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SRRC Race Reports
Twin Cities Marathon, Minneapolis, MN* —Sunday, October 1, 2006
by
Phil Holt
"A dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets. But on the 12th floor of the Acme building, one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions . . . Guy Noir, Private Eye." It's a long way from Piscacatawamaquoddymoggin, ME to St. Paul, MN, but it's only about 26 miles from the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis if you follow the meandering clues across town.
What draws runners from everywhere to Minnesota to run the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis? Is it the beautiful course? Maybe it's the probability of cool weather so early in the fall. The generally flat terrain? It could be part of a 50 States marathon goal (of course). Maybe the opportunity to experience a cultural snapshot at the Mall of America? Inspired by the greatest living but imaginary radio detective, I deduced that running the race on Oct. 1, 2006 might unlock the mystery.
A distant sound drew me out of sleep like I was washing ashore on a stony beach of consciousness except that my head was on a pillow and the blankets felt really good. "Where am I?" I wondered, searching in the darkened room for the source of the disturbance in the blackness made less inky by the dull glow of a clock radio. "What time is it?" It was o'dark-thirty, and the alarm was insistent. "Do you want to miss your flight?" I asked myself. It had been a short night, but I had to pull myself together and make the 6:10 a.m. flight to Minneapolis.
What airport amenities are available at 5:00 in the morning? Well, none, actually. In the half-light of some of the concessions, a few shadowy figures put coffee filters in the urns and prepared for the onslaught that would follow after my flight was long gone. We were on the ground in Minneapolis before 7:30 a.m. local time. "Where's the baggage claim?" I turned toward the source of the question—the young man next to me who'd been fiddling with his cell phone for the last 20 minutes. "Uh, I figured I'd follow the signs," I replied. "Okay, good. Then I'll follow you," he responded. Folks here seem pretty friendly, I noted to myself.
Real estate must have been cheap at the site of Lindbergh Field because the airport spreads out like the land cost a penny an acre, and a nearly endless series of moving sidewalks and tramways rumble between the gates and the rental car lot. I handed my rental agreement to the guard at the Hertz exit. "You going four-wheeling?" he asked, looking up past the giant knobby tires of the Jeep with which Hertz had surprised me as a complimentary upgrade. "Are there any good places for that in downtown St. Paul?" I answered down from my monster-truck perch. I wasn't sure that investigating the answer to that question would be part of this trip.
Many marathon courses are laid out as a loop with the start and finish in the same vicinity. Twin Cities is a point-to-point race starting in downtown Minneapolis and finishing at the state capital in St. Paul. I had a ride back from the finish, but how would I get to the start? "Does the light rail run early on Sunday mornings?" I asked the clerk at the front desk. She smiled and responded, "Oh, ya. It runs all night." Everything was set. I would investigate further in the morning.
The weather on race morning was beautiful—high 40's and skies as clear and blue as a freshly waxed Packard. "Is it always this nice?" I asked the runner next to me. "Oh, ya", she said. "Sometimes it's a bit cooler, though." I was still a little concerned about the sun. Even on a cool day in Minnesota, the sun can broil runners like cheap cuts of meat at a smoky mid-western barbeque joint causing them to fold up near the end of the race like polyester suits on a steam press. Pulp novel similes kept dancing in my head as the race started.
The first 5K of the course takes runners out of downtown Minneapolis into western suburbs and through city parks. I wondered to myself, "Does Minnesota really have 10,000 lakes?" I found out that Minneapolis has several, and we ran along beautifully shaded avenues past almost all of them during the first half of the race. By the 10K mark, we had threaded among the shores of Cedar Lake, Lake of the Isles, and Lake Calhoun.
After a long stretch around Lake Harriet, we trekked along the Minnehaha Parkway toward the Mississippi River. About half way to the river, the course plays a little joke and dekes abruptly to the south for a picturesque loop around Lake Nokomis and back up toward Lake Hiawatha. After that, we were back for more of the Minnehaha to River Road, where we would run within sight of the river for the next five miles or so.
Some of the avenues the course follows during the first half of the race get narrow causing runners to jostle occasionally like hasty commuters in a Japanese subway station. Adding to the energy were some of the most consistent crowds I'd ever seen along a marathon course. People lined the roads waving signs, cheering, clapping, ringing bells, and shouting optimistic words of encouragement. "Where did all these people come from," I wondered. I've learned, however, to take "You're almost there" with a grain of salt when I hear it at mile 11.
Up to this point, the race had been going very well. I was maintaining a comfortable and consistent pace. "What could go wrong?" Lots of things, but the important part of any endurance event is focusing on what's going right and taking advantage of it, so I kept up the pace. We crossed the Mississippi into St. Paul and approached the long gradual hill that would lead us through the 20-mile wall to the crest after which the rest of the course would be slightly downhill. Churning up Summit Ave. like a cog train climbing a mountain—wait . . . that would be a different race—I could feel that this was going to be a good day.
To my right, the first fall colors dappled the wooded banks of the Mississippi. Ahead, the road sloped gradually upward mile 21, hugging the river like a barnacle on the bottom of a tramp steamer sneaking into a foggy port. Below me, my feet began to carry my weary body toward the finish. I could tell that I was along for the ride now, like a mug taking a trunk trip to a cement-shoe party, except that this party would be the finish area at the state capital, and my feet were feeling as light as feathers.
The finish comes into view with about a quarter mile to go—a straight pistol shot down the wide boulevard to the colorful arch where the timing mat sits whistling like a nervous gumshoe in a dark alley except it was almost noon and this was a nice neighborhood. I gave that last stretch everything I had. "How can something this difficult feel this good," I wondered. Another one of those persistent questions, I guess. "Is the Twin Cities Marathon worth running?" Absolutely, and highly recommended. It offers an excellent course, Swiss-watch organization, and enthusiastic crowd support—all ingredients that make for a wonderful marathon experience.
On the return flight, my seatmate explained with a passionate intensity that the earth is in fact about 6,000 years old. I looked out the window as the wing of the plane dipped over the soft peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I thought of the 12th floor of the Acme building, where one man is still trying to find the answers to life's persistent questions . . . . I've run through downtown St. Paul, but just where is the Acme building?
October 2006
*With apologies to Garrison Keillor
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