talks with her and with Alex. Rooker says, “My mom has always called me ‘determined’ and ‘driven.’ I think those are her loving, maternal way of saying I can be quite stubborn. I do enjoy fully immersing myself in a task and sticking with it until it’s completed.”
Alexi Pappas, in her memoir Bravey, says this, “Sometimes, people will have convinced themselves that they’re committed, but in reality they’re only committed just enough to check the box ‘tried to pursue dreams’ before retreating to the safety of the backup plan…Not everyone likes it when they’re confronted with the reality of what they’ll need to do if they’re serious about their dreams. Because the truth is, most people are really just interested.”
Rooker, who was already putting in 90-mile weeks in preparation for Grandma’s back in February, seems to be positioning herself diametrically to merely “interested.” She’s committed, focused, perhaps regimented, perhaps “a little boring” (her words—work, walk the dogs, run, repeat), but also quite brave, convicted, full of what Eliud Kipchoge calls “Vitamin N”—the courage to say no, to remain disciplined and focused and until the task is complete, or until a new kind of freedom—one with wings in this case—is found.
Contributors
Josh Cook is a writer, editor, and occasional creative writing teacher. He earned his MFA in fiction from Pacific University, and his writing has appeared in the Washington Post, the Star Tribune, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among many other publications. He writes a weekly newsletter at https://joshcook.substack.com/.
Isaiah Rustad is a photographer based in the Twin Cities. His work revolves around sports, live events, and anything else involving action. Running photography is a new passion of Isaiah’s. In the past year he’s photographed for Mill City Running, TC Running Company, Providence Academy Track and Field, and more. His portfolio of work can be found at isaiahrustad.com/running.
and sealed his revenge after being ripped off the Olympic team at the last minute
01: Finding Fritz
Fritz Carlson won the 1913 Boston Marathon, but his long-distance running legacy disappeared in the late 1930s, before Leonard “Buddy” Edelen (future world-record holder in the marathon) graduated as a Golden Gophers and took to the 26.2.
Just before leaving for Boston, I stopped by the Crystal Lake Cemetery in North Minneapolis. I had prepared for my first Boston Marathon in every way possible. I prepared physically, churning through the miles with my teammates. I had prepared mentally, visualizing the Newton hills each time I ran up and down 50th Street over I-35W.
I felt … almost ready. I had come to the cemetery as my last training activity for which I didn’t need running shoes or fancy gels.
I wheeled my five-month-old in a stroller down the quiet blacktop road through the cemetery as a few crows called overhead. We came to pay respects to another soul who had run Boston after training through the deep winter. One hundred and ten years ago, he returned from the race as the only Minnesotan to become the Boston Marathon Champion.
My baby hummed as I rolled the stroller by the spruce trees near the Spanish-American War Memorial. I was following a hand-written note from the cemetery staff member, veering us over to an area of brown grass. I thought maybe there would be a tall grave with a trophy on it, or a small etching of a runner. But there were only ground-level headstones in the clearing. After a few minutes of meandering, I found the grave, half-covered in dirt and weeds. It marks the final resting place of Ebba Carlson and her husband, the Mill City marathoner, Fritz Gustave Carlson.
As I brushed away the winter debris and pushed dirt from the etched names, I questioned aloud to my infant how such a huge athletic achievement could have been so forgotten in Minnesotan sports chronicles. Fritz Carlson’s name seems to have vanished from the record books after winning the great race.
I feel a little hokey writing this down, but the moment near his grave provided a bit of reflection. I’m not an elite (or sub-elite) runner. I spent so much time training for a race, pushing my body to the limit, just to meet an arbitrary goal. And for what? I was sure to finish in some-thousandth place and an hour or so behind the winner.
Here was the resting place of an athlete who trained on the same Minneapolis streets for months. He succeeded in beating the best in the nation. And he was still relegated to the dustbin of North Star State factoids.
A crow cawed from his perch on a dead ash tree behind us. I began talking to my baby, saying that I thought my toils were connected to Carlson’s in a strain of common humanity separated only by time. We were runners seeking a goal: to run the best race we could at Boston.
02: ‘Doc’ Cooke and His Gym
L.J. Cooke tosses a football across Northrup Field. Before Cooke became the first athletic director for the University of Minnesota, he started “Cooke’s Gymnasium” with his brother. Long-distance runner Fritz Carlson trained there and then represented Cooke’s Gym at the
1913 Boston Marathon. (Photo from the University of Minnesota Archives)
A Boston winner doesn’t just appear—even in the first marathon boom of the early 1900s. In those early years, the only way to finish a marathon was to run with others who had knowledge. Competitors didn’t just train for a 2 and 1/2 hour race—they had to learn how to train.
The mistakes and successes were passed on from one runner to another. And Fritz Carlson had two key people whose instruction gave him the physical and mental prep he needed.
The first key person was Louis “Doc” Cooke, an academic who studied health and promoted athletic competition, including running. He moved to Minnesota and started a gym with his brother, E.R. Cooke, in the Kasota Building on 4th and Hennepin.
The gym became a favorite for athletes in the city. Boxers set up sparring matches and fights, gymnasts prepared for the circus events, and business managers did pushups after hard days of typing. Runners met there too, as they set off for “road work.”
Doc Cooke, meanwhile, got a position at the University of Minnesota as the first athletic director. Together with his brother, Doc promoted the sport of running through Cooke’s Gym. And it was at an early footrace that the third-place finisher, Fritz, caught his attention.
Carlson had come to Minnesota from Sweden. Like many immigrants from Scandinavia, he spoke little English and came with little coin. The Swede-heavy population in Minneapolis encouraged him, though, and he was connected to a job at the Backus-Brooks sawmill near the river on the North side.
For long hours through the winter and summer, Carlson stacked the fresh pine boards that came off the sawmill. Perhaps motivated by stories of the 1908 Olympic Marathon, he began running.
Carlson ran the “Minneapolis Daily News 10-Mile” race May 14, 1910. Though he was beaten by two young local fleetfoots, Doc Cooke saw promise in his strong finish. So did a man who would become the second key influence in his life: local running coach Thomas John Hicks.
03: Minnesota’s Olympic Marathon Champion
Tom Hicks runs through dust and heat, fighting his body’s desire to blackout. He won at the strangest Olympic Marathon of all time: the 1904 St. Louis race, in which contestants were chased by dogs and organizers worked to keep runners from drinking water, and a prankster took a car ride for several miles before pretending to be the early finisher. (Photo from the Missouri Historical Society)
Hicks knew distance running better than anyone else in the city.
He had raced three Boston Marathons before moving to Minneapolis at the behest of his employer, Northwest Telephone Exchange Co. Once settled on Penn Avenue, he helped start the distance-running craze in Minneapolis and St. Paul by leading YMCA group runs. He moved for a short time back to his old home near Cambridge, Massachusetts, to train for the 1904 Boston Marathon, where he finished second and was invited to run at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis.
In a grueling, cruel, unregulated and poorly managed Olympic race on a humid 90-degree day, Hicks stayed upright. His “helpers” kicked up dust from their automobile as they rode alongside him shouting unsolicited and ridiculous advice. They refused to give him the liquids or food he prepared and forced him to drink brandy, raw eggs and then strychnine (a key ingredient in rat poison). He very nearly died, but finished before the other athletes, some of whom had been chased by dogs or had fallen on the side of the road, bleeding internally.
With hollow eyes, Hicks accepted a large trophy and the title of Olympic Marathon Champion.
Thomas Hicks (center) rests in a delirious post-race haze. He was dazed, dehydrated, and drugged by the time he finished first in the 1904 Olympic Marathon. Just a few months prior, he had been living in Minneapolis. He went east before running the 1904 Boston Marathon (he finished 2nd). He would return to the City of Lakes and grow the athletic sport in the state. (Photo from the Missouri Historical Society)
04: Mill City Marathoners
An immigrant from the Mill City, Fritz Carlson chased down the best runners in the country to become the first ever winner from the “West.” And it appears he did so with a smile. (Photo from the Boston Globe archives).
A few years later, Hicks started coaching Carlson and a few other runners at Cooke’s gym. The crew got faster. They also gleaned experience from someone who had seen dozens of methods for racing 20+ miles in various conditions.
Hicks deemed that Carlson was the the best of his proteges. In 1912, the two traveled to Boston for the big race, which was also serving as the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.
The conditions were wet and muddy. The early pace was quick and never relented. Mike Ryan of New York, who had run the race for several years, won in a course-record time of 2:21:18. Carlson finished fifth and earned a spot on the 1912 Olympic Marathon team headed to Stockholm, Sweden.
Carlson decided to travel to Stockholm right away. His family lived there and could support his full-time training schedule. Plus, he could run on the course and have the same advantage as Sigfrid Jacobsson and other runners competing for Sweden.
As the day of the race approached in July, competitive athletes, lumberyard workers, and Scandinavians throughout the state were looking forward to hearing how Carlson would finish. They had seen his intensity when he won local competitions and knew he had trained with Hicks. They felt that he was carrying not only the banner for the United States, but also for the North Star State.
They would be disappointed.
Carlson wasn’t even on the track with the competitors at the start of the race. He had to watch from the grandstands.
Just before the race in Stockholm (in a foreshadow of all the Minnesota sports upsets to come in the future) the president of the AAU told Carlson he wouldn’t run due to a registration error. Despite his months of preparation, despite his unmatched knowledge of the course in his hometown, despite the local crowds that were anticipating his scorching pace, despite his rejection of the Swedish team and his decision to carry the colors of the Red White and Blue, and despite pleas from the U.S. coach, Carlson was cut from the team.
That team took off into the blazing sun and oppressive heat of July 14 afternoon and most withered over the full 26.2-mile distance. British-born South African Ken McArthur, perhaps acclimated to the heat, won in an Olympic-record time of 2:36:55.
Later, Carlson laced his shoes, donned his singlet, and to the confused looks of people traveling the road, he ran the course as fast as he could. He finished the distance without the cheers from boisterous crowds and clicked his stopwatch as he crossed the 26.2-mile mark. After gulping water and clearing the sweat from his brow, he checked the time.
He had run the course faster than McArthur.
Alone and dejected, Carlson vowed to show the world what he already knew: He could be a champion.
05: Boston Marathon 1913
The 1913 Boston Marathon had 84 runners registered, many of them the elite of the day. The press named several favorites: William H. Allan, who set a 19-mile record; Edward Fabre, who had trained all winter in snowshoes; and Andrew Sockalexis, an indigenous runner who was 2nd in 1912 and 4th at the Olympics.
Twenty-nine-year-old Carlson from far-off Minneapolis wasn’t figured to be a major contender for three main reasons.
First, the 16 editions of the race up to 1913 had winners that hailed from either New York, Eastern Canada, or the Boston area. Everyone knew the fastest runners at Boston only came from those three meccas of footracing.
Second, the average age of the winner was 22. A runner nearing 30 couldn’t possibly compete.
Third, Carlson had been rejected from the U.S. Olympic team just 10 months earlier. The East Coast journalists didn’t know why he wasn’t a part of the team at Stockholm, but it suggested the Swede either wasn’t American enough, or he just couldn’t race with the best.
The true story of Carlson’s dashed Olympic dreams remained obscured to the press. And it fueled him to surprise the other runners on April 19.
Until 1923, the Boston Marathon course was somewhere between 24.5 and 25 miles long. Carlson set a record time from the start to Coolridge Corner, then slowed down after Hicks suggested it wasn’t worth trying to break the full course record in the heat of the day. (Image from the Boston Post archives)
At the start line in Ashland, the runners had advanced from their hotels after being approved to run by the volunteer doctors. Many felt marathoning was still a dangerous undertaking, and the death of a Portuguese runner at the Stockholm Olympic Marathon furthered the concern.
B.A.A. official George Brown fired a pistol, and the racers moved out of Ashland on the dirt road. Some began to dart forward in a full sprint. After a short time, Harry Smith, a 10-mile champion who was known to jet forward in races, stretched out the pack.
Carlson eased his way into the race, and likely went unnoticed by the press car. He wore his Cooke’s Gym singlet, designed with a slash from his right shoulder to his left hip. His knee-high white shorts flicked back and forth. His white rolled-up socks picked up flecks of mud, and small black shoes (with a slight heel) slapped repeatedly on the road.
He ran with his training partner and friend, John Karlsen. The press often mixed them up, though Karlsen was older, taller, and bulkier. Karlsen also spoke clear English, and occasionally translated for Carlson. The two of them kept with a large pack of runners through the first two miles. Smith kept pushing the pace, hoping the break the course record, as Mike Ryan did the previous year.
By South Framingham, the pack strung out along the road and the two runners from Cooke’s Gym had lost sight of the front group. They didn’t panic, but kept a consistent pace, holding back while reminding each other of the hills that started after mile 16.
Nearing Wellesley, they could hear screaming in the distance, coming from up the road through the surrounding pine forest. As they got closer, they could see the source of the cacophony: Wellesley College co-eds were all on the side of the road, waving and yelling “Keep trotting, boys!” and “That footwork is looking swift, you zephyrs!”
< Every paper across the United States proclaimed the city of Minneapolis as the athletic hub of the West after Fritz Carlson beat out Andrew Sockalexis and Harry Smith and 60 others. (Boston American newspaper clipping from the American Swedish Institute collection)
John Karlsen could no longer keep pace and urged Fritz Carlson to keep on plodding. He did, and at mile 15, near Hotel Auburndale in Woodland Park, saw a familiar face. Thomas John Hicks, his coach, pulled up on a bicycle and gave him water. He urged Carlson to keep steady and ease down the next hill. The first of the four Newton hills would be next, and both Carlson and Hicks knew there was no way Smith could maintain his pace on the uphill trudge.
Carlson had been moving up in the pack ever since the halfway mark. From 11th place, he had picked off runners, occasionally turning to stare at them before bursting past. Through the hills, he captured two more. He was in second after cresting a hill that he described later (in a story by a local paper) as “heartbreaking” for the competition.
It was the first mention of a “heartbreak” hill.
On the course, with plenty of energy in reserve, Carlson felt elated to have worked his way to second place through the hills. He careened down the slope toward the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. Carlson had noticed Smith running on the grass to ease the pain in his feet. He could sense that Smith wouldn’t fight, so he sped up. The two ran side by side for just a short time, the Carlson went on ahead.
By Coolridge Corner, Carlson was on a course-record pace. But the sun had come out, and the heat and humidity were intensifying. He and Hicks had a short back and forth. Should Carlson go for the course record? Did he have a shot?
Perhaps Hicks was influenced by his horrifying St. Louis race nine years prior. Perhaps he thought the record was out of reach. He warned Carlson against pushing too hard. He had the win in his grasp—he just had to hang on so another runner didn’t pick him off as well.
Fritz Carlson won a bronze statue and a silver punch bowl in his 1913 Boston win. He spoke to the press afterward, denouncing the AAU for not allowing him to compete in the 1912 Olympics. (Minneapolis Journal clipping from the University of Minnesota archives)
And another runner was gunning for him: Alex Sockalexis too had been patient. While the other runners were dropping out or slowing down, he was speeding up. And he had passed Smith already. He tried pushing harder to catch up, but Carlson had made the gap too large.
Fritz caught the sight of the finish line as he could see the B.A.A. clubhouse building. The press cars and the bikes were forced off the road so the hundreds of people on the street could see Carlson sprint past. They let out a deafening roar. Carlson sprinted in what was the longest 400-meter stretch of his life, he would later say.
He broke the tape and felt as though he would crumple to the sidewalk as the officials and press cheered around him.
06: Following Fritz’s lead
After visiting Fritz Carlson’s grave, I took my newborn with me to the American Swedish Institute, where one of us napped and the other ate a gjetost smörgåsar on Danish rye at the museum’s cafe.
Later, we rolled through the rooms in the historic mansion to see one of Carlson’s trophies: a silver punchbowl in Art Nouveau style with an engraving that reads “17th Annual American Marathon Run—First Prize.”
The visit to the museum and the cemetery provided that last dose of motivation for my race. A week later, as I advanced to the start line of the Boston Marathon in Hopkington, Massachusetts, every part of me was ready to run.
On that day, I took Carlson’s example to heart, keeping my miles cool on the downhill start. I kept energy in reserve, and after moving strong up Heartbreak, I came to the place Carlson took the lead. I kicked into a different gear and embraced the crowds on Commonwealth Avenue. I saw my family just before the last big turn and finished with my hands raised.
“Carlson has done as much as any athlete Minneapolis ever had to give Minneaplis a place of more or less prominence on the athletic map of the United States and richly deserves some worthy recognition.”
—George Rhame of the Minneapolis Tribune, April 1913
The actual race only took three hours of my day, but I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, as will many who have run it. And I felt proud, not just to finish, but to be part of a long line of people who had come from the Land of Lakes to the East Coast, looking to better themselves on a historic marathon course.
And now, when I’m running tempo miles along the shores of Bde Maka Ska or near the Mississippi River in North Minneapolis, I often think about that century-old history our city has with distance running. I find comfort in knowing Carlson plodded through his workouts in the same locations, his primitive flat shoes falling quiet on the gravel paths.
And when I’m crabby about running in the early morning on dark, cold, rainy “spring” mornings, I glean a smidgen of motivation imagining coach Tom Hicks biking beside a crew of runners wearing “Cooke’s Gym” singlets.
I picture them coming toward me, moving with a quick gait, Carlson looking up from the group with a dart of the eyes, a smile, and a soft “Hallå” before disappearing in the mist.
Special Thanks To
The American Swedish Institute, which provided some of the pictures for this article, and the Boston Marathon Museum, for their kind responses.
